MONTEREY, California - The fifth round of
Sino-US senior dialogue was held in Guiyang,
capital city of the remote southwestern Chinese
province of Guizhou, on January 17-18. Led by US
Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte and his
Chinese counterpart, Executive Vice Foreign
Minister Dai Bingguo, the meeting for the first
time included defense officials and military
officers from both sides. The Taiwan issue, Iran,
military transparency, among others, topped the
agenda.
The meeting was held at a crucial
time for the two countries. Beijing is bracing for
the March 22 presidential elections in Taiwan, at
which time a referendum on whether the island should
apply for its United Nations
(UN) membership under the name of Taiwan will also
be held. It's a move seen by the Chinese
government as a deliberate attempt by outgoing
Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian to push the
envelope and seek du jure independence. While the
recent legislative elections delivered a landslide
victory for the opposition Kuomintang (KMT)party,
Beijing nonetheless is nudging Washington to do
more to rein in Taiwan's independence tendencies.
This is the message Negroponte received as he met
with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and Foreign
Minister Yang Jiechi.
Yang called for more
"resolute" measures on the part of the US
government to oppose the referendum and Negroponte
reiterated the administration's characterization
of Taiwan's move as "provocative".
China's
continuing worry is driven by a number of
considerations. One is the concern that despite
the KMT's victory in the legislative elections,
there is still uncertainty over the presidential
elections. With the referendum still on the ballot
irrespective of US objections and Chinese
warnings, the voters' mood could be swayed between
Frank Hsieh, candidate of Chen's Democratic
Progressive Party and the KMT's Ma Ying-jeou.
Second, Beijing remains suspicious of US long-term
intentions regarding cross-strait relations.
Continued US arms sales to Taiwan are not viewed
favorably in Beijing, in particular as these
reflect Washington's attempts to maintain a
military balance and can be construed (and indeed
will be manipulated by the pro-independence
factions) as reflecting US commitments to Taiwan's
defense.
Another major item featured
prominently on the dialogue's agenda was the
Iranian nuclear issue. Coinciding with
Negroponte's visit and his lobbying for China to
support a new round of UN Security Council
sanctions on Teheran, Iran's top nuclear
negotiator Saeed Jalili arrived in Beijing to seek
China's understanding of its stance on the current
negotiations with the International Atomic Energy
Agency.
Even though Beijing has not always
endorsed sanctions as a means to resolve
international disputes, it went along with the
previous two sanctions as part of the concerted
international effort to persuade Tehran to change
course and come to full compliance with its
commitment to peaceful nuclear use.
However, given the recent US National
Intelligence Estimate report, with a different
assessment of the extent and the status of Iran's
nuclear activities, China, along with Russia, is
reluctant to support new sanctions, but instead
urges patient international diplomacy. Meanwhile,
Chinese officials also advise Iran to show more
flexibility in reaching a mutually acceptable
resolution to the dispute.
That China is
being courted by both Iran and the United States
suggests that its cloud has risen, even as it
still internally debates whether keeping a low
profile remains its best diplomatic strategy.
Additionally, Iran being China's third-largest
provider of energy makes Beijing reluctant to
endorse further sanctions that could compromise
its commercial interests.
This is exactly
what worries Washington. The George W Bush
administration sees China's commercial dealings
with countries that it considers as international
pariahs as undermining US-led efforts to isolate,
punish and engineer changes from Sudan to Myanmar.
This remains an area on which the two countries
continue to differ, including issues concerning
sovereignty, human rights and international
intervention.
A third area of discussion
focused on enhancing mutual trust, military
transparency and crisis management when defense
officials from both countries for the first time
participated in the dialogue. This is obviously a
major step as the two powers - one being the only
superpower in the international system and the
other a fast rising one - seek to assess, engage
and interact with each other. And the military
field is a most critical and sensitive area to
avoid misunderstanding and misperceptions that
could misinform policy and lead to unanticipated,
undesirable and avoidable consequences.
Indeed, while over the past few years
China and the United States have either
established, or restored, or enhanced multiple
channels of dialogue at various levels, the two
countries have yet to gain traction so they can
more effectively deal with issues that can be
considered truly strategic in the sense that they
are not merely bilateral but contain regional and
global implications.
In that sense,
Beijing and Washington will continue to use the
strategic dialogue as a platform to identify
differences, resolve disputes and promote common
causes and interests that contribute to regional
and global peace and stability.
Dr
Jing-dong Yuan is director of the East Asia
Non-proliferation Program at the James Martin
Center for non-proliferation studies and an
associate professor of international policy
studies at the Monterey Institute of International
Studies.
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