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The Spratlys pact: Beijing's olive
branch
By Francesco Sisci
BEIJING - While the rumor mill in Beijing
keeps on whirling and spitting out names for the future
leadership that will emerge from the Communist Party
Congress that gets under way this Friday, China has made
a significant geopolitical breakthrough on its most
sensitive territorial claim, that of the Spratly
Islands.
Premier Zhu Rongji has signed a
landmark agreement in Phnom Penh with member countries
of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to
avoid conflicts in the area, ownership of all or parts
of which are disputed by China (and Taiwan), Vietnam,
the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei.
"This important advancement of
China-ASEAN relations marks a higher level of political
trust between the two sides and will contribute to
regional peace and stability," Zhu said in a speech in
the Cambodian capital. Under the agreement, claimants
will practice self-restraint in activities that could
spark disputes, such as inhabiting the islands. The
signatories also agreed to exchange views among defense
officials and give advance warning of military exercises
in the region.
The agreement
should mitigate a potential flash-point between China
and ASEAN at a time when both parties are keen on
improving commercial and diplomatic relations to boost
growth in East Asia, which so far has largely escaped
the economic doldrums encompassing most of the rest of
the world. While in Phnom Penh, where ASEAN leaders were
holding a summit, Zhu also moved up the timetable of a
free-trade agreement with the region. Since the 1997
financial crisis, Beijing has been developing trade and
investment in neighboring countries in an effort to
produce a virtuous circle of imports and exports among
these countries, which incidentally are increasingly
using the yuan in bilateral transactions, even though
the Chinese currency is not freely convertible.
The Spratlys agreement, however, has a broader
political goal than improving ties with Southeast Asia,
and is important as a signal of the political intentions
of the new Chinese leadership due to be announced next
week. Those who worry about a possible future Chinese
threat point to the Spratlys and argue that after
reunification with Taiwan, Beijing would press ahead
with its claim on the disputed islands. That area of the
South China Sea, dotted by a few rocky islets, is a
crossroads of important maritime routes leading
ultimately to Japan and the United States, and is also
an important potential source of oil and gas. The
Chinese claim on the Spratlys is thus a byname for
much-feared Chinese expansionist intentions. The
China-threat theorists argue that after Beijing has
achieved the reunification with Taiwan it will push for
the full control of the South China Sea, and after that
possibly the control of all Asia.
This scenario
would mirror that of the German dictator Adolf Hitler in
the 1930s, when he first gobbled up the Ruhr, then asked
for Austria, then moved for the Sudeten but actually
swallowed all of Czechoslovakia while he was appeased by
the timid European powers. The China-threat theorists
warn that Beijing should not be similarly appeased on
the Taiwan issue but should be stopped before it is too
late.
China has always vehemently rejected such
comparisons to 1930s Germany and has not given up its
goal of reunification with Taiwan or its claim on the
Spratlys. This latter claim is sensitive in theory,
although not nearly as strategically important as that
of Taiwan. Maoist China in fact gave up about one-fourth
of its territory to the then Soviet bloc. Mongolia, now
an independent country, is still considered part of
China according to the traditional maps used in Taiwan.
Moreover the surrender of this territory was for the
decades cited by Taiwan's Nationalists as evidence that
the communists were not patriotic. At the time,
Beijing's argument was that ultimately the whole world
would become communist and therefore the cession of
Mongolia was only temporary and did not matter in the
face of the total victory of communism.
In fact,
this argument from Beijing covered the fact that China,
very weak after 1949, had its arm twisted by Moscow,
keen on expanding its territory in the east. This thorny
issue flared up again in the early 1970s with a border
war with Russia over some disputed islets on the Ussuri
River. However, in recent years, even after China had
gained more clout vis-a-vis a very weak Russia in the
mid-1990s, Beijing made no effort to regain the ceded
territories. In fact it signed an agreement with Russia
and other former Soviet republics ending all border
issues to ensure a peaceful environment for many years
to come. At the time the internal argument was that the
territory had already been given up by Mao Zedong, and
successive leaders had to comply. Similarly, the claim
on the Spratlys had been endorsed by Mao, and therefore
for the same reason that Beijing could settle the border
issue with Moscow, it could not yield on the South China
Sea.
Now, however, China is extremely keen on
reaching out to ASEAN countries. In the early 1990s both
Beijing and Taipei toyed with the idea of staging war
games in the Spratlys that would frighten neighboring
navies out of the contested area and reinforce Beijing's
and Taipei's hold on the islands. Since the 1997
financial crisis, however, China has realized that it
must maintain good diplomatic relations with these
neighbors in order to expand its foreign economic
relations to form a safety net in a world whose economy
and trade are extremely volatile.
China has also
said in the past years that while it is not giving up
its claim on the islands, it wants mutually profitable
development of the area. The agreement on avoiding
conflicts in the region is thus an important
contribution to further defusing any row with ASEAN,
while removing an argument from the arsenal of the
China-threat theorists.
This is perhaps the most
important political signal China is sending to the world
before the 16th Party Congress. China wants a peaceful
environment for the future and wants to concentrate on
economic development for many years to come. This is far
more important than territorial claims that would only
take away energy and resources from the country's
healthy economic growth.
(©2002 Asia Times
Online Co, Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com for information
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