May 16, 2012
S P Seth

The recent China visit of the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, and Secretary of the Treasury, Timothy Geithner, was overshadowed by the furore caused following the escape to the US embassy in Beijing of the blind Chinese human rights activist, Chen Guangcheng, to seek asylum. Chen has been a prickly thorn in the government’s side, having internationally embarrassed China by exposing cases of forced abortions and sterilisation in the rural areas as part of China’s one-child policy. After serving a four-year prison term on charges of ‘sedition’, he was under house arrest when he made a risky escape for asylum to the US embassy. Not surprisingly, it caused a crisis of sorts in US-China relations, with Clinton and Geithner right in the middle of it during their visit.

This only shows the fragility of US-China relations, with Beijing accusing the US of interfering in its internal affairs. However, according to some recent reports, this latest conundrum might be managed, with the Chinese government allowing Chen to go to the US for studies with his wife and two children. It might be a convenient end to a difficult diplomatic crisis, but it would be highly embarrassing for China to allow this, being tantamount to admitting that Chen’s earlier imprisonment on sedition charges was a political act.

Even though Beijing is averse to admitting that it has a human rights problem, it does at times say that its human rights situation is improving, which, by implication, means that there has been a problem in this area. The US obviously pushes this button to promote democracy in China, with tolerance for dissent and freedom. With its economic success, China, however, has increasingly taken a more assertive position, even promoting its path as an alternative model for the world. As the US and China increasingly take opposite positions on a whole host of issues, their disagreement is likely to become shriller, with less scope for peaceful management of their relations.

If diplomacy is the art of managing relations between nations, both the US and China will need to work harder. With both keen to assert their primacy in the Asia-Pacific region, the scope for managing their ambitions is likely to become tougher. China has sovereignty claims on the South China Sea; it contests maritime boundaries with Japan in the East China Sea, and is having problems with Vietnam, the Philippines and other regional countries over their competing claims in the South China Sea island chains. This has led to naval incidents between China and some of its Asian neighbours.

Presently, the relations between China and the Philippines are quite tense over the disputed Scarborough shoal — a chain of reefs and uninhabited islands in the South China Sea. The South China Sea is rich in oil, gas and fish. A Le Monde report has quoted a Chinese study, which says that the area could contain the equivalent of 213 billion barrels of oil — 80 percent of Saudi Arabia’s established reserves. No wonder there are a number of claimants to such potential wealth. China and the Philippines have done some show of military muscle, and public opinion in the Philippines is quite exercised over China’s blanket sovereignty claim. And it is a US ally.

Although the US is ostensibly not taking sides on these issues, it has further strengthened its strategic ties with the Philippines, Vietnam and other regional countries. Now that the US is disengaging from Afghanistan, it has signalled its intention to become more focused on the Asia-Pacific region, which has not gone down well with China.

Apart from its problematic relations with some of its regional neighbours, China is lately having more than its usual internal tensions; the most recent being the Chen affair. Chen was helped in his escape to the US embassy by some of his activist friends who are now in trouble with the authorities. The sensitivity of the internal situation was graphically demonstrated following the Arab Spring when the Chinese authorities blocked access on the internet to material regarding the popular upsurge in Tunisia and Egypt, fearing a contagion effect in China.

Recently, there was the Bo Xilai affair, when the Chongqing Party boss was removed from all his posts and his wife arrested on a charge of suspected murder of a British resident of that city. Bo was starting to threaten the party hierarchy by raising the banner of the revolutionary spirit of the Mao Zedong era. And the embers of the fire lit by Bo are not completely extinguished.

It is such sensitivity and resistance to political reform by relaxing the party’s monopoly over power that gives the US a certain moral and political advantage over China. But this only makes China even more resolute on maintaining and asserting the party’s control within the country. The party leadership fears that the US is using democracy and human rights as an attempt to foment internal trouble in their country to the point of destabilising China. This is another problematic issue in the China-US relationship, among a number of other issues clouding their relationship.

The core issue is the contest for primacy in the Asia-Pacific region between the US and China. Until now, the US has ruled the waves in Asia-Pacific, as in much of the rest of the world. Militarily, the US is still the most powerful country in the world. In the Asia-Pacific region though, China is seeking to displace it through a mix of its economic, political and military muscle. Indeed, China believes it is none of the US’s business to be poking around in its neighbourhood where, in Beijing’s view, China’s primacy, historically and geo-strategically, is well enshrined. Indeed, from this viewpoint, China’s loss of regional primacy during the last over 150 years was simply an aberration. Therefore, a new and stronger China feels justified to reclaim its old domain, so to say, and that would explain their sovereignty claims over the South China Sea and parts of the East China Sea and other bits.

In a world of nation states, historical claims of dominance by old or new empires are more an obstacle than a solution of contentious issues. This brings China into conflict with some of its regional neighbours, and with the US as the established dominant power as well as an ally of some of China’s Asian neighbours. One way out of this complex web of relations between China and the US might be to work out some sort of a mechanism to share power over the head of regional countries. However, there are problems here because the regional countries might not like the idea of being a pawn in US-China relations. These countries are not inconsequential, like Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, and so on, not to speak of Japan. They can forge their own alliances/partnerships to sabotage such plans, if they were ever contemplated.

In any case, China or, for that matter, the US does not look like sharing power except on its own terms, which essentially would mean that China or the US will have to make way for the other. China, as the rising power, would certainly not like to give ground on any of its ‘core’ strategic interests. The US, on the other hand, wants China to be a responsible stakeholder, which essentially means that Beijing should not rock the boat. These are irreconcilable positions, and spell trouble for the region.

The writer is a senior journalist and academic based in Sydney, Australia. He can be reached at sushilpseth@yahoo.co.au
-Daily Times