Page 3 of 3 Rising powers have the US in
their sights By Dilip Hiro
regional economic cooperation in its
charter. That, in turn, led it to grant observer
status to Pakistan, India and Mongolia - all
adjoining China - and Iran, which does not. When
the US applied for observer status, it was
rejected, an embarrassing setback for Washington,
which enjoyed such status at the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations.
Early this month,
on the eve of an SCO summit in the Kyrgyz
capital Bishkek, the group
conducted its first joint military exercises,
code-named Peace Mission 2007, in the Russian Ural
region of Chelyabinsk. "The SCO is destined to
play a vital role in ensuring international
security," said Ednan Karabayev, foreign minister
of Kyrgyzstan.
Late last year, as the host
of a China-Africa Forum in Beijing attended by
leaders of 48 of 53 African nations, China left
the US woefully behind in the diplomatic race for
that continent (and its hydrocarbon and other
resources). In return for Africa's oil, iron ore,
copper and cotton, China sold low-priced goods to
Africans, and assisted African counties in
building or improving roads, railways, ports,
hydroelectric dams, telecommunications systems and
schools. "The Western approach of imposing its
values and political system on other countries is
not acceptable to China," said Africa specialist
Wang Hongyi of the China Institute of
International Studies. "We focus on mutual
development."
To reduce the cost of
transporting petroleum from Africa and the Middle
East, China began constructing a trans-Myanmar oil
pipeline from the Bay of Bengal to its southern
province of Yunnan, thereby shortening the
delivery distance now traveled by tankers. This
undermined Washington's campaign to isolate
Myanmar. (Earlier, Sudan, boycotted by Washington,
had emerged as a leading supplier of African oil
to China.) In addition, Chinese oil companies were
competing fiercely with their Western counterparts
in getting access to hydrocarbon reserves in
Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.
"China's oil
diplomacy is putting the country on a collision
course with the US and Western Europe, which have
imposed sanctions on some of the countries where
China is doing business," commented William Mellor
of Bloomberg News. The sentiment is echoed by the
other side. "I see China and the US coming into
conflict over energy in the years ahead," said Jin
Riguang, an oil-and-gas adviser to the Chinese
government and a member of the Standing Committee
of the Chinese People's Political Consultative
Council.
China's industrialization and
modernization have spurred the modernization of
its military as well. The test-firing of the
country's first anti-satellite missile, which
successfully destroyed a defunct Chinese weather
satellite in January, dramatically demonstrated
its growing technological prowess. An alarmed
Washington had already noted an 18% increase in
China's 2007 defense budget.
Attributing
the rise to extra spending on missiles, electronic
warfare and other high-tech items, Liao Xilong,
commander of the People's Liberation Army's
general logistics department, said: "The
present-day world is no longer peaceful, and to
protect national security, stability and
territorial integrity, we must suitably increase
spending on military modernization."
China's declared budget of $45 billion was
a tiny fraction of the Pentagon's $459 billion
one. Yet in May, a Pentagon report noted China's
"rapid rise as a regional and economic power with
global aspirations" and claimed that it was
planning to project military further afield, from
the Taiwan Strait into the Asia-Pacific region, in
preparation for possible conflicts over territory
or resources.
The sole superpower in
the sweep of history This disparate
challenge to US global primacy stems as much from
sharpening conflicts over natural resources,
particularly oil and natural gas, as from
ideological differences over democracy, US-style,
or human rights, as conceived and promoted by
Western policymakers. Perceptions about national
(and imperial) identity and history are at stake
as well.
It is noteworthy that Russian
officials applauding the swift rise of post-Soviet
Russia refer fondly to the pre-Bolshevik
Revolution era when, according to them, czarist
Russia was a great power. Equally, Chinese leaders
remain proud of their country's long imperial past
as unique among nations.
When viewed
globally and in the great stretch of history, the
notion of US exceptionalism that drove the
neo-conservatives to proclaim the Project for the
New American Century in the late 20th century -
adopted so wholeheartedly by the Bush
administration in this one - is nothing new. Other
superpowers have been there before, and they too
have witnessed the loss of their prime position to
rising powers.
No superpower in modern
times has maintained its supremacy for more than
several generations. And however exceptional its
leaders may have thought themselves, the United
States, already clearly past its zenith, has no
chance of becoming an exception to this age-old
pattern of history.
Dilip Hiro
is the author of Secrets and Lies: Operation
Iraqi Freedom and, most recently, Blood of
the Earth: The Battle for the World's Vanishing
Oil Resources, both published by Nation
Books.
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