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COMMENTARY
The company China
keeps
By Ralph A Cossa
(Used by permission of Pacific Forum CSIS)
They say you can judge people by the
company they keep. The same can be said about
countries. So what does it say about China when
its foreign minister, Li Zhaoxing, skips the
annual ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) ministerial
meeting to visit Myanmar, at the same time that
Chinese President Hu Jintao is welcoming Zimbabwe
dictator Robert Mugabe to Beijing with full
honors. This is the same same Hu who responded to
the carnage in Uzbekistan by inviting its
president, Islam Karimov, to Beijing for a 21-gun
salute in May, within two weeks of the Andijan
massacre, when soldiers killed hundreds of Uzbek
protesters.
This is the same China, one
might add, that has systematically blocked
stronger United Nations Security Council action
against the genocidal government in Sudan, and
prevented the Security Council from discussing
North Korea's flagrant violation of international
nuclear and human rights norms. As one surveys the
globe's pariah regimes, it seems the one thing
they all have in common is the same best friend:
China.
Foreign Minister Li's actions are
particularly revealing. Unlike his counterparts
from Washington, Tokyo, and New Delhi, Li did show
up in Vientiane for several ASEAN-related
meetings, including China's one-on-one with the 10
ASEAN states and a gathering of the ASEAN Plus
Three forum (also involving Japan and South
Korea). His decision to skip the broader ARF
meeting, which includes the US, Canada, Australia,
New Zealand and other non-East Asian states,
clearly signals China's preference for
"Asia-for-Asians" forums - the ones that
specifically exclude the United States. This
continues the diminution of the ARF begun when
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice decided to
skip the Vientiane festivities entirely, sending
in her place her deputy, Robert Zoellick.
Earlier in the week, Myanmar had announced
its decision to skip its turn as ASEAN (and ARF)
chair next year so it could "focus its full
attention on the ongoing national reconciliation
and democratization process". ASEAN had been
facing intense pressure from Washington and others
to bypass Yangon unless there was some significant
movement toward political reform. But Beijing had
been arguing against this "interference in
Myanmar's internal affairs". Going to Myanmar
instead of the ARF demonstrates Beijing's
solidarity with Yangon and its displeasure over
ASEAN's and Washington's strong-arm tactics. It
also underscores one of ASEAN's greatest concerns:
that putting pressure on Myanmar drives it deeper
into Beijing's camp. It also appears evident that
Myanmar has decided to "do the right thing" - give
up its 2006 chairmanship - so that it can more
easily avoid doing the really right thing:
releasing Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi from
house arrest and seriously moving forward on
democratization.
Meanwhile, China's
intense courting of Uzbekistan - Hu made a
reciprocal state visit to Tashkent in June - also
has had immediate benefits. This past weekend
Uzbekistan announced it was withdrawing its
permission for US troops to use its airbase at
Karshi-Khanabad, mere weeks after the
Chinese-planned Shanghai Cooperation Organization
(involving Russia and four Central Asian states)
had called on Washington to set a deadline for
withdrawing from military bases in Uzbekistan and
Kyrgyzstan, despite the important role these bases
play in pursuing the war on terrorism. (It's no
wonder US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld made a
quick trip to Bishkek last week to help ensure US
forces could continue to use Kyrgyz bases.)
It is much harder to come up with any
rationale that would justify befriending Mugabe,
whose gross violations of human rights have
resulted in travel bans preventing him from
traveling to Europe or the United States. A recent
UN report said Mugabe's controversial slum
demolition campaign has been carried out in "an
indiscriminate and unjustified manner, with
indifference to human suffering"; UN Secretary
General Kofi Annan called it a "catastrophic
injustice" to the poor people of Zimbabwe.
Beijing, on the other hand, expressed confidence
in Mugabe's ability to handle this "internal
affair".
I am not a China-basher. I think
cooperative, constructive relations between
Washington and Beijing serve the national security
interests of both nations and contribute
significantly to regional stability, and that
economic and (limited) political reform in China
have helped to move the Middle Kingdom back into a
position of prominence. China also deserves some
credit for its constructive role in arranging the
six-party talks, aimed at resolving the nuclear
standoff with North Korea.
But, even as
Washington applauds growing cooperation with
Beijing on issues such as Korean Peninsula
denuclearization, currency revaluation and a
modest reduction in cross-Strait tensions with
Taiwan, it cannot help but notice an increasingly
active Chinese diplomatic campaign aimed at
protecting, if not emboldening, some of the
globe's most repressive regimes. One hopes that
the first Sino-US "strategic dialogue", which
kicks off this week in Beijing between Zoellick
and his Chinese counterparts, will take a candid
look at the sour as well as the sweet aspects of
Chinese diplomacy and how they impact the broader
relationship.
In the meantime, those who
seem quick to praise China's so-called "soft
power" should take a closer look at the values and
ideals Beijing seems intent on fostering and
protecting. Before jumping on the China bandwagon,
they may want to glance around and see who their
fellow passengers are.
Ralph A
Cossa is president of the Pacific Forum, a
Honolulu-based non-profit research institute
affiliated with the Center for Strategic and
International Studies in Washington and senior
editor of Comparative Connections, a quarterly
electronic journal.
(Used by
permission of Pacific Forum CSIS) |
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