Clinton, Kim and Jian in summit-related diplomacy
By Harvey Stockwin
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This is the second of two articles examining the diplomatic moves of leaders before and after the recent APEC meeting in Bogor. ---------------------------------------------------------------
SINGAPORE (JP): The most energetic diplomatic traveler before and after APEC was the Chinese leader Jiang Zemin. President Jiang visited Malaysia and Singapore on his way to Indonesia. After paying a formal visit to Indonesia after the forum, he then went on to become the first General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party to ever visit Vietnam.
Right here in Singapore one reason behind this extensive diplomatic tour is immediately obvious.
"I do so hope Deng Xiaoping lives to see Hong Kong's return to the motherland" one Singaporean Chinese banker asserts, as we discuss the colony's future. It is easy to hear other comments sympathetic to China's point of view.
Businessmen I have met are all surprised when I express some skepticism about China's investment prospects. Singapore's longtime leader, now Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew has switched, over the last decade or so, to espousing a very positive upbeat view of China.
Needless to say, the Singapore media dutifully follows suit. So Singaporeans read and hear the positive about China and relatively little that is negative.
Once, not so long ago, it was emphatically the other way around. With good reason China was viewed with suspicion and concern. Twenty to thirty years ago, Lee Kuan Yew would have detained without trial anyone speaking about Singapore and China in the way that he often does now.
This switch has some interesting implications both for Singapore's domestic politics and for the way in which the city- state may be regarded in the region -- which I will write about on a future occasion.
For now, the changed atmosphere, the regional reversal of perceptions about China, explains why the first leg of Jiang's tour was easy and unremarkable.
The sharp contrast was with the visit undertaken by Deng Xiaoping to Southeast Asia a little over fifteen years ago. Then Southeast Asia was still worried about China-inspired and assisted communist insurgencies. China had not yet started off down the capitalist road. Deng did not go to Indonesia because ties had yet to be normalized after the events of 1965.
Then, too, another worry was the extent to which China would insist upon Overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia remaining Chinese citizens. Now everyone seems more concerned to trade with and invest in China's booming economy.
So Jiang Zemin, who was nonetheless careful not to say anything controversial, had an easy time of it in Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Jakarta, Bogor and Bali. He wore his Indonesian- designed batik shirt with aplomb, and smiled at all the right moments.
Vietnam was a different story. There are four territorial disputes between the two communist neighbors, all unresolved except by force of arms. There are the Paracel Islands, taken by China from South Vietnamese control over twenty years ago but still claimed by Hanoi.
There are disputes over their land border which extends into the Gulf of Tonkin.
There are disputes over what Hanoi regards as its territorial waters and continental shelf.
Finally there are their rival claims and possessions of some of the Spratly Islands which are also occupied or claimed by Taiwan, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei.
Much press reporting made it appear that the Spratly islands are the only source of Sino-Vietnamese tension. As this brief summary clearly indicates, it is much more complicated than that.
The only thing that Vietnam and China have in common --- apart from a history of several thousand years of fairly frequent discord --- is that they are both governed by communist parties who desperately seek to stay in power, even as they carry out economic reforms which in the long term may make staying in power impossible.
Perhaps this was the motive which brought Jiang together with his Vietnamese counterparts. There was never any question of solving the disputes. There was never any chance that Vietnam would meekly accept the edicts of the Middle Kingdom. The only hope was that the visit could send the right atmospherics which in turn might make some diplomatic solutions possible in the long run.
One photograph said it all. Chinese communist party General Secretary Jiang Zemin seemed to be saying "Ah well, I suppose I have to do this", as he tentatively hugged Vietnamese communist leader Du Muoi.
Vietnamese party General Secretary Du Muoi seemed to be murmuring to himself "the things I do for Vietnam " as he somewhat stiffly wrapped his arms around Jiang Zemin.
The joint promise to set up a joint committee to study the Spratly dispute, and the promise to work for a peaceful resolution of all their land and sea territorial disputes, is strictly subordinate to the atmospherics of mutual attempted tolerance.
The hope must be that Jiang Zemin recognized neither he nor his successors would get a cordial reception in future in Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia if these disputes are settled by force. This is especially true now that Vietnam has been accepted as the seventh member of ASEAN.
But the strained striving after better atmospherics also suggested that Vietnam recognizes that it cannot afford to endlessly fight old enemies.