The great reverse

The great reverse
Both Southeast Asia and the U.S. have to adjust to China's rising
star

Marvin Ott
Yale Center for the Study of Globalization
Washington

"Let him who tied the bell on the tiger take it off -- whoever
started the trouble should end it." -- That is how China's
ambassador to Singapore recently asked his host country to repair
the ties damaged by a Singapore leader's visit to Taiwan.

Although Singapore has maintained unofficial ties with Taiwan
since it normalized relations with Beijing in 1990, the Chinese
ambassador said he was "shocked, disappointed, and baffled" by
then Deputy Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong's unofficial visit to
Taipei. Lee was then about to take over as Premier.

In the larger scheme of things, this may prove to be a passing
cloud, but the incident puts in sharp relief a remarkable
transformation of Chinese power in the region. How China will be
wielding its newly acquired power in the coming months and years
will be keenly watched in Southeast Asia. Will China's rise be as
peaceful as Beijing claims, or will it give in to the temptation
of throwing its weight around?

Since the 1980s the region has emerged as a dynamic economy,
and a reform-minded China has grown into an economic dynamo and
the region's potential great power.

Over the last fifteen years or so, China's gross domestic
product has grown at annual rates of around nine percent, with a
large swath of the coast from Hainan to Shanghai producing rates
even higher.

This, in turn, has supported annual double-digit increases in
military expenditures. Growing armed forces budgets have been
broadly committed to a program of military modernization and
professionalization, with a heavy emphasis on modern technology
and personnel sufficiently educated to use it.

Expert observers foresee a Chinese military capable of
projecting force on a sustained basis beyond China's coastal
periphery within 10-20 years. By any measure, China has emerged
with startling suddenness as a regional great power still in the
early stages of its ascent.

While any precise measure of China's national capabilities
will be elusive, the trend and the potential are quite clear.
China's capabilities are multi-dimensional: Economic, military,
and increasingly diplomatic and political.

The days of rigid, ideologically strident Chinese "diplomacy"
have long since been superseded by a cosmopolitan sophistication
that would do Zhou Enlai proud. The growth of Chinese power
assumes added significance from the fact that for the first time
since the height of the Ming Dynasty, China is without any threat
from its traditional strategic rivals: Russia and Japan.

Beijing has the strategic luxury of exerting power to its
south without fearing for the security of its northern, western
and eastern borders. Finally, for Southeast Asia, Chinese power
has an additional potential dimension -- the presence of large
(and economically potent) ethnic Chinese populations in almost
every major urban center.

Capabilities are one thing; intentions are another. Here the
crystal ball suddenly becomes very murky. Chinese officials have
been very insistent that China's intentions toward Southeast Asia
are entirely benign -- nothing other than to join with the region
in a common endeavor of economic development and regional peace
and security.

Beijing has energetically pushed trade and investment ties,
including a centerpiece China-ASEAN free trade agreement.
Bilateral framework agreements for cooperation on multiple fronts
have been negotiated with every Southeast Asian government.
Political and diplomatic interactions at all levels have become a
regular, even daily, feature of the news.

Also Beijing has made clear its desire to extend cooperation
into the security sphere. China has become a primary supplier of
economic and military assistance to Burma, Cambodia, and Laos.
Meanwhile, Chinese officials and scholars seek to allay unease by
noting that the traditional tribute system of China's imperial
past was, by Western standards, quite benign.

Nevertheless, doubts arise on several grounds.

First, history strongly suggests that when new great powers
arise, the implications for smaller or weaker nations on their
periphery are not always pleasant. Examples include Germany and
Central Europe, Japan and East Asia, Russia and Central Asia and
the Caucasus, and the United States and Latin America. It remains
to be seen whether China is uniquely immune to the temptations of
state power.

Territorial irredentism is a potent political force, and there
are growing fears that Beijing, against all sane counsel, could
actually resort to force against Taiwan. In 1992, the Chinese
People's Congress codified in legislation Beijing's claim that
the South China Sea is rightfully the sovereign territory of
China. Since the flare-up in the Mischief Reef dispute in the
mid-1990s, China has soft-pedaled its claims. But it has not
disavowed them and continues to strengthen outposts in the
Spratley Islands.

Another sign that Beijing is concerned with more than economic
growth is the hawkish language used by Chinese academics.
Officially sanctioned Chinese scholars characterize U.S.
strategic intentions toward China as "encirclement" and
"strangulation." They identify Southeast Asia as the weak link in
this chain and the point where China can break through and defeat
American attempted "containment." In private, Chinese diplomats
have been known to use the Churchillian phrase "soft underbelly"
to refer to Southeast Asia.

On yet another front, China's ambitious program for harnessing
and exploiting the Mekong River will have an important side
effect, intended or otherwise: Downstream states, like Laos,
Cambodia, and Vietnam, will be hostage to Chinese decisions
concerning water flow. The Mekong is as much the economic life-
blood for these nations as the Nile is for Egypt.

Finally, the very agreements and linkages with Southeast Asia
that Beijing cites as evidence of benign intent may also be seen
as a web designed to tie these states to China. Contemporary
Burma comes close to fitting the profile of a Chinese client
state.

What emerges from this picture is a multifaceted strategic
challenge to Southeast Asia. Chinese diplomats have worked
assiduously and successfully to portray that challenge as
opportunity and not threat. Recent public opinion polling shows
clear evidence of their success. China registers favorably with
publics throughout most of Southeast Asia. This coincides with a
precipitous drop in favorable opinions of the U.S. since the
advent of the Iraq war.

The durability of these sentiments is a question. What is
certain, however, is that growing Chinese power must be at the
center of any regional security strategy formulated by the
Southeast Asian states -- and by the U.S.

The writer is Professor of National Security Policy at the
National War College in Washington, DC. The views expressed are
the author's and not necessarily those of the United States
Department of Defense.