The Chinese dragon bares its teeth

By Sushil Seth

In the year just passed, China loudly, if not rudely, declared its supremacy of the Asia-Pacific region. In March, for instance, it asserted its sovereignty over South China Sea by declaring it an area of “core national interest” on par with Tibet and Taiwan.

In this way Beijing simply brushed aside the claims of other regional countries to islands in these waters.

Indeed, a Chinese scientific submarine planted a Chinese flag deep down on the floor of the ocean to announce to all and sundry that it was China’s sea.

According to Professor Zhao Junhai, a key designer of the submarine, “It [planting the flag] might provoke some countries, but we’ll be all right.” In any case, he said, “The South China Sea belongs to China. Let’s see who dares to challenge that.”

China, therefore, overrode its own commitment to resolve the sovereignty issue peacefully and through diplomacy with its neighbors. To emphasize Beijing’s seriousness, Chinese ships reportedly seized dozens of Vietnamese fishing boats and arrested their crews.

Some months later, in September, China threatened Japan with reprisals when the Japanese coast guard arrested the captain of a Chinese fishing trawler after it collided with two Japanese ships around Senkaku Islands, administered by Japan but also claimed by Beijing and Taiwan as Diaoyu Islands.

It stopped export of rare earth metals to Japan, crucial for high-end electronic products. And it sought apology and compensation that Japan refused. But Japan caved in by releasing the captain of the Chinese fishing trawler when it had earlier announced that he would be put on trial.

The point is that through these pronouncements China was announcing to the world that it was the new boss around the region.

China was also furious with the US-South Korean naval exercises in the Yellow Sea, regarding it as an unwarranted intrusion into what it, more or less, regards as its own waters or regional sphere of influence.

In other words, through its actions and words, China is proclaiming its own version of the Monroe Doctrine for the 21 century.

Of course, this will be contested as it is creating a rethink in the region and bringing some of China’s neighbors into closer political and military ties with the United States. But that is a different story.

The question then is: why did China choose 2010 as the year to announce from the housetop, as if, that it is the master of the Asia-Pacific region.

An important reason is the psychological boost that it got from the sad state of Western economies in the wake of the global financial crisis.

Even though China was badly affected initially with many millions workers laid off in its export industries, it retrieved the situation with nearly $600 billion stimulus injection into its economy.

At the same time, its export sector too recovered rather well. The trade surplus with the US continued to increase around $200 billion a year.

Which doesn’t mean that China’s economy is without serious problems, but that is a story by itself.

Second: With the US economy in trouble and its military overstretched in Afghanistan and Iraq, China under-estimated the US resolve and capacity to hang in the Asia-Pacific region.

It would seem that the US determination to stand by its South Korean ally against Pyongyang’s provocations was a bit of a shock to Beijing, including sending aircraft carriers into the Yellow Sea to take part in their joint naval exercises. And the US did this against Beijing’s warning.

Third: China didn’t expect that its Asian neighbors would be unduly upset by its proclamation of a new Chinese version of the Monroe doctrine; believing that, by now, they were already attuned to Beijing’s regional primacy.

But it had the opposite effect of bringing countries like Japan, Vietnam, India, Indonesia, Singapore and others closer to the United States. In other words, China overestimated its regional role.

Xu Guangyu, a retired general reportedly put it, “We kept silent about territory disputes with our neighbors in the past [in South China Sea and elsewhere] because our navy was incapable of defending economic zones, but now the navy is able to carry out its task.”

Of course, these disputes had existed and China had pledged to solve them peacefully. But as Wang Hanling, a maritime expert, said, reflecting China’s new confidence, “Even if they [South East Asian neighbors] succeed in joining together [against China] they are still not strong enough to defeat China.”

Fourth: With its growing economy, China’s military budget, over the years, has grown annually by double-digit figures, now around $100 billion. Which is enabling China to build up a powerful military machine both for offensive operations, as well as creating a powerful deterrent against US naval supremacy.

According to recent reports, China is developing missiles to sink US aircraft carriers.

And in the tradition of imperial powers, China is building a strong navy to protect its economic interests across the world.

According to Rear Admiral Zhang Huachen, deputy commander of China’s East Sea Fleet, “With the expansion of the country’s economic interests, the navy wants to better protect the country’s transportation routes and the safety of our major sea-lanes.” (Including by purporting to annex the South China Sea.)

If China’s purpose in 2010 was to formally assert its regional supremacy, it hasn’t succeeded all that well.

Over the last few years, China sought to impress the world, especially its neighbors, that its rise would be peaceful and that it will never aspire for hegemony. But what it did and said in 2010 didn’t square with “peaceful rise”.

There is disturbing arrogance emanating from Chinese establishment. An example of this is recounted by the Sydney Morning Herald’s Beijing correspondent, John Garnaut, of an interview he did last month with the Global Times’ [a mouthpiece of the ruling establishment] editor, Hu Xijin.

Garnaut writes, “ In our interview he [Hu] didn’t seem to care whether his [verbal] missiles were aimed at me personally or my profession, my country or the wider Western world.”

For Hu, Australia was too insignificant to lecture China. Because: “You are driving a cart and we are driving a truck.”

Garnaut added, “Ditto for Japan, given its entire stock of highways was no greater than China could build in a single year. And the New York Times was ‘full of lies.’ ’’

In other words, 2010 was an ugly year for the region, with the Chinese dragon baring its teeth, indicating turbulent times ahead.