Will there be a US-China naval showdown?

By S.P.SETH

If one were to go by the apparent bonhomie in US-China relations since the Obama administration took over, it would be fair to surmise that there has been a significant shift in the US policy toward China in favor of not only cooperative but, indeed, collaborative relationship.

But this is only part of the story, as we shall see later.

An important change on the US side was detected during Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s China visit. She asserted that the US’ concerns about China’s human rights record would not derail progress in other areas.

Beijing greatly appreciated this.

China was also encouraged and felt proud by the inclusion of two ethnic Chinese in the Obama cabinet, with Steven Chu as Secretary of Energy and Gary Locke as Secretary of Commerce.

This is a double-edged sword.

Beijing believes that the Chinese ethnicity and heritage should transcend all other loyalties of overseas Chinese to serve the cause of the old motherland and its communist political order.

This was bluntly articulated by Wang Zhaoguo, a Politburo member and a former head of China’s United Front Department, at the Eighth National Congress of Retuned Overseas Chinese and their Relatives.

He reportedly congratulated them for using “blood lineage”, “home-town feeling” and “professional linkages” to achieve “outstanding results in uniting the broad masses of overseas Chinese.”

Obviously, Steven Chu and Gary Locke are outstanding US citizens and their patriotism is beyond question. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be where they are today in the United States.

But such calls on overseas Chinese to put their ethnicity above their citizenship can be counterproductive in the United States, or anywhere else where ethnic Chinese are living by raising the specter of a “fifth column.”

However, the Sino-US bilateral relationship presently looks like going through a honeymoon period of sorts. It was dramatically demonstrated when over 250 high level Chinese officials descended on Washington in late July for their annual Strategic and Economic Dialogue.

In his opening speech to the assembled Chinese officials, President Obama highlighted the importance of the relationship when he said, “The relationship between the United States and China will shape the 21^st century.”

The US and China are seen in some quarters as the duumvirate (G-2) in the matter of managing the world economy.

Emphasizing convergence in their respective responses to the global economic crisis, Jim Steinberg, deputy secretary of state, has said, “I think it’s demonstrated that there is no decoupling, that we need each other.”

During her China visit, Secretary of State Hilary Clinton expressed her appreciation for China’s investments in US treasury bills and bonds.

China is now said to be the country’s biggest foreign creditor.

But what has happened so far is simply the change in atmospherics, without any substantive improvement.

Take, for instance, the question of trade imbalance, with China stockpiling billions of surplus US dollars.

During the presidential election, candidate Obama accused China of manipulating its currency to gain export advantage, costing jobs in the United States.

In the new atmosphere, the United States no longer uses the word “manipulation” of currency. But they still maintain that the yuan is undervalued.

In other words, the huge trade imbalance and the resultant billions of dollars in currency reserves that China continues to accumulate, still remains a serious issue.

And then there is the climate change question. While China is making a lot of noise on controlling carbon emissions in the future, it is not willing to accept binding cuts.

This could develop into a very serious issue if the carbon emission control legislation, being developed in the Senate, were to impose tariffs on products from countries, like China, that do not accept binding cuts to their emissions.

However, the US seems keen to have China’s support on some contentious international issues. For instance, the United States is hoping to have China on board with new sanctions on Iran, if it were necessary.

While China supports nuclear non-proliferation and Iran’s inclusion in it, it is not keen on UN Security-Council mandated sanctions.

Indeed, China hosted an official visit from Iran’s Vice-President, Mohammad Reza Rahimi, only a few days ago. The Chinese news agency Xinhua reported Premier Wen Jiabao enthusiastically commending the progress in Sino-Iranian relations at a meeting with the visiting official guest.

He said, “The Sino-Iranian relationship has witnessed rapid development, as the two countries’ leaders have had frequent exchanges, and cooperation in trade and energy has widened and deepened.”

Even with existing sanctions in place, two-way trade between China and Iran rose 35 per cent last year, to $27 billion.

And in the last five years, China has reportedly signed about $120 billion worth of oil deals with Iran.

In light of such high stakes in economic ties with Iran, it doesn’t look like that China will come on board with the United States in any significant way, if required.

North Korea, though, has increasingly become an area of shared concern. Washington has come to rely heavily on China to persuade or coerce Pyongyang into giving up its nuclear ambitions.

Despite Wen Jiabao’s recent visit to North Korea, the latter remains obdurate. But Beijing is not willing to go all the way to bring down the regime in Pyongyang for fear of a flood of refugees into China.

China’s political leverage in the hermit kingdom is limited, as it doesn’t seem to have access to any alternative political centre, if it exists at all.

Therefore, the US reliance on China in regard to North Korea seems as unproductive as any other available course.

Even though the political rhetoric on China is sounding quite positive, there is considerable concern on its rising military power.

Lately, there has been a panic of sorts in the US military circles over China’s development of a ‘killer missile’, believed to have “the range of a ballistic missile and the accuracy of a cruise missile” , to target US aircraft carriers.

According to Randy Schriver, a US military analyst, “The Chinese would have the ability to hold our carriers at a great distance—it almost makes the aircraft carriers obsolete.”

Vice-Admiral John Bird, commander of the Seventh Fleet, is worried too, though he doesn’t think that China’s ‘killer missile’ will make aircraft carriers obsolete.

He said, in Sydney that, “Challenged with that threat you might adjust your approach, but that is a far cry from making carriers obsolete.”

But John Bird does think that China’s naval capability “has grown much faster than any of our predictions.” And many of these new capabilities “are intended to counter” the US navy, with weapons systems “targeted to our carriers and larger ships.”

Referring to some provocative naval incidents in the past few months in the South China Sea, he said, “They [China] have made it clear they consider the South China Sea to be more or less theirs.”

And he is quite right because China passed legislation in the nineties to assert that claim.

South China Sea is, therefore, likely to increasingly become the testing ground of China’s maritime power.

Basically, according to Vice-Admiral John Bird, “…the Chinese would like to see less of the Seventh Fleet in this part of the world.”

He suggested that China aimed ultimately to displace the US in the Pacific.

In other words, despite all the recent political bonhomie between the US and China, the inherent logic of an eventual naval showdown at some point in the future is hard to ignore.