Page 1 of 2 China threat? It's a blessing
By Francesco Sisci
BEIJING - Geography is destiny - perhaps the most inevitable of all. America's
power projection throughout the world in the 20th century, after a period of
splendid isolation, was first possible because of its borders. It had no
enemies pressing on it. It was, and is, sandwiched between two geographically
large countries whose economies and populations are tiny compared to those of
the US.
Both of them, Canada to the north and Mexico to the south, are America's
allies, integrated in a trade agreement, the North American Free Trade
Agreement, and with security treaties guaranteeing Washington's safety. They
are de facto buffer states, shielding the US. At the time of the Cold War, the
Soviet Union shared a small state line with the US, but it consisted of a
scarcely populated area, Alaska, far removed from the American
heartland. The only real border threat came from Cuba, which in the 1960s
almost plunged the US and the USSR into a world war.
However, China is in a very different predicament. Embedded in the heart of
Asia, it is bounded by nearly every other country on the continent, large and
small. In fact, it is the Asian country with the greatest number of bordering
neighbors. China has less than idyllic relations with all of them; it has open
border disputes or only recently resolved ones with others. Many are unstable
countries; others are ambitiously eyeing China's economic and political growth
with fear and suspicion.
Most have a history of vassalage to China, from which they have freed
themselves only in the past century because of China's misfortunes. They worry
that China, once again a superpower, will try to force them back into their
bondage.
Besides the countries bordering China directly, many other states remain
heavily influenced by it. Thailand and Bangladesh, for instance, feel the
Chinese breathing down their neck, despite a safe distance of a few hundred
kilometers from the nearest Chinese frontier. Even Cambodia, more than 1,000
kilometers away from the closest Chinese border, remembers well that in the
1970s it hosted a proxy war between Vietnam and China.
The list of countries directly bordering China exposes Beijing's difficult
geographic position. Starting from the northeast and moving counterclockwise,
are North Korea, Russia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan,
Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam. Then,
there are the sea neighbors all quarrelling over the disputed Spratlys and
Paracel islands. China claims all of them while Vietnam, Malaysia, the
Philippines, Indonesia and Brunei each claim parts of them. From there we have
Taiwan, which is the largest problem of all just because it is not a
"neighboring country". Finally, there are Japan and South Korea.
In all, China is surrounded - almost besieged - by 21 states or territories. Of
these, at least three are giants: Japan, whose economy is presently larger that
that of China's; India, with a fast-growing economy and mushrooming population
that will soon outpace China's; and Russia, the old military superpower shaping
up to become the energy superpower. None of them houses governments as friendly
to China as those of Canada's or Mexico's are to the US.
Beijing presently controls none of its neighbors in the way Moscow used to run
its satellites in the Soviet empire. The only two governments allegedly
"friendly" to China, North Korea and Myanmar, have proved time and again to be
far less obedient than Beijing might wish. The former has tried to stir up a
regional fuss by demanding aid in exchange for giving up its military nuclear
program; the latter has resisted demands to move towards economic reforms and
check drug trafficking.
Yet these two neighbors are but a small nuisance compared with the largest
threat posed by giants like Japan, India, Russia or even by smaller but no less
ambitious countries such as Vietnam, which had its last border clash with China
as recently as 1988. In that small naval skirmish some 80 Vietnamese sailors
were killed by Chinese battleships, which were trying to enforce Beijing's
claim on some remote South China Sea reefs.
Friends like Pakistan can also be troublesome. In 1998, Pakistan exploded six
nuclear devices against Beijing's wishes. The following year, Islamabad started
a border war with India in Kargil that quickly escalated, scaring the Chinese
into thinking that an all-out conflict might erupt at its southwestern border.
Pakistan and India are in fact rival, neighboring nuclear states.
Pakistan for decades has been closer to China, while India feels that China
wants to exert pressure on it through Pakistan. A war between these two
countries could spin out of control and endanger China's security near its soft
underbelly: The restive region of Tibet.
A large dispute could pop up between China and Japan as well over the control
of some islands that the Chinese call Diaoyu and the Japanese Senkaku. In the
sea around those islands, which are little more than rocks, there are large gas
fields, and energy-starved Japan and China are both keen on claiming them.
Moreover, old issues of history (ie Japan's invasion of China in 1937),
national ambition and pride in both countries make for a potentially lethal
combination.
Beyond these are a handful of smaller strategic issues. Maoist guerrillas,
ravaging the Chinese border with Nepal, have spilled into India and Bangladesh,
destabilizing the countrysides in both places. Ultimately, the guerrillas could
move into China. Merciless pirates infest the South China Sea, disrupting the
world's busiest supply lines. Heavily armed drug traffickers operate on the
border with Myanmar, providing cash and all kinds of smuggled goods to triad
gangs infiltrating Chinese society.
In this environment, the dramatic change of status quo, brought on by Chinese
economic development, might have sufficed to trigger a gigantic arms race. The
resources spent on arms could, under other circumstances, easily outpace
economic performance and soon drain national wealth.
That this has not happened is due to China communicating its peaceful
intentions and concentration on economic buildup. It has learned from the
Soviet Union's lesson: butter before guns. Too much expenditure on arms would
lead to economic, social and political collapse. If Beijing were to start a
real arms race, its economy could implode in no time, even without any real
pressure from abroad.
But, perhaps more importantly, this arms race is not taking place in Asia
because the US is providing a common security umbrella, so everyone else can
put money to better use.
The US's security umbrella
The case of the American alliance with Japan well illustrates this state of
affairs. Washington's commitment to Tokyo is theoretically considered a threat
by Beijing. But Beijing is not overly concerned about it and in fact welcomes
it. The US military umbrella prevents Japan's re-armament, and, for many
reasons, China prefers the "American threat" to the Japanese one.
Without America, Japan would have to secure its own defense and all manner of
prejudice and miscalculation could push Tokyo to deploy more weapons than
Beijing would be comfortable with. After all, Japan has invaded China; America
hasn't. China feels that America's alliance with Japan helps to allay Japan's
concerns over China, thus holding Japan's own military spending in check.
The case of Japan also holds true for India. China has not overreacted to the
American deal to supply nuclear technology to India (about to be ratified in
the US Congress), despite that in 1998 India exploded six nuclear devices,
while openly presenting it as a move against the Chinese threat. Beijing may
feel that closer military ties between the US and India can help restrain New
Delhi's military ambitions.
This pattern is no less true with regard to those countries with which China
has friendly relations. For example, South Korea is tempted to become a nuclear
power - a temptation that would be stronger without an American presence in the
country. Singapore, again a friend of China, would otherwise find its proximity
to Malaysia or Indonesia far more worrisome, potentially spreading instability
across the South China Sea.
It is hard to believe that in the short term, China would be able to manage its
own security in Asia - which is to say the security of the region as a whole -
among its motley collection of distrusting neighbors.
On the other hand, the US cordons China's periphery. Besides basing troops in
South Korea and Japan, America holds close ties with the Thai military,
maintains a large naval base in Singapore and has garrisons scattered
throughout Central Asia. Yet its troops are combating fundamentalist Muslim
militants who, besides being enemies of the US, are also eager to support their
brethren who remain active in the Chinese region of Xinjiang.
America's forward basing might pose a threat to China if Beijing desired to
militarily project itself beyond its boundaries. But Beijing does not want to
do this and the US presence can be seen just as a form of saving Chin's
military expenditures. Deng Xiaoping's old tenet that China must think first of
the economy still holds, thanks to the US presence.
The same principle works in reverse: the American presence saves other Asian
countries the trouble of worrying about managing China's growth. If one thinks
of Asia as a kind of vast engine, with China at its hub, America then acts as a
kind of engine oil in the geopolitical machinery, helping relations run
smoothly throughout.
Without America, China would have to deal with at least 21 hostile or
semi-hostile neighbors, devoid of the old pattern of vassal ties and lacking a
cultural mold for new interactions. Similarly, without America, all of Asia
would have to conceive a new way of coping with a rising China, with no
established
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