China's rise shifts balance of power in Asia

Michael Richardson, The Straits Times, Asia News Network, Singapore

As China's growing power and influence permeate Asia and the Pacific, countries in the region are recalibrating their relations with Beijing to acknowledge its status and defuse potential conflict.

These adjustments signal to both the United States and its ally, Japan, that the old strategic and economic balance in which they were the dominant players is shifting to include China as an increasingly important pole.

The most recent sign of this shift was the three-day visit of Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to China last week. She chose to go to Beijing on her first state visit since she was re-elected in May.

The hastily arranged visit follows tension between the Philippines and its longstanding ally, the U.S., over Arroyo's decision to withdraw Philippine troops from Iraq and not replace them after insurgents captured a Filipino truck driver and threatened to kill him unless the soldiers were removed.

Washington criticized the move, saying it would encourage terrorism and endanger the position of the U.S. and other countries remaining in Iraq.

Arroyo returned to Manila last Friday with a swag of agreements from China to expand trade and tourism, explore prospects for bilateral military cooperation, and provide a US$400 million (S$686 million) railway development loan.

Beijing also signed deals to cooperate with Manila in handling cases of illegal fishing in the South China Sea, where the two countries have overlapping territorial claims. They also agreed to a joint seismic survey of the oil and gas potential in the area.

The aim of the Philippines and China, said Arroyo's communications director Silvestre Afable, is to transform the South China Sea "from an area of conflict to an area of cooperation".

Amid simmering tension between Beijing and Taipei, two trends worry an increasing number of Asia-Pacific governments. One is the growth of independence sentiment in Taiwan, which Beijing insists is a province of China.

The other is the belief of many Taiwanese that China would not use force to prevent independence and the expectation of Taiwanese leaders that even if China did, the U.S. would intervene militarily to protect democracy on the island.

Taiwan's economy is becoming increasingly integrated with, and dependent on, China. But politically, they are moving apart. Recent visitors from Southeast Asia to Taiwan, including Singapore's then deputy prime minister Lee Hsien Loong, have noted that there is a stronger Taiwanese identity emerging. More people are speaking the Taiwanese dialect and many think of themselves as Taiwanese, not Chinese.

The governing Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) of President Chen Shui-bian plays on this aspiration for sovereignty and statehood. He said last Friday that the island's official name, Republic of China, is confusing and that he wants to call it Taiwan during trips abroad -- a remark that Beijing might interpret as a new step towards formal independence.

DPP leaders portray themselves as crusaders for national dignity and insist that Taiwan, after 55 years of separate rule, is already independent of China. Reacting to this political groundswell, the younger generation of lawmakers in Taiwan's opposition Kuomintang (KMT) said last week that they had founded a new party faction and wanted the KMT to adopt a more pro- independence stance to prevent the party from being marginalised.

Singapore and several other regional countries have recently tried to convince the Taiwanese of the realities of their international position. On Aug. 22, in his first National Day Rally speech since becoming Prime Minister, Lee said bluntly that a move by Taiwan towards independence was neither in Singapore's nor the region's interests because it would shatter hopes for China's peaceful emergence and for the region to prosper through trade, investment and tourism.

As their trade, investment, security and other ties with China intensify, many Asia-Pacific nations are adjusting their relations with Beijing and making it clear to Taiwan that its interests must be subordinate.

China delayed talks on a free trade agreement after Lee took official leave of absence and made what he said was a private visit to Taiwan in July. Not long afterwards, Malaysia said all its ministers had been told not to visit Taiwan because it could offend the Chinese government. Last week, New Zealand confirmed that it had vetoed a visit by a senior Taiwan government minister, citing sensitivity as Wellington prepares for free trade talks with China, a key trading partner for New Zealand.

Australia, one of America's closest Asia-Pacific allies along with Japan, warned Taiwan last month that it could not count on support if it provoked China. The warning came from Australia's Foreign Minister Alexander Downer as he spoke in Beijing of Australia's hope to develop a "strategic partnership" with China and negotiate a bilateral free trade deal with the world's sixth- largest economy.

China recently surpassed the U.S. to become Australia's second-biggest export market after Japan. It has also become a keen buyer of Australian minerals, energy and farm products.

Downer even suggested in Beijing that Australia's alliance with the U.S. might not be invoked if U.S. forces became embroiled with China in a conflict over Taiwan, although he later backed away from this position, saying it was a hypothetical situation.

The U.S. itself is preoccupied with Iraq and counter- terrorism, and locked into increasing interdependence with China. America, too, wants to prevent miscalculation by Taiwanese nationalists.

President George W. Bush began his tenure by warning China that the U.S. would do "whatever it took" to defend Taiwan from any Chinese aggression. But by last December, he had shifted position, saying that America opposed attempts by Taiwan to change the status quo.

The cumulative pressure may now be starting to register in Taipei. Last week, it canceled a military exercise planned for Thursday in what it said was a show of goodwill towards China.

The writer, a former Asia editor of the International Herald Tribune, is a visiting senior research fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore. The views expressed here are his own.