US-China showdown looming

By S.P.SETH

China is no longer squeamish about throwing its weight around. It even seems willing to take on the United States to protect/promote its perceived national interests. And since its core national interests are expanding all the time, the US has a serious security problem on its hands. Which explains the rapid deterioration in their relations.

The dive in US-China relations started with Washington’s decision early in the year to sell defensive weapons to Taiwan. China responded by cutting off defense talks with the United States.

Why is China so hypersensitive to such weapons’ sales when the Ma Ying-jeou administration in Taiwan has been falling over backward to please Beijing? Because China simply wants to overwhelm Taiwan with its superior political and military reach, leaving it with no option but to do China’s bidding.

Only with US arms supplies and commitment, Taipei might be able to counter/deter China’s political and military plans to incorporate Taiwan.

It is a bizarre situation that even when relations between China and Taiwan are the most peaceful it has ever been, the former is still reportedly deploying between 1050 and 1150 short-range ballistic missiles targeting Taiwan. The so-called mother country (mainland China) is prepared to devastate Taiwan to have its own way.

The US worry over China’s hawkish posture is reflected in the Pentagon’s annual report on its expanding military capability. According to the report, China is developing a “carrier killer” anti-ship ballistic missile; it has “the most active land-based ballistic missile and cruise missile program in the world”; it also has “one of the world’s largest forces of surface-to-air missiles”, as well as nuclear-powered submarines.

China is also said to be pouring money into space warfare systems and cyber-warfare capabilities. All in all it is developing an well-rounded military force to project and exercise power way beyond its coastline.

Indeed, there is a certain correlation between its growing economy and military build up. China is reported to have overtaken Japan as the world’s second largest economy (after the United States) based on the second quarter growth figures; though, in terms of per capita income, China is still way behind.

What it means is that China is feeling increasingly confident about its strength, especially when the US’ military power is over-stretched and its economy is struggling to recover. It would seem that China has concluded that the present is the right time to challenge US primacy in the region.

China’s confidence (misplaced or otherwise) is reflected in its strong reaction to the recent joint US-South Korean naval exercises against the backdrop of Pyongyang’s sinking of a South Korean warship.

A foreign ministry spokesman said at the time that China “firmly” opposed any foreign warships or aircraft conducting activities that undermined China’s security in the Yellow Sea and China’s coastal waters.

At about the same time, Pyongyang threatened US with “physical response” if it went ahead with new sanctions. Its official mouthpiece, Rodong Sinmun, was even more colorful in its warning. It said, “If the US provokes another war, it will only be corpses and graves that it will be presented with.”

Beijing might not be as blunt as Pyongyang, but the intent is clear. Which is that it will not take lying down the activities of the US navy in, what it regards as, its waters.

Rear Admiral Yang Yi, of the National Defense University, told an Australian journalist based in Beijing that, “It is some kind of challenge and humiliation to China’s national interest and the feelings of the Chinese people”, when the US decides to “hold this kind of military drill” in its coastal waters.

South China Sea is emerging as another problem area. In the 1990s, China passed domestic legislation proclaiming sovereignty over South China Sea. However, a number of other regional countries have competing claims to islands in these waters.

Under a 2002 proposal China had agreed to resolve these issues peacefully through diplomacy. But that is no longer the case because China has declared South China Sea as its “core national interest” and hence beyond any negotiation.

In other words, China might undertake to restrict or control, in its “national interest”, the passage of foreign ships through this important highway. For instance, one-third of all commercial shipping in the world is said to pass through these waters.

In a way China is challenging the dominance of the US navy on grounds of its national security. With the overhang of the “century of humiliation”, China’s rage over the activities of the American navy is reflected in this recent comment (reported in the Economist): “A retired Chinese admiral likened the American navy to a man with a criminal record ‘wandering just outside the gate of a family home.’’’

In other words, trouble is brewing in Asia-Pacific region, with China ramming up the pressure on the United States to force it out of the region as a dominant power.

There is a strong belief among many Chinese that it is their destiny to once again become the centre of power. As a retired general, Xu Guangyu, recently told South China Morning Post: “China’s long absence from its exclusive economic waters over the past decades was an abnormal historical accident and now it is just advancing to normal operations.”

China seems engaged in a concerted campaign to whip up national hysteria, spearheaded by serving and retired generals. Major General Luo Yuan of the Academy of Military Sciences, for instance, recently threatened to use the US aircraft carrier in the exercises as a “live target”.

He has also suggested the withdrawal of US Treasury bonds to destabilize US economy.

The US is obviously concerned. To quote Admiral Robert Willard of the US Pacific Command, “ …of particular concern is that elements of China’s military modernization appear designed to challenge our freedom of action in the region.”

How will the United States respond to it? Obviously, it is not itching to pick up a fight. But, over time, the choice will be to either recede or confront China.

China appears supremely confident of reaching the top. The US, on the other hand, is keen to accommodate China as a strategic partner but without much success. China has its own independent agenda.

One doesn’t need to be a strategic genius to opine that the US-Chinese strategic rivalry is heading toward a showdown of some sort over a period of time. Its scope and intensity, of course, will depend on a host of factors that might emerge with time.