Wednesday, December 03, 2003
China makes hay while the US fights terror
Jane Perlez wrote a neat story in the New York Times today on how the Chinese are using the U.S.'s pre-occupation with the so-called war on terror to increase its presence and influence, especially in the Asia-Pacific region.
A new team of leaders in Beijing who came to power last spring — President Hu Jintao and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao — have led the charge, personally traveling in the region bearing sizable investments and diplomatic warmth. In fact, some forward leaning analysts think China may already have become Asia's leading power. "After Afghanistan, after Iraq, after bringing democracy to the Middle East, when the United States refocuses on Asia, it will find a much different China in a much different region," James J. Przystup, a research fellow at the National Defense University, wrote recently.
Beyond the economics and the diplomacy, something else is going on. China has the allure of the new. A new affinity is developing between the once feared China and the rest of Asia. Karim Raslan, a Malaysian lawyer and writer who traveled to Washington recently on a Fulbright scholarship, put it this way. The American "obsession" with terror seems tedious to Asians, he said.
Most disturbing for the United States, China's surging economy has much to offer America's most important Asian allies. Japan's rebound is being driven by a surge in exports to China. Australia's healthy economy is being kept that way by Chinese investments in liquid natural gas projects. China is now South Korea's largest trading partner. Among Southeast Asian countries with significant Muslim populations, places where the American concentration on terror is particularly unappealing, China is on a buying spree.
There is also a fleeting mention of the thaw in Indo-Chinese relations, which if it continues, could profoundly affect the strategic balance in Asia. Big if, of course.
But the People's Liberation Army is doing its own diplomacy, and naval exercises last month by China and India — the first between the two old rivals — caught people's attention. Militarily they did not add up to much, but the symbolism of an Indian destroyer at the Shanghai docks was widely noted.
A new team of leaders in Beijing who came to power last spring — President Hu Jintao and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao — have led the charge, personally traveling in the region bearing sizable investments and diplomatic warmth. In fact, some forward leaning analysts think China may already have become Asia's leading power. "After Afghanistan, after Iraq, after bringing democracy to the Middle East, when the United States refocuses on Asia, it will find a much different China in a much different region," James J. Przystup, a research fellow at the National Defense University, wrote recently.
Beyond the economics and the diplomacy, something else is going on. China has the allure of the new. A new affinity is developing between the once feared China and the rest of Asia. Karim Raslan, a Malaysian lawyer and writer who traveled to Washington recently on a Fulbright scholarship, put it this way. The American "obsession" with terror seems tedious to Asians, he said.
Most disturbing for the United States, China's surging economy has much to offer America's most important Asian allies. Japan's rebound is being driven by a surge in exports to China. Australia's healthy economy is being kept that way by Chinese investments in liquid natural gas projects. China is now South Korea's largest trading partner. Among Southeast Asian countries with significant Muslim populations, places where the American concentration on terror is particularly unappealing, China is on a buying spree.
There is also a fleeting mention of the thaw in Indo-Chinese relations, which if it continues, could profoundly affect the strategic balance in Asia. Big if, of course.
But the People's Liberation Army is doing its own diplomacy, and naval exercises last month by China and India — the first between the two old rivals — caught people's attention. Militarily they did not add up to much, but the symbolism of an Indian destroyer at the Shanghai docks was widely noted.
