The Hindu : The China factor

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jul 30, 2002

Opinion

Opinion - Leader Page Articles

The China factor

By Pran Chopra

China can undermine the basis upon which rests the view... that the America and Russia "strategic partnership" has given a permanent new shape to the architecture of global diplomacy.

ON JULY 12 this year the Pentagon gave the American Congress "a new assessment" of the situation regarding Taiwan. It reports that China, which has been acquiring Russian-made submarines, has stepped up its threat to the island and to the American forces that might be sent to defend it. The assessment comes in response to China's assertion that the sale of American arms to Taiwan threatens the stability of the region and interferes in the internal affairs of China.

Simultaneously, The Washington Post has reported that a bi-partisan Congressional body, the U.S.-China Security Review Commission has nearly unanimously (11-1) demanded "a tougher China policy" by America because, it says, China has become "one of the world's leading sources of missile related technology and nuclear materials for terrorist sponsoring nations". And because China is making "dramatic economic and strategic advances" which can "undermine the U.S. defence industrial base".

A report in The New York Times goes further. It says China not only threatens Taiwan but also Japan and Thailand. In a report of its own, The International Herald Tribune says the Congressional Review sees "an increasing threat to U.S. security interests" and urges the U.S. to shift the focus of its attention from the Middle East and Central Asia to the Western Pacific.

China can undermine the basis upon which rests the view energetically propagated by the U.S. President, George W. Bush, that the America and Russia "strategic partnership" has given a permanent new shape to the architecture of global diplomacy.

Proof of this "partnership" is presented in the form of two exhibits. First, the main output of the chain of recent summits between Mr. Bush and the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, are the two documents signed by them in Moscow on May 24 — the "Declaration of New Strategic Relations Between U.S. and Russia", and the "Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty". Second, the agreements reached elsewhere in Europe whereby NATO gets a smooth passage into Eastern Europe and Russia into the NATO power structure. But there are flaws in both exhibits; and both fail a reality check.

The Offensive Reductions Treaty merely papers over two basic facts. America and Russia have only agreed to disagree on the four most important aspects of the new nuclear equation between them. First, the ABM: America has insisted on abrogating the ABM despite Russian resistance. Second, NMD: America is determined to carry out the project. Russia replies that it has the means to nullify it. Third, the surplus warheads: Russia demands that they be destroyed. America agrees only to store them away. Fourth, the post-reductions world: Mr. Bush says it is safer now. Others believe Russia and America will retain enough warheads to destroy the world many times over.

Regarding NATO, it has indeed railroaded into Eastern Europe. But less because of any "partnership" than because, playing the cleverest games any Russian has played since the death of Stalin, Mr. Putin has put on a smiling face while swallowing pills which he knows are only being coated. His real feelings steamed out of a crack very recently when he described the European Union's attitude on Kaliningrad as worse than towards Russia during the Cold War.

The new global architecture also has a problem: it is running out of cement while it is incomplete as yet. It was put together when the powerful images of the twin towers of the World Trade Center collapsing in New York were still fresh in the minds of all people, and so they agreed readily that this must not be allowed to happen again. But that is changing. In the first place, a few invisible faces lost in some formidable mountains in a little known country do not have the same evocative power as the New York drama.

In the second place even the closest allies of America in the war against terrorism, West European countries for example, particularly France, are deeply disturbed now by some American ideas about "rogue" states and about eliminating some leaders such as Saddam Hussein in the name of ending terrorism. If America goes ahead with any of that, many pieces of this architecture will fall off, and it is hard to tell what ghosts will emerge from the rubble, particularly in the Middle East.

Worse, the design of the architecture is also incomplete. Far from being comprehensive, the "Declaration of the New Strategic Relationship" says little about Asia, even less about the Asia-Pacific and nothing about China, which is the biggest ground reality after the military muscle of America. If this reality is mishandled, even the partnership between Mr. Bush and Mr. Putin will be in jeopardy because it will then face some very difficult questions. Unfortunately, its mishandling has been made more likely by the Pentagon's "new assessment" and the Review Commission's demand for a tougher policy towards China. They have put China back in the role of a challenger rather than as a partner, thus going against the grain of a widespread preference in Europe.

China has made it as plain as it can be that it will never accept separation of Taiwan as an independent entity, and if necessary it will use force to prevent that. America has made it plain on the other hand that it will use force if necessary to prevent the use of force against the island's independence. Non-violent unification of the island with the mainland will also become acceptable to America only if it takes place in a mode acceptable to it.

In such a situation, how far will Russia go, either with America or with China? Can it persuade China to foreswear forever the use of force against independence of Taiwan? Alternatively, and whether with or without American support, can it prevent China by force from using force against Taiwan? Or can it persuade America not to use force against China whatever China might do about Taiwan? Can it join China in preventing the use of force by America against a bid by China to enforce unification on Taiwan?

What will any of these possibilities do to the "New Strategic Relations Between the U.S. and Russia" proclaimed in Moscow on May 24? Incomplete as this structure is already in the absence of Asia, and of China in particular, will it stand at all if cracks develop in the relations between the U.S. and Russia either about China or about what the war against terrorism should mean?

Or can this structure be redesigned, and thus completed, to include another which was proclaimed only ten days later, on June 4, in the Almaty Act by CICA? This Conference on Confidence Building Measures in Asia, proposed by the largest Central Asian country, Kazakhstan, supported by the two largest Asian countries, China and India, piloted by one of the largest countries in the world, Russia, was the most inclusive and the most significant Asian gathering held so far, barring perhaps only the Asian Relations Conference held in Delhi in 1947. If that was a tombstone marking the end of colonialism in Asia, the Almaty conference could mark the place of Asia in the emerging world in which Russia and America at last become partners with China.

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