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ASEAN and China's regional
concerns
By Phar Kim Beng
HONG KONG - In a speech at the University of
Hong Kong on January 10, Fu Ying, secretary general of
Hong Kong's Ministry of Foreign Affairs' Asia
Department, affirmed that China would commit itself to
becoming a force for peace and stability in Southeast
Asia and that it would not be a threat despite the
magnitude of its growth.
Echoing the view of
President Jiang Zemin at the 16th Communist Party
Congress that neighboring countries be "treated with
kindness", Fu Ying also spoke of China's benevolent
intent in handling various territorial, border and
fishing disputes throughout the region. Strengthening
ties with its neighbors has been the official diplomatic
strategy of China since 1996, and increasing US
influence in Asia has given the strategy a new sense of
importance and urgency. But how has China improved its
relations with the Association of Southeast Asian
Nations (ASEAN)?
Official relations between
China and ASEAN began in July 1991 when Beijing started
attending the ASEAN Post-Ministerial Conference (ASEAN
PMC). Since July 1994, China has also become a full
dialogue partner of ASEAN and a member of the ASEAN
Regional Forum (ARF). Last November, at the eighth ASEAN
Summit in Phnom Penh, China signed reached various
agreements with the Association, including the Framework
Agreement on Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Between
ASEAN and the People's Republic of China, the
Declaration on Conduct of Parties in the South China
Sea, and the Joint Declaration on Cooperation in
Non-Traditional Security Issues.
Correspondingly, there has also been a rise in
the quality of China's diplomatic representation in
Southeast Asia. Mely Caballerro-Anthony of the Institute
of Defense and Analysis in Singapore said: "China has
expressed interest in acceding to the ASEAN Treaty of
Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia, and to work
towards signing the Southeast Asia Nuclear Weapons-free
Zone." The two agreements underscore the willingness of
China to refrain from the use of force as an instrument
of policy.
On the southwestern border of China,
China has been improving its relationship with ASEAN
member nation Myanmar. China has supplied more than
US$1.6 billion in arms to Myanmar and continues to train
a significant number of its military. Senior General Tan
Shwe, the current head of state and chairman of the
military State Peace and Development council that
controls the country, has made an official visit to
China. He was accompanied by General Khin Nyunt, who is
in charge of intelligence and international affairs.
Can China keep up its warm ties with ASEAN and
its members? There is every likelihood that this is what
China plans to do as it tries to free itself from the
encirclement of the United States. If China's history of
foreign relations is taken into further account,
Beijing's words can indeed be taken at face value.
William C Kirby is Geisinger professor of
history and dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at
Harvard University. He has focused much of his research
on 20th-century Chinese diplomacy and China's views
toward international relations. "China has no tradition
of trying to forge and maintain alliances," he said. "It
had not been part of the international strategic
alignments and alliances that developed from 1866-1917,
into which Japan had been drawn in 1902 [when Japan
became the first Asian power to sign the Sino-British
Treaty with a Western power]. Between 1911 and 1949,
when China saw first the formation of the republic,
before power was handed over to the communists, China
made no major overtures to its Asian neighbors, caught
as it was in the vortex of civil war and internal
turbulence".
From its independence in 1949 until
the opening of China three decades later, China had
sought security in alliances with superpowers; first
with the Soviet Union, then the United States. Neither
alliance was altogether successful. With the Soviet
Union, China failed to obtain Moscow's help in building
a nuclear device. By 1969, China and the Soviet Union
were already involved in bitter border conflicts that
threatened to end in an open, and possibly nuclear, war
between the two communist foes.
When China
warmed to the United States to offset the Soviet Union
in 1972, its relationship lasted only until the end of
the Cold War in 1989. Since then, the relationship
between Beijing and Washington has been marked as much
by cooperation as by mutual suspicion of each other's
strategic designs.
Now that China's power has
gradually grown, it has become imperative for Beijing to
get up to speed in cultivating good ties with Southeast
Asia. Such a relationship is critical because when
measured from the standpoint of gross domestic product,
China's GDP is only one-quarter that of Japan and
one-tenth that of the United States.
In other
words, just as China is growing - a process accompanied
by the attendant siphoning of critical foreign direct
investment (FDI)
away
from Southeast Asia - Beijing has to ensure that members
of ASEAN remain closely bonded to China, not other
stronger and richer powers.
The strategy of
reassurance is indeed important in the context of
China's impact on Southeast Asia. China's accumulated
net FDI totaled some $309 billion for 1980-2000, of
which 95 percent, or some $284 billion, was attracted in
1993-2000. On the other hand, ASEAN's accumulated net
FDI totaled only $172 billion for 1980-2000. The danger
does not lie here alone. China's manufacturing prowess
is also displacing that of Southeast Asia, indeed, even
Japan.
According to Andy Xie, chief economist at
Morgan Stanley (Hong Kong), "The FDI growth is fueling
China's rapid rise in mass manufacturing as reflected in
the doubling of the country's share in global
merchandise exports to 5.1 percent in 2002 from 2.2
percent in 1992. Indeed, China is not challenging only
ASEAN. China's export increase this year is equal to its
total exports in 1990. China's exports are now equal to
79 percent of Japan's compared with 22 percent in 1990
and 14 percent in 1980. If it sustains the 12 percent
annual growth rate of the past five years, China's
exports will exceed Japan's by 2005 and the United
States by 2009."
Given such figures, coupled
with the possibility that China might dominate the
entire mass manufacturing spectrum, hence leaving little
room for Southeast Asia to innovate, it is little wonder
that China is trying its best to ensure good ties with
Southeast Asia.
Yet the outreach to Southeast
Asia is not entirely altruistic. It has been worked into
the grand strategic calculation of China to cultivate a
multipolar world in which the United States, the current
preeminent power, would not be able to dominate.
Similarly, China's diplomatic overtures to ASEAN
are aimed at preempting members of the organization from
increasing their bilateral security cooperation with the
United States (including joint military exercises).
Another aim is to prevent Indonesia and Australia from
further enhancing their military relationship after the
signing of a security pact in 1995.
To be sure,
Beijing is trying to forge a diplomatic strategy to
prevent other countries from "uniting" against China by
virtue of a perceived fear of a "China threat", economic
or otherwise. That said, the principal focus has been on
countering the lengthening shadow of the United States
on the region.
Having observed the relative
facility of US military operations conducted in the
Persian Gulf and especially in the Balkans, it can be
observed that neither prospective adversaries nor
international organizations pose much of a constraint on
the United States' decisions about where and when to act
abroad. By cultivating its ties with ASEAN, China can
potentially put a check on US influence and
accessibility to Southeast Asia.
(©2003 Asia
Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
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