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US politicking in Asia to rein in
China
By Alan Boyd
SYDNEY -
US containment policies for China are drawing Asia back
into Washington's strategic embrace even as traditional
European allies dig their way out of the diplomatic
rubble from the Iraqi conflict. That Asian leaders have
been so quick to discard their war vitriol and take a
more pragmatic view of the US role in the region says
much for the uncertain security outlook as the economic
balance shifts toward Beijing.
Only weeks after
the end of a conflict that divided Asians on religious
and foreign policy lines, the United States is playing
peacemaker in the Korean Peninsula, Kashmir and Sri
Lanka, and putting out feelers for as many as three more
bilateral free-trade accords.
Washington has
already used the Iraq war as a plank for shoring up its
influence in Central Asia, mostly at Russian expense,
and is reportedly looking around for new military
staging posts in the event of a forced withdrawal from
bases in Japan and South Korea.
"We aren't
hearing a lot being said publicly, but I have no doubt
the Bush administration views China as the greatest
long-term danger to its economic and strategic
interests, certainly within Asia and maybe even from the
global perspective," said an Asian diplomat. "What I
expect to see is the US using the European vacillation
to expand NATO's [North Atlantic Treaty Organization]
sphere of interest closer to China's western borders and
perhaps applying some pressure from the south through
India."
The envelopment strategy has been
several years in the making, and reflects the George W
Bush administration's drive to replace the
economics-first policy of the Clinton era with an
enhanced security profile. Instead of former president
Bill Clinton's perceived appeasement of China and North
Korea, the conservatives setting President Bush's
strategic agenda are pursuing a polarization strategy
that has already been brought sharply into focus by the
Afghanistan and Iraqi offensives.
Bush launched
the first salvo with a belligerent State of the Union
address early last year that identified the so-called
"axis of evil" of unstable regimes as the catalyst for
reprisals by a coalition of the willing. Then came the
first trial in Southeast Asia, with US troops returning
to the Philippines for the first time since their
ignominious pullout in 1992, and announcing a bigger
commitment to the defense of the Taiwan Strait.
A second phase of putting the rhetoric into
practice at a diplomatic level has gained urgency
because of waning US power in the Middle East and
indications that the same might soon happen in East
Asia.
Growing public resentment against the
presence of US troops in Korea and Japan has forced a
reappraisal of security objectives as Washington casts
around for new allies in its war against terrorism. Both
countries are likely to demand progressive troop
cutbacks as a price for domestic political harmony, and
all US forces could be gone within a decade. This would
leave the US with only its western Pacific bases in
Hawaii and Guam.
Sensitive to charges of US
saber-rattling, Secretary of State Colin Powell denied
in security talks with Southeast Asian leaders last year
that Washington intended to move the 100,000 servicemen
elsewhere. "We are not looking for new bases or new
places to send our US troops," he said.
However,
the Defense Department clearly disagrees, with some
senior strategists openly advocating a broader "basing"
policy that would enable the Pentagon to maintain its
current carrier strength.
One reason for this
thrust is Japan's reluctance to take on a wider security
role for fear of upsetting its Asian neighbors, thus
dashing hopes that Tokyo might act as a counter to
Chinese ambitions. Pointedly, Japan has never been used
as a base for US warships.
The hawks appear to
be winning, for there are clear indications that the
terrorism issue will be used as justification for an
increased frequency of visits by US carrier groups,
probably with the help of support services in Singapore
and possibly the Philippines.
But it is India
that is destined to become the United States' closest
strategic partner, as Washington seeks a buffer against
Chinese regional aspirations, especially in the Taiwan
Strait and the subcontinent. Delhi has reportedly been
offered a closer defense relationship in return for a
bigger commitment toward peace in the disputed province
of Kashmir, which provides a platform for Chinese
weapons sales.
"It is our understanding that
there will be a naval operations component, some
technical exchanges. The parameters really will be set
by Delhi, as there are obvious policy implications to be
sounded out by the Indians," said a European diplomat.
Other analysts said Washington had floated the
idea of a loose alliance that might include joint naval
patrols and cooperation in ballistic missile
development, a particularly sensitive issue in the
Kashmir standoff with Pakistan.
India, whose
ties with China have been fractured since a 1962 border
war, has everything to gain from the US overtures.
Chinese weapons filtered through Pakistan are not only
destabilizing the subcontinent, but have stretched
Delhi's defense expenditure to unsustainable levels.
According to the US State Department, India spent an
average of US$14 billion a year on defense between 1998
and 2001, despite being one of the poorest nations on
the planet. It imports almost $1 billion worth of
weapons annually, mostly from Russia.
While Delhi
publicly maintains its traditional non-aligned status,
Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee has quietly fallen
into line with Washington's anti-terrorism campaign, at
a diplomatic level at least. Since the State of the
Union address, India has brokered a series of
extradition treaties and cooperation pacts in Southeast
Asia, centering on arms trafficking, money laundering
and the trade in illicit narcotics.
Of equal
significance are recent efforts by Washington
conservatives to influence policies within Delhi through
academe and policy think-tanks, with the apparent
intention of ensuring that China remains firmly on the
agenda.
Their mentor is Defense Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld, the architect of the Iraqi offensive and the
most hawkish member of the Bush administration, who is
also credited with devising the Indian strategy.
Rumsfeld and one of his senior policy chiefs, Douglas
Reith, are believed to be the prime motivators behind of
a new US-India Institute for Strategic Policy that has
been established by the far-right Center for Security
Policy to rally Indian support.
Other Asian
countries, wary of Delhi's declared ambitions to create
a genuine blue-water naval capability and displace China
as the region's arms supplier, appear to have accepted
the Indian posturing as the lesser of two evils.
Singaporean Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong called
last week for the United States to become more engaged
in Asia to help keep the "strategic balance" and provide
"further impetus for East Asian regionalism".
"Not every country will say so publicly, but we
all know that America has been indispensable to East
Asian peace, stability and prosperity. This
consciousness tempered East Asian attitudes toward the
war in Iraq," he said in an address to the Asia Society
in Washington.
"If US-China relations are
strained, all of East Asia is unsettled. But if they are
stable, the region is calmed."
(©2003 Asia Times
Online Co, Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com for
information on our sales and syndication policies.)
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