US, Russia join Asia club in a blow to China

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http://www.spacewar.com/reports/US_Russia_join_Asia_club_in_a_blow_to_China_analysts_999.html

The United States and Russia will be formally welcomed into a 16-nation Asian bloc on Saturday, in what analysts say is a blow to Chinese attempts to diminish US influence in the region.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will be invited to join the East Asia Summit (EAS) when the group holds its annual summit in Hanoi on Saturday.

Their entry into the EAS, which elevates its diplomatic heft, comes despite Chinese attempts to promote another grouping -- which does not include the US -- as the region's premier forum for regional cooperation.

"China will be very uneasy", said John Lee, a China expert at Australia's Centre for Independent Studies think-tank.

"This all points to a significant blow to China's broader competitive strategy in Asia, which is designed to gradually ease America out of the region in the longer term," he said.

Established in 2005, the EAS is a forum for dialogue on strategic, political and economic issues involving the 10 ASEAN members as well as Australia, China, India, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand.

US membership "is part of the American strategic 'coming back' to Southeast Asia... to balance China's growing influence in Southeast Asia," said Li Mingjian from the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore.

Observers say China's increasingly assertive stance over issues including maritime territorial disputes may well have pushed its smaller neighbours into Washington's arms.

"Chinese diplomacy has been terrible over the past year," Lee said. "Consequently, Asian nations were more than eager to have the US join the EAS whereas there was reluctance in some parts beforehand."

Beijing claims all of the South China Sea including the Paracel and Spratly archipelagos, potentially resource-rich rocky outcrops which straddle strategic shipping lanes.

Taiwan, Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam also have whole or partial claims over the region.

While China favours a bilateral approach in dealing with individual claimants, other Asian nations and the US are pushing for a united stand which will give them more bargaining power.

Clinton angered China in July by wading into the South China Sea issue, saying that resolving disputes over the strategic area is "pivotal" to regional stability, and offering to negotiate a settlement amongst claimants.

Another territorial row has flared between China and Japan after the September arrest of a Chinese trawler captain near Japanese-administered islands, known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China.

The US and China are also in the midst of a currency spat.

Washington has long accused China of keeping the yuan artificially low, while Beijing says the Federal Reserve's loose monetary policy risks undermining emerging economies.

Clinton, in a speech on Asia-Pacific relations Thursday, downplayed suggestions the US is duelling with China for influence in the region.

"There are some in both countries who believe that China's interests and ours are fundamentally at odds. They apply a zero-sum calculation to our relationship. So whenever one of us succeeds, the other must fail," she said.

"But that is not our view," she said.

Beijing should embrace the chance to work alongside Washington in the EAS and accept its stabilising role in the region, said Carl Thayer, a Southeast Asia analyst at the Australian Defence Force Academy.

"The US presence keeps Japan from militarising and going nuclear and the US military lends stability to the Korean peninsula," he said.

Russia's admittance to the EAS club is much less controversial, with analysts saying its importance lies in energy exports and acting as a deterrent to Sino-American rivalry dominating the bloc.

Russia and the US will officially join the EAS at the next meeting in Indonesia in 2011, enabling US President Barack Obama and his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev to attend as full members that year.

Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa said Southeast Asia feels "quite comfortable and quite confident in our capacity to be able to be the equilibrium maker" and said the new membership was not aimed at China.

"Counterbalance and balance -- that's cold war mentality," he said. The gain of one is not at the loss of others. It is not meant to be containing anyone... China's rise is good for the region."
 

badguy2000

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it is not strange at all that the weak always welcome external powers as a counterweight against the powers inside.

however, Russia can just play a minor role in Asia.
 

SHASH2K2

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China against the world I wonder who will win??
Almighty China offcourse. Entire world will bow down to Chinese technological and military might. They have largest army with best equipments . We may have to take help of aliens to defeat them.


:emot15:
 

Tshering22

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it is not strange at all that the weak always welcome external powers as a counterweight against the powers inside.

however, Russia can just play a minor role in Asia.
The "weak" nations as you call it are exactly doing that; now you cannot expect Vietnam, Philippines, Indonesia and Brunei to single-handedly fight you off. So a collective action is being taken. Take a look at the diplomatic blunders that have happened from your side in the last 2 years; Japan, southeast, Korea etc and as if this wasn't enough you had to meddle in our internal matter of Kashmir as well. What would you expect smaller ASEAN nations to do? Aggression isn't good you know.
 

badguy2000

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The "weak" nations as you call it are exactly doing that; now you cannot expect Vietnam, Philippines, Indonesia and Brunei to single-handedly fight you off. So a collective action is being taken. Take a look at the diplomatic blunders that have happened from your side in the last 2 years; Japan, southeast, Korea etc and as if this wasn't enough you had to meddle in our internal matter of Kashmir as well. What would you expect smaller ASEAN nations to do? Aggression isn't good you know.
yes ,what a frightening titman coalition! haha!
 

Yatharth Singh

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it is not strange at all that the weak always welcome external powers as a counterweight against the powers inside.

however, Russia can just play a minor role in Asia.
"Russia can just play a minor role in Asia."
This was I think the most childish comment I can read here.
Badguy this is not the Shanghai Exchange and everyone knows that from where all the 3rd world nations are getting weaponries in huge amount. Of course Russia isnt opening any front against anyone but from inside it is still the backbone of many developing countries. If we look carefully then Russia is doing much hard work during this peacetime to gain economic as well as military access all over the world including Indian Ocean and the Far East regions. Any major future event in Asia will include Russia whereas I doubt about the involvement of Uncle Sam in the matters of India, China as the policies of these nations are clear with US. US is only limited to West Asia (I dont disagree its attempts to interfere into East Asia but till now it has its influence limited to Taiwan whereas Russia is welcomed everywhere throughout Asia.
 

arya

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i think we should think about our self we have to make our force more strong and our economy more strong

we have to win our fight by our self no one will help us
 

RAM

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China's Fast Rise Leads Neighbors to Join Forces


HANOI, Vietnam — China's military expansion and assertive trade policies have set off jitters across Asia, prompting many of its neighbors to rekindle old alliances and cultivate new ones to better defend their interests against the rising superpower.A whirl of deal-making and diplomacy, from Tokyo to New Delhi, is giving the United States an opportunity to reassert itself in a region where its eclipse by China has been viewed as inevitable.President Obama's trip to the region this week, his most extensive as president, will take him to the area's big democracies, India, Indonesia, South Korea and Japan, skirting authoritarian China. Those countries and other neighbors, though with varying degrees of candor, have taken steps to blunt China's assertiveness in the region.


Mr. Obama and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India are expected to sign a landmark deal for American military transport aircraft and are discussing the possible sale of jet fighters, which would make the Pentagon a major defense partner of India for the first time. Japan and India are courting Southeast Asian nations with trade agreements and talk of a "circle of democracy." Vietnam has a rapidly warming rapport with its old foe, the United States, in large part because its old friend, China, makes broad territorial claims in the South China Sea.The deals and alliances are not intended to contain China. But they suggest a palpable shift in the diplomatic landscape, on vivid display as leaders from 18 countries gathered this weekend in Hanoi's sleek glass-and-steel convention center, not far from Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum, for a meeting suffused by tensions between China and its neighbors.


Most Asian countries, even as they argue that China will inevitably replace the United States as the top regional power, have grown concerned at how quickly that shift is occurring, and what China the superpower may look like.China's big trading partners are complaining more loudly that it intervenes too aggressively to keep its currency undervalued. Its recent restrictions on exports of crucial rare earths minerals, first to Japan and then to the United States and Europe, raised the prospect that it may use its dominant positions in some industries as a diplomatic and political weapon.And its rapid naval expansion, combined with a more strident defense of its claims to disputed territories far off its shores, has persuaded Japan, South Korea, Vietnam and Singapore to reaffirm their enthusiasm for the American security umbrella.


"The most common thing that Asian leaders have said to me in my travels over this last 20 months is, 'Thank you, we're so glad that you're playing an active role in Asia again,' " Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in Hawaii, opening a seven-country tour of Asia that includes a last-minute stop in China.Few of China's neighbors voice their concerns about the country publicly, but analysts and diplomats say they express wariness about the pace of China's military expansion and the stridency of its trade policies in private.


"Most of these countries have come to us and said, 'We're really worried about China,' " said Kenneth G. Lieberthal, a China adviser in the administration of President Bill Clinton who is now at the Brookings Institution.The Obama administration has been quick to capitalize on China's missteps. Where officials used to speak of China as the Asian economic giant, they now speak of India and China as twin giants. And they make clear which one they believe has a closer affinity to the United States."India and the United States have never mattered more to each other," Mrs. Clinton said. "As the world's two largest democracies, we are united by common interests and common values."


As Mr. Obama prepares to visits India in his first stop on his tour of Asian democracies, Mr. Singh, India's prime minister, will have just returned from his own grand tour — with both of them somewhat conspicuously, if at least partly coincidentally, circling China.None of this seems likely to lead to a cold war-style standoff. China is fully integrated into the global economy, and all of its neighbors are eager to deepen their ties with it. China has fought no wars since a border skirmish with Vietnam three decades ago, and it often emphasizes that it has no intention of projecting power through the use of force.


At the same time, fears that China has become more assertive as it has become richer are having real consequences around the region. India is promoting itself throughout the region as a counterweight to China; Japan is settling a dispute with the United States over a Marine air base; the Vietnamese are negotiating a deal to obtain civilian nuclear technology from the United States; and the Americans, who had largely ignored Asia as they waged wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, see an opportunity to come back in a big way.In July, for example, Mrs. Clinton reassured Vietnam, Indonesia, the Philippines and other countries by announcing that the United States would be willing to help resolve disputes between China and its neighbors over a string of strategically-important islands in the South China Sea.

China's foreign minister, Yang Jiechi, reacted furiously, accusing the United States of plotting against it, according to people briefed on the meeting. Mr. Yang went on to note that China was a big country, while staring pointedly at the foreign minister of tiny Singapore.Undaunted, Mrs. Clinton repeated the American pledge on the South China Sea in Hanoi on Saturday.China's rise as an authoritarian power has also revived a sense that democracies should stick together. K. Subrahmanyam, an influential strategic analyst in India, noted that half the world's people now live in democracies and that of the world's six biggest powers, only China has not accepted democracy.


"Today the problem is a rising China that is not democratic and is challenging for the No. 1 position in the world," he said.Indeed, how to deal with China seems to be an abiding preoccupation of Asia's leaders these days. In Japan, Prime Minister Naoto Kan and Mr. Singh discussed China's booming economy, military expansion and increased assertiveness on territorial disputes.


"Prime Minister Kan was keen to understand how India engages China," India's foreign secretary, Nirupama Rao, told the traveling press pool. "Our prime minister said it requires developing trust, close engagement and a lot of patience."Japan has just weathered a fierce war of words with China over its detention of a Chinese captain whose vessel collided with two Japanese patrol boats near disputed islands. India has watched nervously as China has started building ports in Sri Lanka and Pakistan, extending rail lines toward the border of Nepal, and otherwise seeking to expand its footprint in South Asia.


Mr. Singh's trip was part of his "Look East" policy, intended to broaden trade between India and the rest of Asia. He has repeatedly said it is not related to any frictions with China, but China is concerned. On Thursday, People's Daily, the Communist Party newspaper, ran an opinion article asking, "Does India's 'Look East' Policy Mean 'Look to Encircle China'?"
India's Defense Ministry has sought military contacts with a host of Asian nations while steadily expanding contacts and weapons procurements from the United States. The United States, American officials said, has conducted more exercises in recent years with India than with any other nation.
Inside China, some analysts say that the strengthening of American alliances around the Pacific rim need not come at the cost of its relationship with the United States. But they add that it will depend on how the Obama administration presents the strategy to China.


"What we have seen did raise the concern of many Chinese," said Da Wei, deputy director of the Institute of American Studies at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations. "When people believe the Obama administration is going to make efforts to contain China, to act against China, this change of perspective could have a negative effect."Other analysts say that China has reason to question American motives, given the intense surveillance of China conducted by the United States and the vast American military presence in Asia. On Friday, Mrs. Clinton stopped at an Air Force base in Guam, where she praised the troops.


"To a lot of Chinese, to P.L.A. people, it's very hard to understand why the United States moved half its military forces to the Asia-Pacific region," said Sun Zhe, director of the Center for U.S.-China Relations at Tsinghua University, using the acronym for the Chinese People's Liberation Army. "It's a serious threat and a potential threat."
Some Chinese analysts say the Western view of Beijing's aggression has been exaggerated by the news media in the United States, Japan and South Korea. China's policies toward its neighbors are basically unchanged, they say. To the extent that China's behavior is seen as more menacing, it reflects the insecurity and uncertainty of these smaller countries, they say.

"The Chinese perceived the Hanoi meeting as a gang attack on them," said Charles Freeman, director of China policy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "There's no question that they have miscalculated their own standing in the region."



http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/31/world/asia/31china.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&hp
 

Mustang

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it is not strange at all that the weak always welcome external powers as a counterweight against the powers inside.

however, Russia can just play a minor role in Asia.
Badguy...you have been brainwashed by your commie government. You guys should go Tienanmen square and move towards a democratic regime. All your neighbours and the rest of the world will be friendly to china. I am telling this seriously.

You guys need to shoot an email to your communist party and ask them to bring in democracy. Ofcourse do it if you are outside china:happy_2:
 

Ray

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it is not strange at all that the weak always welcome external powers as a counterweight against the powers inside.

however, Russia can just play a minor role in Asia.

No, the weak does not welcome external powers.

It is only when the weak a bullied by a new upstart who thinks that they are a global player!

Have you ever stopped and wondered as to why notwithstanding all the pious humbug that emanates from Peking about peace, peaceful coexistence, non interference in the internal matters of another country, water flows downhill and the Sun rises in the East and the grass is green, the countries of Asia have suddenly 'ganged up' against the 'peace – loving' China?!

They have realised that all that come out of Beijing is total and unmitigated trash aimed to lull all into complacency. What China has done and is doing and it real mission, has become crystal clear. China may have Hanised 'barbarians' (a term they use for all non Hans the world over) South of the Yabngtse and expanded their Empire, but now, the non Chinese 'barbarians' have realised who are the actual 'barbarians' and they want to have no truck with the real McCoys!!

It may surprise you that they are aligning with the external power that China secretly hates. Isn't it obvious that the enemy's enemy is actually a friend?

But of course, the aligning with the US by small Asian countries has given China what in Hindi, they call as 'dast'. I am not too sure of my Hindi and so I don't know what the English equivalent is. All I know is that it means extreme anxiety causing bodily disturbance!
 

Virendra

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But of course, the aligning with the US by small Asian countries has given China what in Hindi, they call as 'dast'. I am not too sure of my Hindi and so I don't know what the English equivalent is. All I know is that it means extreme anxiety causing bodily disturbance!
err .. loose motions ?? .. :happy_2:
 

ajtr

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Uncertain World: Russia's Asia challenge

11:24 28/10/2010
Column by Fyodor Lukyanov

Is Russia unpredictable? Perhaps, but one shouldn't exaggerate – its randomness often follows a consistent pattern. But is the world at large predictable? The past two decades have seen all forecasts refuted more than once and have taught us only one thing – to be ready for any change. This column is on what the nations and governments are facing in the era of global uncertainty.

© RIA Novosti.
Fyodor Lukyanov
*
Russia is turning East, and, frankly, the move is long overdue. President Dmitry Medvedev will attend the ASEAN-Russia summit in Vietnam at the end of this week and the G-20 summit in South Korea in November. In addition to his recent trip to China, last July he chaired a significant meeting on Asia in Khabarovsk, and in late 2009 visited Mongolia and Singapore. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin went to China in late 2009 and India in March 2010.
Traditionally, Russia's foreign policy has focused on the West. The rest of the world was seen through the prism of its complex relations with Europe and the United States. However, the balance of forces started a rapid shift eastwards in the early 21st century. Russia eventually understood the major challenges posed by this shift, some of which demand action rather than just lofty words about the emergence of a multipolar world.
The objective reality is that Russia is not the strongest link in the chain of Asian politics. Its position in Asia is much weaker than that of the looming giant China, rapidly developing India, ambitious South Korea and other countries of ASEAN. In the Euro-Atlantic region, on the contrary, Russia has remained an influential player despite all the shocks of the past twenty years.
Russia is at a disadvantage, as its Far East is beset by serious economic problems, and major resources will be required to develop the region. Russia has never been viewed politically as an Asian country; its membership in numerous regional forums does not translate into real influence in Asia.
Russia's vulnerability in Asia is especially dangerous because Asia is likely to become the center of economic, political and military power in the 21st century. Unless Russia bolsters its position in Asia, it will be relegated to the periphery of global politics.
The recent spate of Asia trips by Medvedev and Putin suggests that the Russian leadership is aware of these potential threats.
Russia needs a comprehensive Asian strategy, including efforts to develop its Far East and to secure its position in Asia. These two elements of the strategy are intertwined: Russia needs foreign partners to help develop its Far East, and without drastically improving that part of the country, Russia will never play a major role in Asia. Worse still, it could be used as a bargaining chip in a potential confrontation between the region's dominant powers, China and the United States.
Moscow must also diversify its foreign policy. The obvious economic imbalance between Russia and China could reorient the Asian part of Russia toward Beijing, although formally it would still remain under Moscow's jurisdiction.
To ensure stable development in Russia's Asian regions, China's investments there should be balanced with investments from the United States, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Europe and other countries.
If in the 21st century the Asian-Pacific region becomes what Europe was in the 20th century, it should expect to suffer major shocks. In the 20th century, Europe was torn apart by two world wars and a 40-year standoff that could have escalated into open war at a moment's notice.
Asia already has one divided nation, Korea, and the future of relations between the United States and China is unclear. The two countries are locked into an interdependence that is not entirely healthy and could transform into an intense rivalry. This is similar to the threat of "mutual assured destruction" that kept the United States and the Soviet Union from each other's throats 50 years ago.
Unlike Europe, Asia has no structures in place to maintain security and will have to start building them from the ground up.
Russia will not be able to simply apply its experience in Europe to Asia.
The Kremlin, which has been trying to curb the growth of U.S. influence in the Euro-Atlantic region, could come to see U.S. military and political presence in Asia as a force for balance and stability in the region.
On the other hand, Russia should avoid any organization or alliance that China could perceive as a threat. Russia should think well before agreeing to establish a Russian-American missile defense shield or to join NATO – two ideas that are popular right now.
The Asian challenge will change Russia's view of the world and force it to reevaluate its traditional – and now largely anachronistic – focus on the West. However, Russia's position in Asia depends on the stability of its relations with the West. Russia must strike the right balance to prosper in the 21st century.
*
Fyodor Lukyanov is Editor-in-Chief of the Russia in Global Affairs journal – the most authoritative source of expertise on Russian foreign policy and global developments. He is also a frequent commentator on international affairs and contributes to various media in the U.S., Europe and China, including academic journals Social Research, Europe-Asia Studies, Columbia Journal of International Affairs. Mr. Lukyanov is a senior member of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy and a member of the Presidential Council on Human Rights and Civic Society Institutions. He holds a degree from Moscow State University.
 

ajtr

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ASEAN lauds Russia as 'factor of stability' in Asia Pacific

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has said in a statement it sees Russia as a "factor of stability and steady development" in the Asia Pacific region.
The second Russia-ASEAN summit was held in the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi on Saturday.
"ASEAN member states and Russia have confirmed their commitment to promoting their economic integration in the Asia Pacific region," the document says.
Russia's debut at the Asia-Europe Meeting on October 4-5 in Brussels will help encourage interregional cooperation, the document says.
It sets out priority projects between Russia and ASEAN in the economic and social sectors.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov announced on Saturday that Russia will be a regular member of the ASEAN summits from 2011 onwards.

HANOI, October 30 (RIA Novosti)
 

Tshering22

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yes ,what a frightening titman coalition! haha!
The objective is not to scare your government but simply to make sure that they don't cross their limits of decency. Seriously you think in today's world, anyone is scared of anyone politically? Everyone has some last measure option because of which the other is not willing to go beyond limits.
 

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