[A-List] US-China-Russia inter-imperialist rivalry

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

The ominous subtext to US-China relations
By Stephen Blank
Asia Times, November 21 2002

Since the end of the Cold War, pundits in Asia have anxiously read the tea
leaves to find an emerging threat to American hegemony. Before September 11,
one could easily have proclaimed that a new bipolarity or at least rivalry
for control of Asia between China and America was the most likely outcome of
developing trends in Asian international politics. The war on terrorism
changed all that - at least temporarily.

But even though that war has forced China to improve its relationship with
America, it is unlikely that this change represents much more than improved
atmospherics. The shadow of this impending rivalry has not been totally
suppressed. Indeed, it now appears to be lengthening. Recent events
throughout East Asia show that China's rising economic power in the context
of the stagnation of Japan's and Russia's economies has created
opportunities for China that it is seizing with alacrity.

Two examples of the shadow cast by China's rising economic power are to be
found in regard to developments in and around North Korea. Beijing's ire at
not being consulted by Pyongyang before it announced the creation of a free
economic zone in Sinujiu under the leadership of a shady Chinese businessman
led the Chinese government to arrest him and essentially torpedo the
program. North Korea had no choice but to swallow this insult and learn that
in the future it had to coordinate its policies with China in advance.

At the same time, the two Koreas and Russia announced the beginning of
construction of a railway network that would link a trans-Korean railway
with the Trans-Siberian line and allow uninterrupted travel and shipping
from Korea through Russia to European destinations. Announcing this project
Russian, President Vladimir Putin proclaimed that it was essential to build
this railway now for if Russia did not do so its friend and neighbor, China,
had comparable plans to build such a link through China, bypassing Russia.
Thus, the prospect of Chinese hegemony over North Korean development and the
inter-continental land trade has already galvanized the thinking of Russian
elites who are sensitive to every hint of Russia's potential marginalization
in Asia. For if Russia loses this opportunity to influence the future of
Asia's trade, its far east will remain a stricken region in desperate need
of help from China.

Despite talk a year ago of a Sino-Russian alliance, we see here a frank
assertion of economic-political rivalry and Russia's fears of China's rising
economic power. But while Russia may be especially vulnerable given its
profound economic weakness, the state with the most to lose in the immediate
future from rising Chinese power is Japan. This dawning economic rivalry is
occurring with particular force in Southeast Asia.

In the past few weeks China has signed both a free trade alliance with
Southeast Asian states and an agreement over the Spratly Islands with the
Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Apart from the fact that
Chinese economic power is forcing individual Southeast Asian states into
ever more stringent competition or even to get out of earlier markets
because they cannot compete, these agreements signify China's ability to
compel ASEAN and its members to accept economic and political outcomes that
enhance Beijing's advantages at their interests' expense. It is highly
unlikely that the agreement on free trade will lessen China's competitive
superiority over many Southeast Asian states, or that the Spratly accord
will lead to it desisting from "salami tactics" - taking the islands bit by
bit. Equally important is that these agreements have forced Prime Minister
Junichiro Koizumi's government in Japan to offer its own version of a free
trade treaty with Southeast Asian states to stave off the Chinese challenge
and to regenerate Japan's stagnant economy. No longer does the Asian
international economy resemble the Japanese model of the flying geese where
Japan was the leading goose. Rather this menagerie increasingly resembles a
struggle for supremacy between some tiger-like animals, conducted only
partly in the open but no less brutal or consequential for that. Thus China,
which controls the headwaters of the Mekong River, is already using its
power to influence political outcomes in countries that depend on the river,
like Laos and Cambodia.

Similar trends are visible in China's unremitting efforts to forge a
relationship of Taiwanese economic dependency on the mainland. Offering
investment opportunities to Taiwanese businesses and attempting to use those
opportunities to co-opt Taiwanese businesspeople, coupled with increasing
efforts to invest in Taiwan itself, highlight the latest phase of China's
efforts to convert economic power into lasting strategic advantage. These
are not the only places where such tactics are used either. In Russia
proper, Chinese business communities have already attempted to influence
local elections and we can also expect the demonstration of Chinese economic
power in Central Asia, to match China's first ever projection of military
power abroad under treaty as in the recent joint maneuvers with Kyrgyzstan.

China's burgeoning economic power also is increasingly translated into
military power through its greatly increased military spending, efforts to
develop a thoroughly competitive domestic arms industry, and a move to a
high-tech base emphasizing space, information technology, missiles, and the
like.

Although China's omnidirectional diplomacy continues and relations with
Washington have improved, the trend toward bipolarity is reemerging, with
China a much stronger and tougher economic and military player, even if it
is still under most observers' radar screens. We can now see the shadow or
outlines of the consequences of China's rising economic power being deployed
or made manifest. More to the point, Asian governments can see it also, and
this vision is already producing some uncomfortable adjustments to the new
reality.

Even as the war on terrorism brings Washington and Beijing together it is
likely that we will see more of this subterranean struggle going on. But
ultimately the outcome of the present and forthcoming maneuvers on both
sides may turn out to be at least as consequential as the war on terrorism
if not more so. The already discernible bipolar contest between Washington
and Beijing may not and need not end in violence, but even so it will not be
pretty.

Professor Stephen Blank, Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College,
Carlisle Barracks (the views expressed do not represent those of the US
Army, Defense Department or the US government.)