US-China in Asia-Pacific

By S P SETH

The US President Barack Obama’s just concluded Asia-Pacific trip is a strong signal that the United States will re-energize its engagement with the region. It is important to remember that the US has been the dominant economic and military presence in the region since after WW11. With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the US sway was even more complete. China had started as an emerging economy in the eighties under Deng Xiaoping’s leadership after the disasters of the Cultural Revolution. And it depended on the US and its Western allies for entry into their markets and into global trade forums like the World Trade Organization.

However, early in the present century, the US invaded Afghanistan and Iraq as part of its global war on terror, where it is still stuck, especially in Afghanistan. With the US distracted and increasingly mired in these two wars, China was able to raise its regional profile backed by impressive economic growth, and a steady rise of its military power. There was a growing feeling in the Asia-Pacific region that the United States might not stick around for long, with China eventually replacing it as the dominant power. The global financial crisis in 2008 and 2009, which the United States and Europe are still struggling with, tended to further increase this pessimism about the United States.

It is against this backdrop of China’s rise, and its impact on the region, that President Obama forcefully declared during a daylong visit to Australia that the US is an Asia-Pacific power and it is here to stay. As the US unwinds its military involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq, it is shifting its focus to Asia-Pacific where the history will be made in this century. Obama said, “The United States has been, and always will be a Pacific nation.” Therefore: “Let there be no doubt. In the Asia-Pacific in the 21^st century, the United States of America is all in.”

The choice of Australia to make this declaration is important as both the US and Australia are further expanding their military and strategic alliance against the backdrop of a perceived threat from a rising China. The US-Australia military alliance under the ANZUS treaty is being beefed up with the stationing of US marines in the country’s north, and with the use of naval and air facilities in the country’s west. Both the US and Australia deny that their expanded military relationship is directed against China, but there is very little doubt that China is seen as a likely threat.

President Obama said in Canberra that, “The United States will play a larger and long-term role in shaping this region and its future, by upholding core principles [of human rights] and in close partnership with allies and friends. “ In other words, China is forewarned that the US will not quietly fade away, and that it will not have an easy time with its neighbors unhappy with maritime disputes with China. These smaller countries are being assured that they can bank on the United States to stand their ground. At the same time, the United States will not let up China on violation of human rights and the promotion of democracy.

The assertion of China’s sovereignty over South China Sea is likely to become a regional flashpoint at some point. China’s smaller neighbors, like the Philippines and Vietnam, have competing claims to the Spratly group of islands in South China Sea, that have caused some naval incidents blamed on China. The US and the Philippines are taking steps to boost their defense relationship. The US and Vietnam are also forging closer political and military ties, and there has even been talk of a former US military base (of the Vietnam war time) being revived. The US and Japan are already close military allies, with their alliance further beefed up in the last few years. China and Japan too have competing maritime claims in East China Sea, leading to naval skirmishes not long ago. At the same time, the Korean peninsula remains a live wire with North Korea unwilling to give up its nuclear capability. Though China is opposed to North Korea’s nuclear ambitions, it is not inclined to team up with the US and Japan, among others, to turn on Pyongyang.

And Taiwan, of course, remains a live issue, with China claiming it as its own territory with the right to take military action if it were to declare independence. The US acknowledges China’s sovereignty over Taiwan, but is against the use of force by China to achieve it. At the same time, China’s sovereignty claim over South China Sea is creating nervousness that it might interfere with open sea-lanes. All in all; Asia-Pacific is potentially a time bomb with all these claims and counter-claims.

The South China Sea featured in the just-concluded East Asia Summit in Bali against China’s wishes, and is likely to become part of its agenda in subsequent summits. Beijing would prefer its discussion at a bilateral level between the concerned countries with competing claims. It regards the US as an external force that shouldn’t have anything to do with regional disputes. The US, of course, is determined to raise its Pacific profile as the one that is and has always been a Pacific power. In other words, the US decision to make its Asia-Pacific policy a priority is likely to further complicate US-China relations.

And Australia is right in the middle of it, being a willing, if not enthusiastic, partner of the US’ policy to contain China, if necessary. China’s People’s Daily warned Australia that it cannot play both sides of the coin hoping to maximize its economic gains from a booming trade relationship with China while siding with the United States strategically. It said, “Australia surely cannot play China for a fool. It is impossible for China to remain detached, no matter what Australia does to undermine its security.”

More importantly, though, Barack Obama’s revitalized Asia policy goes beyond Australia. In a way, it tells Beijing that gloves are off and the United States will make a determined stand in the Asia-Pacific region to stave off China’s push into the region and to push out the United States. And for this, the US will foster new and reinforce old military and strategic ties with regional countries with maritime disputes with China or otherwise keen for a countervailing force to China’s rise. How will this US-China competition for power will unfold is anybody’s guess? One thing is for certain. Which is that the Pacific Ocean is unlikely to live its pacific name with the new unfolding power game.

Note: This article was first published in the Daily Times.

Will China Lend Europe a Helping Hand?

By S.P.SETH

While Europe is undergoing economic self-flagellation, China appears to be sitting pretty with its foreign currency reserves of over $3 trillion. Despite approaches from European leaders for China’s help, Beijing is acting rather coyly. Apparently, the Chinese would like Europe to approach them formally and, in the process, make China the crucial player in the European salvage operations.

Besides Europe, even the US is not too great a shape economically. In other words, the entire global financial architecture needs overhauling. And China has deep pockets in terms of its foreign exchange reserves to be able to play a leading role. And in the process demand a determining role in the global financial institutions, like IMF.

It would also like the Western countries to lay off China in terms of its currency valuation, market status of its economy, building up protectionist barriers against Chinese exports and so on. To give one example: Premier Wen Jiabao reportedly said in September that, “We have on many occasions expressed our readiness to extend a helping hand, and our readiness to increase our investment in Europe.”

He added that it would be good “if they should recognize China’s full market-economy status” before the 2016 deadline set by the World Trade Organization. This is the way, he maintained: “To show one’s sincerity on this issue a few years ahead of that time the way a friend treats another friend.”

In other words, China will exact a price ranging from re-arranging the global financial architecture to political and strategic concessions as things evolve.

The point, though, is it is in China’s economic interest to help Europe because, first, it is China’s major export market and, second, it has a big chunk of its foreign exchange reserves in euro. And if Europe slows down or falls into recession (as might happen with the US too), its repercussions on China’s employment situation will only add to social instability.

For instance, when global financial crisis hit in 2008 and 2009, China experienced a major slump in its export industry with millions of workers laid off. And there were fears that the returning rural migrants could create an explosive economic and social situation back in the countryside.

China’s massive stimulation package saved the situation in the short term, but resultant inflationary pressures, over-investment, developing asset bubbles, sectoral imbalances, new unaffordable apartment buildings with no occupants, increased internal debt--- all these anomalies have still to work their way out.

China is in the advantageous position of having large foreign currency reserves. But it also has a large internal debt estimated anywhere between 100 and 200 per cent, when one includes the borrowings of local, regional and other government instrumentalities. And it is creating serious distortions in the country’s economy.

To take one example: The interest on saving deposits in China is around 2 percent while inflation is around 6 per cent, which is eroding people’s savings. This, in turn, has created a black market in lending with usurious interest rates.

In other words, there is something about China’s economy that just doesn’t add up. As Larry Elliott writes in the Guardian: “Historically, an uncontrollable rise in credit has been the best indicator of a financial crisis, as the West knows from recent experience.” And he posits the question: “Can China buck this trend?”

He believes: “There is exaggerated confidence in the ability of the People’s Bank of China to finesse a soft landing, just as there was in the ability of the ‘maestro’ Alan Greenspan to prevent the American bubble popping a decade ago.” It looks like the Chinese situation has the “booming echoes of the [US] subprime crisis.”

The question arises: how healthy is China’s economy? The bullish view is that China’s economic growth (even if at a slightly lower rate than the usual of around 10 per cent) has a long way to go driven by the country’s urbanization and industrialization. Therefore, any slowdown will be short term.

The problem with this view is that it doesn’t take into account social and political factors that are complicating China’s picture. At some point, there is a need to interlink the country’s economic growth with social and economic equity and political reform.

China is said to be about 50 percent urbanized and in the next decade or two there is talk of taking it close 100 per cent. One shudders to think of a billion people living in a dog-eat-dog culture of greed, not to talk of the resultant pressure on social and related infrastructure.

We are talking here of a society with a long historical and cultural tradition of close family and clan traditions that have provided succor through times good and bad. And their displacement from such a close and known environment to an urban setting, putting them in the midst of an unfamiliar and, sometimes, hostile surroundings, is likely to create severe pressures and social breakdowns.

And even its rosy economic picture appears dubious at times. WikiLeaks reportedly revealed a conversation in 2007 between the then US ambassador to China and Li Keqiang (likely to be China’s next Premier), then governor of China’s Liaoning province, in which Li told the US ambassador that China’s gross domestic product number was “man-made” and “therefore unreliable.”

In other words, China’s economic statistics might be dodgy. If that is true, it changes the entire picture requiring a re-evaluation of what is and what is not true about China’s economy.

But that doesn’t detract from China’s capacity, based on its foreign reserves, to lend Europe a helping hand at its time of crisis. Apart from its own economic advantage of maintaining an important export market and the value of its euro holdings, it is an important opening for China to create a new strategic space in a fast changing Europe.

China’s Moral Vacuum

By S.P.SETH

Many Chinese and people around the world were aghast to see video pictures of a two-year old run over twice by a van, and then again by another van, when passers-by simply went about their business ignoring the grisly sight. At the end, a kindly old scavenging woman picked up the little one but to no avail as she died in the hospital.

The questions have been asked and answers demanded about such callousness dramatized in this incident, and others less spectacular but equally disturbing cases of indifference often displayed in modern day China.

One explanation, of course, is that the country’s obsession with growth and greed is making everyone selfish and self-centered. China is growing in a moral vacuum detached from its traditions and humanitarian values. There is no overriding vision of a compassionate society that China might become.

Obviously, for this to happen, the government and the system have to set the example and that, unfortunately is missing. The people of China find in their day-today-living that the system largely exists and serves those who hold power and exercise it in an uncaring, corrupt and venal way. It is becoming a dog-eat-dog society.

There are no role models now, and the corrupt political-business nexus rules the roost.

With political transition next year to a new generation of leadership, there is need for some serious introspection and debate about where the country is going. And this should be thrown open to wider participation.

But the CPC will resist any such obvious course for fear that it might get out of hand, threatening its hold on power. However, to any dispassionate observer, the problems are well known, and were spelled out in China’s Charter 08, signed by many Chinese seeking a change of course for their country.

According to the Charter, “The political reality, which is plain for anyone to see, is that China has many laws but no rule of law; it has a constitution but no constitutional government. The ruling elite continues to cling to its authoritarian power and fights off any move towards political change.”

The result: “The stultifying results are endemic official corruption, an undermining of the rule of law, weak human rights, decay in public ethics, crony capitalism, growing inequality between the wealthy and poor, pillage of the natural environment as well as of human and historical environments, and the exacerbation of a long list of social conflicts, especially in recent times….”

What should be done: “The decline of the current system has reached the point where change is no longer optional.”

But try telling this to the those in power and you will be thrown into dungeon as happened with the prominent dissident Liu Xiaobo, the leading light of Charter 08 movement, now serving 11 years in prison for seeking a new democratic direction for his country.

These dissidents are not self-serving politicians. They genuinely and honestly believe that China is on the wrong track. Indeed, even some of the children of the post-Cultural revolution ruling elite have started muttering such criticism.

The Sydney Morning Herald’s Beijing correspondent, John Garnaut, recently reported such criticism at a gathering at the Hall of Many Sages. One such participant, Ms Ma Xiaoli, with a pedigree of close relationship with other prominent Party families, reportedly said, “The Communist Party is like a surgeon who has cancer. It can’t remove the tumor by itself, it needs help from others, but without help it can’t survive for long.”

Ye Xiangzhen, daughter of Marshal Ye Jiangyang, said: “In today’s China we are facing tremendous challenges that range from the rapid decline of moral standards, to poisonous and genetically modified food, to rampant official corruption.”

Still another one, Lu De, told those gathered that the party and government officials spent a third of all government revenue on their own luxury cars, travel, healthcare, banquets and other perks. He added ironically, “And yet we still call it the Communist Party and socialism.”

Indeed, Ma Xiaoli unburdened herself with what might prove to be prophetic remarks: “In the 80s when the party faced criticism we defended it… In the 90s we sympathized with the critics but today we almost want to join them”

And significantly, according to Garnaut’s report in the Sydney Morning Herald, she went as far as to invoke the example of Taiwan’s Chiang Ching-quo who transformed dictatorship into a prosperous democracy.

Of course, these ‘princelings’ can say these things and get away with it because of their connections at the highest level of the party leadership.

But the point is that if they feel so frustrated with the existing state of affairs, one can’t avoid the conclusion that the Party is outliving its welcome (if they ever had it) with the people.

As Charter 08 says, “The decline of the current system has reached the point where change is no longer optional.”

But the Party seems determined to hang on until overthrown by the people, like they have done with their rulers in the Middle East.

But China’s rulers are further tightening the system to hopefully prolong their rule and the Communist Party’s monopoly on power forever. And to this end, among other repressive measures, they are turning their attention to social media like Sina Weibo, a Chinese version of Twitter.

It is reported that the Centrally Committee of the Communist Party has undertaken to “strengthen the guidance and administration of social internet services and instant communication tools [to ensure] orderly dissemination of information.”

And how will they do it? They propose to identify those who spread “false rumors” and make an example of them. Which means another coercive tool to virtually lock up anyone or everyone disseminating any kind of information that the Party finds unpalatable.

It is said that Sina Weibo has already hired 1000 people for this under pressure from the government.

Whether or not they can build an effective Great Firewall around social media, like they have already done generally with internet, is another thing because those who want to reach out will find creative ways to circumvent it.

But the Party leadership is petrified at the role of the social media in Arab Spring and increasingly in the Occupy Wall Street movement in the US and its versions elsewhere in the world.

It certainly is a terribly nervous Party constantly seeking to build flood levees to control anticipated floods of people’s frustration and anger.