Geopolitics with Chinese Characteristics

ajtr

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S.Korea, Japan and China to speed up trade accord

(AFP) – 2 days ago
SEOGWIPO, South Korea — South Korea, Japan and China agreed Sunday to speed up an investment accord and research on a trilateral free trade pact.
The announcement came after a summit of South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak, Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao on the South Korean resort island of Jeju.
"By 2012, we will endeavor to complete the joint study for a free trade agreement among China, Japan, and South Korea," the leaders said in a joint statement.
The three countries agreed at their summit in 2009 to push for research on the free trade pact aimed at eventually creating a single economic bloc.
Last weekend, the trade ministers of South Korea, China and Japan confirmed they would complete a feasibility study within two years on creating a free trade bloc grouping their three countries.
The three leaders also called for the early conclusion of a trilateral accord on investment and agreed to establish a cooperation secretariat in Seoul next year.
South Korea has for years been in separate free trade talks with China and Japan, but with little progress.
Seoul and Beijing agreed Friday to hold preliminary talks on sensitive sectors such as agriculture before starting full-fledged negotiations on a free trade pact.
China has emerged as South Korea's largest trading partner, absorbing some 24 percent of its total exports in 2009.
South Korea has been actively pushing for free-trade agreements worldwide to bolster its export-dominated economy.
It already has such agreements with Chile, Singapore, India, the European Free Trade Association and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
A free-trade pact was signed with the European Union in October 2009 and awaits ratification. A deal signed with the United States in 2007 is also awaiting ratification
 

ajtr

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China's Tough Choices


Remember all those books and articles about a "power shift" in Asia, or China "eating America's lunch," or the relentless advance of Beijing's soft power? What a difference a couple of months make.
Here we are, nearly 10 weeks after North Korea torpedoed the South Korean corvette, Cheonan, and perceptions of Chinese foreign policy seem suddenly to be turning upside down. And with good reason. China's strategic environment has deteriorated, not least because of its own choices but especially because of North Korea's.
As Victor Cha pointedly argues in this interview with CFR.org, the Chinese have been "weak, clumsy, totally anachronistic in terms of how they've dealt with this." "The Chinese are supposed to think long term," Victor adds. "What they're doing right now is not long term thinking."
China offers a rather extraordinary picture these days.
Let's put aside for a moment China's arguments against pressuring North Korea. Beijing has voted to refer North Korean noncompliance with safeguards agreements to the UN Security Council. And although enforcement has been a challenge, it's voted for tough sanctions resolutions, such as UNSCR 1718 and UNSCR 1874. But despite that, China has never really embraced coercion of North Korea. In fact, the Chinese have been pretty consistent in that view since 2002. So China's stance on North Korea may be weak "¦ but it's hardly unpredictable.
The more interesting spectacle involves the questions that now arise about Chinese foreign policy in East Asia, more generally.
Analysts have been parsing and debating Chinese aspirations for years. But there's some consensus, certainly, about three goals. China has sought, particularly over the last decade, to:
(1) Improve its security environment in East Asia—for example, by embracing closer political and trade relations with America's allies, not least South Korea.
(2) Enhance China's image, presenting a less threatening face to the region.
(3) If opportunities arrive, seek benefit from whatever doubts might arise about U.S. credibility and staying power in Asia.
And (4) China has also sought to integrate with Asia and the world—enhancing interdependence, but also increasing others' dependence on the Chinese economy in ways that might shape their choices.
That fourth goal remains largely on track as China's sheer economic weight in Asia and the world increase. But the first three goals, more political and strategic in nature, are under direct threat as a result of North Korea's sinking of the Cheonan.
Start with China's improved security environment. Beijing's strategic gains of the last decade are, in some areas, coming undone: In just the past few weeks, Washington and Seoul have begun expanding defense coordination, and will soon begin running drills and holding additional exercises. And Washington and Tokyo moved forward on relocating a U.S. airbase in Okinawa after eight months of stasis. Then there are the various developments that preceded North Korea's attack. Indonesia and Vietnam have drawn closer to the United States. U.S.-Malaysian relations have improved significantly. And despite tensions with the Obama administration, the United States now holds more military exercises with India than any other country in the world. And New Delhi is forging deeper ties in East Asia. Put simply, the United States has strategic opportunities, especially with Seoul, that haven't existed for more than a decade.
Then there's China's effort to enhance its image. China is increasingly seen in South Korea (and elsewhere) as an enabler of North Korean provocations. It's been unwilling to strongarm Pyongyang. It failed to restrain the North from such a provocative act. It wasn't able to forestall earlier nuclear and missile tests, either. All of these failures have raised questions about Chinese intentions, as well as Chinese capacity. What's more, despite a more accommodating line toward Tokyo from Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, China has lately seemed more assertive with Japan, as well—for example by increasing its deployments to the East China Sea.
Indeed, Beijing is strikingly isolated on the North Korea issue. Washington, Seoul, and Tokyo are broadly aligned. Moscow is sending a technical team to Seoul to follow up on the results of a multinational investigation of the sinking. And so among the five countries most immediately affected by North Korean behavior—the other parties to the Six Party Talks—China stands increasingly alone.
Finally, there's the issue of American staying power in Asia:
The November 2009 Joint Statement between presidents Obama and Hu Jintao included this significant line: "China welcomes the United States as an Asia-Pacific nation that contributes to peace, stability and prosperity in the region." It's the sort of statement that some believed China would find hard to make. Yet there's little question, too, that China has sought to advance its own relative strength in East Asia. So it's significant that the United States is now expanding alliance coordination—and may yet develop new opportunities for trilateral coordination with Seoul and Tokyo. In short, America's postwar role as security guarantor in Northeast Asia seems newly robust, vital, and enduring.
I don't want to overstate this. Economic and political realities will continue to dictate a growing Chinese role across East Asia. And as I've argued here and here, China is at the center of all sorts of regional integration efforts in East Asia. But in the political and security realm, Chinese gains of recent years are in some jeopardy.
I'll be watching five relationships:
1. China-South Korea. For 20 years, China has sought to diversify its portfolio on the Korean Peninsula by moving beyond Pyongyang and placing some serious economic (and political) bets on Seoul. But it would be hard to overstate just how gobsmacked many South Koreans are by Chinese behavior since the Cheonan sank.
2. China-North Korea. China continues to proclaim its abiding desire for peace and stability on the Peninsula. But if it wasn't clear before, it should now be crystal clear that Pyongyang threatens that cherished Chinese goal. Yet many in China cling to the notion that U.S. and South Korean "failures" have cornered the North. How long will such views persist? And can they continue to persist if North Korea undertakes additional provocations?
3. U.S.-South Korea. New possibilities are emerging for coordination, especially on defense. So after a decade of tension under two prior administrations in Seoul, Korean strategists are rethinking things like a plan to transfer wartime operational control from the U.S. to South Korea. And alliance coordination has grown tighter.
4. U.S.-South Korea-Japan. Trilateral coordination has long been a challenge, in part because of the difficulty Seoul and Tokyo have faced in overcoming the historical legacy of Japan's occupation of the Korean peninsula. But despite political uncertainty in Tokyo, new security pressures, not least from North Korea, could provide new impetus to work more closely.
5. U.S.-China. Finally, there's China's investment in its relations with Washington. U.S.-China relations have steadied after a rough patch earlier this year. But China's choices affect perceptions. And Beijing's choices about the Cheonan have done nothing to bolster confidence, not least in U.S. perceptions of what China is and isn't capable of on the world stage.
The events of the past 10 weeks will test China's capacity to achieve many of its strategic goals in Northeast Asia. And in South Korea, in particular—the U.S. ally with whom Beijing once appeared to be making its greatest gains—twenty years of effort are now at risk.
 

ajtr

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China in check? The limits to Beijing's assertiveness


BEIJING – After a rough start to the year, last week's U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue — the mammoth biannual consultation led by Secretaries Hillary Clinton and Timothy Geithner — capped off a three-month period that has returned the Sino-U.S. relationship to a state of fragile equilibrium. Strategic mistrust remains pervasive, as the continued breakdown in military ties demonstrates, and there are few issues on which the two sides genuinely see eye-to-eye. But the missteps of 2009 provided some important lessons for better management of future differences.

It is clear that China has no inclination to take on greater responsibility for maintaining the global order. Quite the opposite — Beijing feels better able to resist international pressure than it has in the past, sees calls for China to take up new burdens as a "trap," and intends to use its strengthened position to focus more intently on domestic policy. Nevertheless, the Chinese leadership has shown no stomach for a full-on fight with the United States. In the face of a toughened U.S. stance in 2010, Beijing blinked first. This reflects both successful diplomacy from the Obama administration and a China that is more realistic about the scope of its newfound power.

But while Beijing reaffirmed the importance of the U.S.-China relationship, there is only so much that can be delivered through bilateral bargains. With international unease over Beijing's assertiveness growing, the moment is still ripe for Washington to build a China policy that is more global in scope, more resilient to future shifts in the balance of power, and more effective in exerting pressure across a wider range of issues.

Last year saw China emerge from the global financial crisis emboldened but lacking a well-calibrated sense of the limits of its strength. Some of the conciliatory gestures made by the Obama administration encouraged a more inflated sense in Beijing of China's power — and U.S. dependency — than was borne out by reality. This translated into an openly uncooperative Chinese stance on major policy areas and a brash diplomatic manner. The Copenhagen climate summit saw its apogee, but it was far from an exception.

The reality check came at the beginning of the year, with an announcement of U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, a presidential meeting with the Dalai Lama, and rumors of a looming Treasury citation for currency manipulation. After some initial rhetorical bluster — including threats to sanction U.S. companies — China's leadership "looked into the abyss," as one American official put it, and decided to pull back. A March trip from Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg and NSC Senior Asia Director Jeffrey Bader paved the way for a carefully choreographed mutual de-escalation before Chinese President Hu Jintao's visit to Washington for the nuclear security summit.

Crucially, while the moves on the U.S. part were mostly about atmospherics, China's were on substance. The most significant has been on Iran, where Beijing's agreement to a new round of sanctions has so far held through the Brazil-Turkey fuel announcement — described by Chinese analysts as "the perfect excuse" to pull back. Instead, China has moved closer to final sign-off, last week producing its list of Iranian companies for targeting in the draft UN Security Council resolution. Chinese signals on currency revaluation have become consistently positive, even if the euro crisis has derailed progress before the upcoming G20 meeting. And while China's response to North Korea's attack on a South Korean destroyer in late March has been painfully slow, leadership advisors suggest that China will — at the very least — not block a UN Security Council condemnation of Pyongyang.

The limits to Chinese flexibility are apparent. China has been willing to take modest steps in areas subject to the toughest U.S.-China bargaining — what the Chinese call "U.S. core interests" — but little beyond that. This is not "responsible stakeholder" territory. On Iran, China has acted under pressure, not conviction. Progress in cooperation with China on issues such as Afghanistan and Pakistan has been virtually nil. Yet alarm over Beijing's assertive turn has created a propitious strategic environment for Washington to develop an approach to China that transcends the bilateral relationship and with the potential to shape Chinese choices on a larger set of concerns.

The list of disaffected countries is long. European leaders emerged with strongly negative views after China's behavior at Copenhagen — and have seen no subsequent rapprochement. Future EU China policies will likely take on a tougher and more focused character. The same is true in China's neighborhood. Beijing has treated the opening provided by troubles in the U.S.-Japan alliance with complete indifference. South Korea has been insulted by China's approach to the Cheonan incident. Sino-Indian tensions have been left to fester. And Southeast Asian nations have grown anxious over Beijing's recalcitrant stance on territorial disputes in the South China Sea.

The opportunities this has afforded the United States in Asia itself have been obvious. China's inept handling of Pyongyang has helped tighten both the U.S.-South Korea and U.S.-Japan alliances, and the list of Southeast Asian states seeking deeper defense cooperation with Washington has grown. More novel have been recent U.S. efforts at coalition-building outside the region: the Gulf States and Israel joining the U.S.-EU press on China's Iran policy, and India and Brazil joining U.S. and European calls for currency revaluation. The scope to extend this approach across a range of economic and foreign policy issues is substantial.

This year, the Obama administration's firm stand on key U.S. interests, coupled with face-saving ways for Chinese leaders to portray to their public that they are acting of their own volition, has begun to deliver some clear successes. It has also restored a level of sanity to a relationship that was starting to lurch out of joint. But in the absence of a real convergence in views between Washington and Beijing, this approach will not be enough. U.S. China policy needs to move further outside the bilateral box.
 

Ray

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China's policy of 'non interference' in other Nations' internal affairs is paying her rich dividends.

No country likes to be advised as it wily nily implies that the other country is not in line with the global order.

Thus, China relations with all Nations, be these Nations angels or devils, is good and China, in turn derives benefits, be they strategical or economic.

It is not that China does not assert its will. It does. More so, with those who she feels that she is in competition, be it the US, Russia, Taiwan or India.
 

Prac

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It is interesting that in all the threads that I have read till date on China, no one has even mentioned the state of mind of its rulers. One may think that it would be of utmost importance considering China's political system has no pressure valves - such as direct elections, judiciary, and the press (the proverbial fourth estate). In a closed electoral school ideologies and personal views are stronger and more rampant than in our senior bureaucracy. In our case the bureaucracy is restrained by our financial lobbies, politicians (who vie for re-election), and judiciary. China has no such issues. In about two dozen books I have read on China, there is one thing common from the writers about China Political System, its opaqueness, presence of distinct political camps within it, and the absolute fear of its populace (of course, there no experience of this system). It would be interesting to have views on this since to me it seems recipe for an imminent disaster. Considering the President of China is from the biggest political camp within the party, and controls the armed forces. To what extent can their fears drive them? It has often driven them towards international stand-offs to showcase their strength to their people. The need to save face. When the day, and it will, comes that its populace satisfied of their basic needs want more - more rights, more freedom, more say - what would the ruling party do to keep the people in control. Would they go the Indian way and cause inner divisions to advance their political needs (a.k.a BJP vide Babri incident, Gujrat etc, Shiv Sena the Maratha issue, Congress the sikh roits pogrom)? Or would they go the American way, and seek unity through war outside their borders?... Would India seem the best bet then? Water problems a.k.a false propaganda with Pakistan, and Internal conflict in China - one of these seem to be the most likely as the cause of our next war today.
 

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