Asia Times: All eyes on China's mystery man


	April 25, 2002	atimes.com

China

Hu goes there? All eyes on China's mystery man
By Antoaneta Bezlova

BEIJING - A man who has stuck meticulously to his low-key, self-effacing political style, Vice President Hu Jintao, China's enigmatic leader-in-waiting, faces a tough diplomatic test during his tour of Southeast Asian countries this week.

Without threatening to overshadow his patron, Communist Party chief Jiang Zemin, Hu, who is expected to become the new party leader in October and the country's next president in March 2003, has to win over his Malaysian and Singaporean hosts.

Dispersing sources of distrust from the past, ranging from China's historical support for Southeast Asian communist parties to Beijing's territorial disputes with the region, especially over the oil-rich Spratly Islands, is by far the easiest part of Hu's delicate mission. Much more difficult will be to convince Southeast Asian countries that China's rise to economic superpower these days does not represent a threat to the region.

Hu addressed this fear on Wednesday, a day after he arrived in Kuala Lumpur: "The top priority for us Asian countries is to strengthen solidarity and cooperation and secure a steady and sustained development," he said. "China's development would be impossible without Asia and Asia's prosperity without China," added Hu.

China's recent admission to the World Trade Organization (WTO), which greatly increases its appeal as a destination both for making and selling products, has made Southeast Asia fear that foreign investment and trade that used to flow its way is likely to be diverted to China. With more than a billion potential consumers, China is both a low-cost production base for exports and a giant domestic market. That is why China now gets about 80 percent of the foreign direct investment that goes to East Asia, versus 20 percent for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), a complete reversal from a decade ago.

The idea of an China-ASEAN free-trade area, initiated last year and which would provide ASEAN with preferential access to China's growing market, is Beijing's strategic move to pacify Southeast Asia's economic worries in the short term. ASEAN comprises Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

China's entry into the WTO means it will be "a much broader market and many more abundant business opportunities to the rest of Asia", Hu said at a public forum in Kuala Lumpur. He put at RM5.7 trillion (US$1.5 trillion) the trading opportunities China would present in the next five years. "As China accelerates the implementation of its 'go global' strategy, it will increase its investment in other Asian countries," Hu assured his audience.

Earlier this month, Premier Zhu Rongji also highlighted Beijing's increasing focus on ties with Southeast Asia at the Boao forum for Asia, which was hosted by China on Hainan island. Like Hu in Malaysia, Zhu said China's emerging economy posed no threat to the region and Beijing is ready to work with its neighbors to build a "thriving new Asia".

"We should take economic cooperation as the key focus of regional development," Zhu said in a keynote speech to the forum, a non-governmental initiative to promote greater regional cooperation across Asia.

But wooing Southeast Asia also makes sense for China as Beijing tries to counterbalance Washington's increasing presence in the region after the September 11 terrorist attacks. With the war on terrorism's immediate priorities giving way to the wider strategic goals of US President George W Bush's Republican Party, Washington has embarked on a course of enhancing the United States' traditional Asian alliances, after years of neglect during the Bill Clinton administration. There are now US troops in the Philippines and Washington has subtly revealed its desire to expand its influence across the South China Sea. It may even make port calls at Vietnam's Cam Ranh Bay once Russia withdraws from its Soviet-era base there.

"While weakening the US influence in the region, the advancing of the proposed free-trade area between China and ASEAN can increase China's weight to balance the United States," Pang Zhongying, a senior analyst with Qinghua University's Institute of International Relations, told the state-run Business Weekly last week. "A clear sign in the emerging regional cooperation is that the United States is excluded, which makes the strong country worry," added Pang.

Long-standing China-US differences over human rights, non-proliferation and trade disputes have now been compounded by Washington's increasingly vocal support for Taiwan. In recent months, the Bush administration allowed the first visit by a Taiwanese defense minister since the 1980s, promised unambiguously to protect the island if China attacks, and pushed ahead with weapons sales and training programs for Taiwan's military. All this has irked Beijing, which sees unification with the island as one of its fundamental political goals. Taiwan and mainland China were divided during the civil war in 1949, when the defeated Nationalist forces of Chiang Kai-shek fled the communist takeover and went to the island.

Will Hu, a leader known for sticking to the script and being careful not to reveal his personality, rise to the challenge that his first significant political mission to Southeast Asia presents him with?

Singaporean Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong has said that China's new generation of leaders, led by Hu, does not have "a communist mindset" but is instead committed to further economic liberalization. But balancing economic prosperity in the region with China's often-stated ambition to work for the creation of a "multipolar world", free of US hegemony, might be a tough act to play for Hu - a technocrat with little diplomatic experience overseas.

Hu's visit to Malaysia and Singapore comes ahead of his first visit to the United States next week, where China's man of mystery will meet with Bush. While stressing Beijing's desire to keep China-US ties stable, Hu is expected to deliver a clear message of disapproval over the explicit US support for Taiwan.

A successful trip to the Southeast Asia would serve Hu well in showing Washington that China is counting on its Asian neighbors in realizing its vision of a "multipolar world".

(Inter Press Service)