Ever since taking office, the Bush
administration has struggled to define its stance
on the most critical long-term strategic issue
facing the United States: whether to view China as
a future military adversary, and plan accordingly,
or to see it as a rival player in the global
capitalist system.
Representatives of both
perspectives are nestled in top administration
circles, and there have been periodic swings of
the pendulum toward one side or the other. But
after a four-year period in which neither outlook
appeared dominant, the pendulum
has now swung conspicuously
toward the anti-Chinese, prepare-for-war position.
Three events signal this altered stance.
The first, on February 19, was the
adoption of an official declaration calling for
enhanced security ties between the US and Japan.
Known officially as the "Joint Statement of the
US-Japan Security Consultative Committee", the
declaration was announced at a meeting of top
Japanese and US officials, including Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice.
The very fact that US
and Japanese officials were discussing improved
security links was deeply troubling to the
Chinese, given the continued salience of Japanese
World War II militarism in the 60th anniversary
year of Japan's surrender, and their ongoing
anxiety about US plans to construct an
anti-Chinese alliance in Asia.
But what
most angered Beijing was the declaration's call
for linked US-Japanese efforts to "encourage the
peaceful resolution of issues concerning the
Taiwan Strait through dialogue". While sounding
relatively innocuous to American ears, this
announcement was viewed in Beijing as highly
provocative, an example of illicit interference by
Washington and Tokyo in China's internal affairs.
The official New China News Agency
described the joint declaration as "unprecedented"
and quoted a senior Foreign Ministry official as
saying that China "resolutely opposes the United
States and Japan in issuing any bilateral document
concerning China's Taiwan, which meddles in the
internal affairs of China and hurts China's
sovereignty".
The second key event was a
speech Rumsfeld gave on June 4 at a strategy
conference in Singapore. After reviewing current
security issues in Asia, especially the threat
posed by a nuclear North Korea, Rumsfeld turned
his attention to China.
The Chinese can
play a constructive role in addressing these
issues, he observed. "A candid discussion of China
... cannot neglect to mention areas of concern to
the region." In particular, China "appears to be
expanding its missile forces, allowing them to
reach targets in many areas of the world," and is
otherwise "improving its ability to project power"
in the region. Then, with consummate
disingenuousness, he stated, "Since no nation
threatens China, one must wonder: why this growing
investment? Why these continuing large and
expanding arms purchases? Why these continuing
robust deployments?"
To Beijing, these
comments must have been astonishing. No one
threatens China? What about the US planes and
warships that constantly hover off the Chinese
coast, and the nuclear-armed US missiles aimed at
China? What about the delivery over the past 10
years of ever more potent US weapons to Taiwan?
What about the US bases that encircle China on all
sides? But disingenuousness aside, Rumsfeld's
comments exhibited a greater degree of
belligerence toward China than had been expressed
in any official US statements since September 11,
and were widely portrayed as such in the American
and Asian press.
The third notable event
was the release, in July, of the Pentagon's report
on Chinese combat capabilities, "The Military
Power of the People's Republic of China".
According to press reports, publication of this
unclassified document was delayed for several
weeks in order to remove or soften some of the
more pointedly anti-Chinese comments, to avoid
further provoking China before President George W
Bush's November visit there.
In many ways,
the published version is judicious in tone,
stressing the weaknesses as well as the strengths
of China's military establishment. Nevertheless,
the main thrust of the report is that China is
expanding its capacity to fight wars beyond its
own territory and that this constitutes a
dangerous challenge to global order.
"The
pace and scope of China's military build-up are,
already, such as to put regional military balances
at risk," the report states. "Current trends in
China's military modernization could provide China
with a force capable of prosecuting a range of
military operations in Asia - well beyond Taiwan -
potentially posing a credible threat to modern
militaries operating in the region."
This
annual report, mandated by Congress in 2000, is
intended as a comprehensive analysis, not a policy
document. However, the policy implications of the
2005 report are self-evident: If China is
acquiring a greater capacity to threaten "modern
militaries operating in the region" - presumably
including those of the US and Japan - then urgent
action is needed to offset Chinese military
initiatives. For this very reason, the document
triggered a firestorm of criticism in China. "This
report ignores fact in order to do everything it
can to disseminate the 'China threat theory'," a
senior Foreign Ministry official told the American
ambassador at a hastily arranged meeting. "It
crudely interferes in China's internal affairs and
is a provocation against China's relations with
other countries."
While much of this was
going on, the American public and mass media were
preoccupied with another source of tension between
the US and China: the attempted purchase of the
California-based Unocal Corporation by the Chinese
National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC). This
attempt received far greater attention in the
media than did the events described above, yet it
will have a far less significant impact on
US-Chinese relations than will the Pentagon's
shift to a more belligerent, anti-Chinese stance -
one that greatly increases the likelihood of a
debilitating and dangerous military competition
between the US and China.
Shifting
positions What lies behind this momentous
shift? At its root is the continuing influence of
conservative strategists who have long championed
a policy of permanent US military supremacy. This
outlook was first expressed in 1992 in the first
Bush administration's Defense Planning Guidance
(DPG) for fiscal years 1994-99, a master blueprint
for US dominance in the post-Cold War era.
Prepared under the supervision of
then-under secretary of defense, Paul Wolfowitz,
and leaked to the press in early 1992, the DPG
called for concerted efforts to prevent the rise
of a future military competitor. "Our first
objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new
rival ... that poses a threat on the order of that
posed formerly by the Soviet Union," the document
stated. Accordingly, "We [must] endeavor to
prevent any hostile power from dominating a region
whose resources would, under consolidated control,
be sufficient to generate global power." This has
remained the guiding principle for US supremacists
ever since.
In this new century, the
injunction to prevent the emergence of a new rival
"that poses a threat on the order of that posed
formerly by the Soviet Union" can apply only to
China, as no other potential adversary possesses a
credible capacity to "generate global power".
Hence the preservation of American supremacy into
"the far realm of the future", as then-governor,
George W Bush, put it in a 1999 campaign speech,
required the permanent containment of China - and
this is what Rice, Rumsfeld and their associates
set out to do when they assumed office in early
2001.
This project was well under way when
the September 11 attacks occurred. Those events
gave the neo-conservatives a green light to
implement their ambitious plans to extend US power
around the world. However, the shift in emphasis
from blocking future rivals to fighting terrorism
was troubling to many in the permanent-supremacy
crowd who felt that momentum was being lost in the
grand campaign to constrain China.
Moreover, antiterrorism places a premium
on special forces and low-tech infantry, rather
than on the costly sophisticated fighters and
warships needed for combat against a major
military power. For at least some US strategists,
not to mention giant military contractors, then,
the "war on terror" was seen as a distraction that
had to be endured until the time was ripe for a
resumption of the anti-Chinese initiatives begun
in February 2001. That moment seems to have
arrived.
Why now? Several factors explain
the timing of this shift. The first, no doubt, is
public fatigue with the "war on terror" and a
growing sense among the military that the war in
Iraq has ground to a stalemate. So long as public
attention is focused on the daily setbacks and
loss of life in Iraq - and, since late August, on
the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina -
support for the president's military policies will
decline. And this, it is feared, could translate
into an allergy to costly military operations
altogether, akin to the dreaded "Vietnam syndrome"
of the 1970s and 1980s. It is hardly surprising,
then, that senior US officers are talking of plans
to reduce US troop strength in Iraq over the
coming year even though Bush has explicitly ruled
out such a reduction.
At the same time,
China's vast economic expansion has finally begun
to translate into improvements in its net military
capacity. Although most Chinese weapons are
hopelessly obsolete - derived, in many cases, from
Soviet models of the 1950s and 1960s - Beijing has
used some of its newfound wealth to purchase
relatively modern arms from Russia, including
fighter planes, diesel-electric submarines and
destroyers.
China has also been expanding
its arsenal of short-range ballistic missiles,
many capable of striking Taiwan and Japan. None of
these systems compare to the most advanced ones in
the American arsenal, but their much-publicized
acquisition has provided fresh ammunition to those
in Washington who advocate stepped-up efforts to
neutralize Chinese military capabilities.
Under these circumstances, the possibility
of a revved-up military competition with China
looks unusually promising to some in the military
establishment. No American lives are at risk in
such a drive. Any bloodletting, should it occur,
lies safely in the future.
These moves are
supported by a recent surge in anti-Chinese
popular sentiment, brought about in part by high
gasoline prices (which many blame on China's oil
thirst), the steady loss of American jobs to
low-wage Chinese industry, and the (seemingly)
brazen effort by China's leading oil company to
acquire Unocal.
The oil factor This appears, then, to be an opportune moment
for renewing the drive to constrain China. But the
brouhaha over Unocal, together with other Chinese
attempts to secure oil and natural gas, also
reveals something deeper at work: a growing
recognition that the US and China are now engaged
in a high-stakes competition to gain control of
the rest of the world's oil supplies.
Just
a decade ago, in 1994, China accounted for less
than 5% of the world's net petroleum consumption
and produced virtually all of the oil it burned.
True, China was already number four among the
world's top oil consumers, after the US, Japan and
Russia, but its daily usage of 3 million barrels
represented less than one-fifth of what the US
consumed on an average day.
Since then,
however, China has jumped to the number two
position (supplanting Japan in 2003), and its
current consumption of about 6 million barrels per
day is approximately one-third of America's usage.
However, domestic oil output in China has remained
relatively flat over this period, so it must now
import half of its total supply.
And with
China's economy roaring ahead, its need for
imported petroleum is expected to climb much
higher in the years to come: According to the
Department of Energy (DOE), Chinese oil
consumption is projected to reach 12 million
barrels per day in 2020, of which 9 million
barrels will have to be obtained abroad. With the
US also needing more imports - as much as 16
million barrels per day in 2020 - and with no
credible research on alternative energy sources
approaching conclusion, the stage is being set for
an intense struggle over access to the world's
petroleum supplies.
This would not be such
a worrisome prospect if global petroleum output
could expand sufficiently between now and 2020 to
satisfy increased demand from both China and the
US - and in fact, the DOE predicts that sufficient
oil will be available at that time.
But
many energy experts believe world oil output, now
hovering at about 84 million barrels per day, is
nearing its maximum or "peak" sustainable level,
and that there is no way that the world will ever
reach the 111 million barrels projected by the DOE
for 2020. If this proves to be the case, or even
if output continues to rise but still falls
significantly short of the DOE projection, the
competition between the US and China for whatever
oil remains in ever diminishing foreign reservoirs
will become even more fierce and contentious.
The intensifying US-Chinese struggle for
oil is seen, for instance, in China's aggressive
pursuit of supplies in such countries as Angola,
Canada, Indonesia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Nigeria,
Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Venezuela. Until recently
China derived very little of its petroleum from
these countries; now it has deals with all of them
to secure new supplies.
That China is
competing so vigorously with the US for access to
foreign oil is worrisome enough to American
business leaders and government officials, given
the likelihood that this will result in higher
energy costs leading to a slowing economy; the
fact that it is seeking to siphon off oil from
places like Canada, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia and
Venezuela - which have long sent a large share of
their supplies to America - is the source of even
greater concern, holding as it does the potential
to result in a permanent shift in the global flow
of oil.
From a strategic perspective,
moreover, US officials worry that China's efforts
to acquire more oil from Iran and Sudan have been
accompanied by deliveries of arms and military
aid, thus altering the balance of power in areas
considered vital to Washington's security
interests. China, whose reach not long ago seemed
to be limited to regions on its immediate borders,
has emerged as a significant global player in the
energy sweepstakes and beyond.
Initially,
discussion of China's intensifying quest for
foreign oil was largely confined to the business
press. But now, for the first time, it is being
viewed as a national security matter - that is, as
a key factor in shaping US military policy.
This outlook was first given official
expression in the 2005 edition of the Pentagon's
report on Chinese military power. "China became
the second largest consumer and third largest
importer of oil in 2003," the report notes. "As
China's energy and resource needs grow, Beijing
has concluded that access to these resources
requires special economic or foreign policy
relationships in the Middle East, Africa, and
Latin America, bringing China closer to problem
countries such as Iran, Sudan, and Venezuela."
Again, the implications of this are
obvious: China's growing ties to "problem states"
constitute a threat to strategic initiatives in
volatile areas of particular interest to US
policymakers and so must be met with countermoves
of one sort or another.
Two trends have
thus joined to propel this new swing of the
pendulum: a drive to refocus attention on the
long-term challenge posed by China and fresh
concern over China's pursuit of oil supplies in
strategic areas of the globe.
So long as
these two conditions prevail - and there is no
repeat of September 11 - the calls for increased
US military preparation for an eventual war with
China will grow stronger. The fact that Bush has
seen his job-approval rating plummet in the wake
of Hurricane Katrina might also tempt the
administration to play up the China threat. While
none of this is likely to produce an immediate
rupture in US-Chinese relations - the forces
favoring economic cooperation are too strong to
allow that - we can expect vigorous calls for an
ambitious US campaign to neutralize China's recent
military initiatives.
This campaign will
take two forms: first, a drive to offset any
future gains in Chinese military strength through
permanent US military-technological superiority;
and second, what can only be described as the
encirclement of China through the further
acquisition of military bases and the
establishment of American-led, anti-Chinese
alliances will continue. None of these efforts are
being described as part of an explicit, coherent
strategy of containment, but there is no doubt
from the testimony of US officials that such a
strategy is being implemented.
Elements of
this strategy can be detected, for example, in the
March 8 testimony of Admiral William Fallon,
Commander of the US Pacific Command (PACOM),
before the Senate Armed Services Committee. "It's
certainly cause for concern to see this continuing
buildup [by China]," he noted. "It seems to be
more than might be required for their defense.
We're certainly watching it very closely, [and]
we're looking at how we match up against these
capabilities."
To counter China's latest
initiatives, Fallon called for improvements in US
anti-missile and anti-submarine warfare (ASW)
capabilities, along with a deepening of military
ties with America's old and new allies in the
region. With respect to missile defense, for
example, he stated that "an effective, integrated
and tiered system against ballistic missiles"
should be "a top priority for development". Such a
system, in all likelihood, would be aimed at
China's short-range missiles. He also called for
establishment of a "robust and integrated ASW
architecture" to "counter the proliferation of
submarines in the Pacific".
Note that
Fallon is not talking about a conflict that might
occur in the central or eastern Pacific, within
reach of America's shores; rather, he is talking
about defeating Chinese forces in their home
waters, on the western rim of the Pacific.
That US strategy is aimed at containing
China to its home territory is further evident
from the plans he described for enhanced military
cooperation with US allies in the region. These
plans, encapsulated in the Theater Security
Cooperation Plan, were described by Fallon as "one
of the primary means through which we extend US
influence, develop access and promote competence
among potential coalition partners".
Typically, the cooperation will include
the delivery of arms and military assistance,
joint military maneuvers, regular consultation
among senior military officials and, in some
cases, expansion (or establishment) of US military
bases.
In Japan, for example, PACOM is
cooperating in the joint development of a regional
ballistic missile defense system; in the
Philippines it is assisting in the reorganization
and modernization of national forces; in Singapore
- which already plays host to visiting US aircraft
carriers - "we are exploring opportunities for
expanded access to Singaporean facilities".
And this is not the full extent of US
efforts to establish an anti-Chinese coalition in
the region. In his March testimony, Fallon also
described efforts to woo India into the American
orbit. "Our relationship with the Indian
Integrated Defense Staff and the Indian Armed
Services continues to grow," he noted. "US and
Indian security interests continue to converge as
our military cooperation leads to a stronger
strategic partnership."
All this and much
more is described as an essentially defensive
reaction to China's pursuit of forces considered
in excess of its legitimate self-defense
requirements - "outsized", as Rice described the
Chinese military in a recent interview.
One can argue, of course, about what
constitutes an appropriate defense capacity for
the world's most populous nation, but that's not
the point - what matters is that any rational
observer in Beijing can interpret Fallon's
testimony (and the other developments described
above) as part of a concerted US campaign to
contain China and neutralize its military
capabilities.
Chinese leaders are fully
aware of their glaring military inferiority
vis-a-vis the US, and so can be expected to avoid
a risky confrontation with Washington. But any
nation, when confronted with a major military
buildup by a potential adversary off its shores,
is bound to feel threatened and will respond
accordingly.
For China, which has been
repeatedly invaded and occupied by foreign powers
over the past few centuries, and which clashed
with US forces in Korea and Vietnam, the US
buildup on its doorstep must appear especially
threatening. It is hardly surprising, then, that
Beijing has sought modern weapons and capabilities
to offset America's growing advantage.
Nor
is it surprising that China has sought to buttress
its military ties with Russia - the two countries
held joint military exercises in August, the first
significant demonstration of military cooperation
since the Korean War - and to discourage
neighboring countries from harboring American
bases. (Uzbekistan asked the US to shut down its
base at Karshi-Khanabad after a meeting of the
Chinese-led Shanghai Cooperation Organization in
July.) But even if defensive in nature, these
moves will provide additional ammunition for those
in Washington who see a Chinese drive for regional
hegemony and so seek an even greater US capacity
to overpower Chinese forces.
This is all
bound to add momentum to the pendulum's swing
toward a more hostile US stance on China. But that
outcome is not foreordained: future economic
conditions - a sharp rise in US interest rates,
for example - could strengthen the hand of those
in Washington who seek to prevent a breach in
US-Chinese relations.
These figures argue,
for example, that Beijing helps keep US interest
rates low by using part of its enormous trade
surplus to buy large quantities of US Treasury
bonds and that China represents an expanding
market for US cars, aircraft and other
manufactured goods. But the pursuit of ever more
potent weapons on each side could prove to be a
self-sustaining phenomenon, undermining efforts to
improve relations.
The debate over China's
military power and the purported need for a major
US buildup to counter China's recent arms
acquisitions will become increasingly heated in
the months and years to come. As always, it will
be fueled by claims of this or that Chinese
military advance, often employing pseudo-technical
language intended to exaggerate Chinese
capabilities and discourage close scrutiny by
ordinary citizens.
If this trend persists,
we will become locked into an ever expanding arms
race that can only have harmful consequences for
both countries - even if it doesn't lead to war.
Questioning inflated Pentagon claims of Chinese
strength and resisting the trend toward a harsher
anti-Chinese military stance are essential,
therefore, if we are to avert a costly and
dangerous course.
Michael T
Klare is the defense correspondent of The
Nation and a professor of peace and world security
studies at Hampshire College. His latest book is
Blood and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of
America's Growing Dependence on Imported
Petroleum.
