Kishore Mahbubani: Is China Losing the Diplomatic Plot?

Professor Kishore Mahbubani was ranked on Foreign Policy magazine's list of the world's top 100 thinkers. He believes China is losing the diplomatic plot at a time when it needs it most. -- ST PHOTO: DESMOND FOO

Jul 27, 2012
Straits Times (Singapore)

For the first time in 45 years, the Asean Ministerial Meeting (AMM) failed to agree to a joint communique, ostensibly because Asean's current chair, Cambodia, did not want the communique to refer to bilateral disputes in the South China Sea. But the whole world, including most Asean countries, perceived Cambodia's stance as the result of enormous Chinese pressure.

SINGAPORE - In 2016, China's share of the global economy will be larger than America's in purchasing-price-parity terms. This is an earth-shaking development; in 1980, when the United States accounted for 25% of world output, China's share of the global economy was only 2.2%. And yet, after 30 years of geopolitical competence, the Chinese seem to be on the verge of losing it just when they need it most.

China's leaders would be naive and foolish to bank on their country's peaceful and quiet rise to global preeminence. At some point, America will awaken from its geopolitical slumber; there are already signs that it has opened one eye.

But China has begun to make serious mistakes. After Japan acceded to Chinese pressure and released a captured Chinese trawler in September 2010, China went overboard and demanded an apology from Japan, rattling the Japanese establishment.

Similarly, after North Korean shells killed innocent South Korean civilians in November 2010, China remained essentially silent. In a carefully calibrated response, South Korea sent its ambassador to attend the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony for the imprisoned Chinese human-rights activist Liu Xiaobo in December 2010.

Dangerous Crossroads: U.S. Expands Asian NATO Against China, Russia

October 17, 2009
by Rick Rozoff
Global Research (Canada)

On October 12 the United States and India launched an eighteen-day military exercise codenamed Yudh Abhyas (war study) in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. Described as "one of their largest-ever ground combat joint exercises," [1], the war games "involve the Indian Army Motorized Infantry Battalion and the 2nd Squadron of 14 CAV of 25 Stryker Brigade Combat Team, comprising some 320 U.S. servicemen." [2]

The deployment of Stryker armored combat vehicles for the drills marks the first time they have been used overseas since being introduced in Iraq in 2003 and sent to Afghanistan earlier this year. A week before the exercise began the Pentagon reported that "The Army plans to deploy 17 of its Stryker combat vehicles this month to India for the first exercise of its kind in the country.

"This is also the largest deployment of the Strykers outside of those sent to Iraq and Afghanistan." [3]

Far from being an isolated case, the joint U.S-Indian operation is emblematic of unprecedented military cooperation between the two nuclear nations over the past few years, in fact a strategic military partnership whose major purposes are to supplant Russia as India's decades-long main defense ally and arms supplier and to consolidate a U.S.-led military bloc in the Asia Pacific region aimed at containing China and furthering the encirclement of both that nation and Russia.

A U.S. Defense Department release on the currently ongoing exercise in question mentioned that "more than two years in the planning, [it] comes as the Defense Department continues to reach out to India to increase its military collaboration. Pacific Command's top officer, Navy Adm. Timothy J. Keating, last month traveled to India and said officials there have committed to increasing their military relationship with the United States." [4]

While the drills immediately address more modest goals - ostensibly practicing counterinsurgency and anti-terrorist techniques - "Hundreds of soldiers using heavy transport aircraft and battle tanks are participating in the biggest-ever war games between the two countries which were on the opposing side of the Cold War but now seek to build strategic and military ties.

"With an ally in India, Washington also seeks to keep an eye on the Chinese army's growing military mobility and strength in the area." [5]

In addition, an Indian press source reported that "Mid-way through Yudh Abhyas, yet another exercise named Cope India-09 between the air forces of the two countries will begin at Agra Oct 19." [6]

The Times of India reported on September 24 that an annual Chinese-Indian military exercise held each December since 2007 "as a major confidence-building measure between them" has been cancelled for 2009.

How far the displacement of Russia as India's major military ally has progressed against the backdrop of the Pentagon's plans for an Asia Pacific analogue of NATO was detailed by the Voice of America recently:

"For decades, India mostly depended on, first, the Soviet Union and then Russia for its military supplies. But as the Cold War ended and India's relations with the United States began improving during Bill Clinton's presidency, New Delhi gradually increased its military cooperation with Washington....Today, besides holding joint military exercises with the U.S. military, India has also been buying U.S. armaments worth billions of dollars."

The same article quoted the Indian ambassador to the United States, Meera Shankar:

"Our militaries once unfamiliar with each other now hold regular dialog and joint exercises in the air and on land and sea....Our defense trade was negligible a decade ago. We placed orders worth $3.5 billion last year and it could grow even more in the future." [7]

Heightened full spectrum - ground, air and sea - military collaboration between the U.S. and India is in part related to the escalation of America's and NATO's war in South Asia: Afghanistan and Pakistan, India's neighbor.

On October 13 the Washington Post revealed that the White House will send 13,000 support troops to join the additional 21,000 combat forces already and soon to be deployed this year and the BBC announced the following day that "the Obama administration had already told the UK government it would soon announce a substantial increase to its military forces in Afghanistan," to be formally confirmed next week at a meeting of NATO defense chiefs in the capital of Slovakia. [8] On the 15th the NATO regional commander in southern Afghanistan, Major General Mart de Kruif, said of Helmand province and adjacent areas that "we need at least two additional brigades of coalition forces, somewhere between 10,000 or 15,000 troops." [9]

NATO's Military Committee, the senior military authority in the Alliance, just completed a tour of inspection to Afghanistan. "In attendance were Military Representatives from all 28 NATO member states as well as Military Representatives from the 14 non-NATO nations who also contribute forces to ISAF." [10]

India has been assigned a role to play in the "stabilization" of the subcontinent as Afghanistan and Pakistan alike have been plunged into war and chaos since the U.S. and NATO invaded the first nation on October 7, 2001.

But the New Delhi-Washington axis is fraught with even grander designs and potentially catastrophic dangers.

With the North Atlantic Treaty Organization expanding into Eastern Europe - practically all of Eastern Europe - over the last ten years and its upgrading of military contacts and deployments through various partnership agreements (Partnership for Peace, Mediterranean Dialogue, Istanbul Cooperation Initiative, Contact Countries, Trilateral Afghanistan-Pakistan-NATO Military Commission), the world's only military alliance spans five continents, the Middle East and the South Pacific, effectively taking over other former Cold War military blocs like the Central Treaty Organization (CENTO), the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) and the Australia, New Zealand, United States Security Treaty (ANZUS) and thus constituting history's first international military alliance.

The four nations identified by NATO as Contact Countries - Australia, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea - are all in the Asia Pacific area and in varying degrees all have contributed troops and naval support to the U.S.-NATO war in Afghanistan.

Initiatives like the U.S.-instituted Proliferation Security Initiative [11] naval surveillance and interdiction operation, begun in and still primarily focused on Asia, and the global missile shield program [12] both integrate major NATO member states and candidates for an emerging Asian NATO.

India as a nuclear power and the world's second most populous nation, one bordering China and with historical strategic ties with Russia, is pivotal in Western designs to establish worldwide military superiority so that, in the words of an Indian analyst several years ago, the U.S. can complete its vision for dominance over every sector of the globe with this stratagem: To have closer state-to-state relations with every nation in the world than all other nations have with any other nation, even neighboring states.

Just as in 1978 former rivals Egypt and Israel were reconciled unilaterally by the U.S., which is nowhere near the Middle East, so now any two countries in the world in a conflict situation - from South Asia to the Caucasus, from Africa to the Balkans - must go through Washington and Brussels to resolve their differences. That role, like so many others, has devolved from the United Nations to the United States and NATO.

U.S. and general Western military strategy in Asia is not limited to India, however preeminent a role that country has in the West's plans. Australia, which earlier this year released a Defence White Paper [13] announcing its largest-ever arms buildup and plans to arrogate to itself the role of a regional military power, is "pushing to rebuild its defence ties with India, risking the potential ire of China by formally requesting Australia be allowed to participate in the annual India-US joint naval exercise Malabar." [14]

The Malabar naval war games are an integral component of U.S. plans to integrate India into its Asian and global military nexus. An Indian news sources reported the following in relation to this year's exercise:

"The exercise in the Malabar series will take place [April 2009] off the Japanese coast in which Indian warships will carry out training manoeuvres in naval warfare alongside US Navy and Japanese Maritime Self-Defence Force warships.

"The Malabar exercise, which began as a bilateral exercise in 1992 with the Americans, has in recent years taken on a multi-national character with greater participation from US allies and has made China sit up and take note.

"The last Malabar trilateral exercise involving India, the US and Japan was held in early 2007 off the Japanese coast. In the later part of that year, India joined the multilateral 25-warship Malabar exercise involving the navies of Singapore and Australia too, apart from US and Japan in the Bay of Bengal." [15]

Australia's intention to participate in the next Malabar drills - "an exercise obviously intended by the US to be a foil to China's strategic military might" - also comes "in the wake of the [Prime Minister Kevin] Rudd government's controversial defence white paper, which called for a build-up of naval capacity and appeared to suggest Australian defence strategy in coming decades would be shaped by China's military expansion." [16]

While visiting the nation recently Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith "invited India to participate in multilateral Australian Defence Force-hosted exercises Kakadu and Pitch Black." [17]

India borders China as do several other countries where the U.S. and its NATO allies have stationed troops and where they regularly conduct or will conduct military exercises, Afghanistan and Pakistan among them.

The Pentagon's Pacific Command has been holding annual joint Khaan Quest military operations in Mongolia, which borders both China and Russia.

In July Mongolia announced that it was providing troops to NATO for the war in Afghanistan, with an American news report stating "the country plans to send troops to Afghanistan, in a cooperation that stems from its 'third neighbor' policy to reach out to allies other than China and Russia," and "Mongolia's involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan has helped cement its alliance with the United States and secure grants and aid." [18]

Last month NATO conducted a twenty-nation disaster response exercise, ZHETYSU 2009, in Kazakhstan, which also abuts China and Russia. French president Nicolas Sarkozy has just secured rights to transit his nation's military forces through the country.

On September 27 the Chinese press reported on a multinational military exercise to be conducted in Cambodia, one nation removed from China, next year:

"[M]ore than 2,000 military men are reserved for the first-ever event in the country and they will come from more than 20 countries, of which 1,500 will be from the United States.

"[D]uring a four-day visit to Washington D.C., Tea Banh, Cambodia's Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of National Defense, had met with U.S. Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg and discussed security cooperation between the United States and Cambodia." [19]

On October 14 reports surfaced on Taiwan conducting its "largest-ever missile test...launched from a secretive and tightly guarded base in southern Taiwan."

The report also said the missiles were "capable of reaching major Chinese cities." [20]

With President Ma Ying-jeou observing, "the drill included the test-firing of a top secret, newly developed medium-range surface-to-surface missile with a range of 3,000 kilometres, capable of striking major cities in central, northern and southern China." [21]

The following day's news reported that the Defense Ministry of South Korean "plans to equip the Navy's 7,600-ton-class Aegis vessels, including a King Sejong-class destroyer, with the newest-type American-made SM-6 missiles" and that "to ensure proper use of SM-6 [Extended Range Active] missiles, the South Korean Navy will naturally be linked to the U.S. missile defense system, considering that it will need the assistance of some intelligence reconnaissance devices, including spy satellites and radars, in the U.S. MD [missile defense] system." [22]

Each year the Pentagon leads the multinational Cobra Gold war games in Thailand. This year the armed forces of the host country, the U.S., Japan, Singapore and Indonesia were involved and several other nations "participate[d] in various roles during the exercise": Australia, Brunei, France, Italy, Britain, Bangladesh, India, the Philippines, the Peoples Republic of Cambodia, China, Canada, Germany, South Korea, Laos, Nepal, Pakistan, Vietnam, and Mongolia. [23]

Excepting China, the above roster is a faithful representation of a NATO-Asian NATO axis in formation.

On October 14 the USS Bonhomme Richard amphibious assault ship arrived in East Timor for the latter's "first joint military exercise with the United States" and it was reported that "manoeuvres with 2,500 US troops and Australia forces are to last through October 24." [24]

The American ambassador to the new nation, Hans Klem, said that the exercises would focus on "jungle training, urban training, infantry training [and] beach landings...." [25]

The Pentagon's military penetration of Asia and encroachment on China, coordinated at every turn with Washington's NATO allies, is part of an international campaign to achieve military presence in and domination over every longitude and latitude. The European continent has been subsumed almost completely under NATO.

America's new Africa Command recently completed a 25-nation military exercise in Gabon and will soon begin multinational maneuvers in Uganda.

The war in Afghanistan has recently provided the U.S. and NATO new basing and military transit rights in the Central Asian nations of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. "The United States has secured 'lethal transit' deals with Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan....Both the Kyrgyz Ministry of Defense and the US Embassy in Bishkek confirmed earlier that the Manas Transit Center is facilitating the shipment of military freight going to Afghanistan....[T]he transit of supplies into Afghanistan via Turkmenistan 'is possible'...." [26]

Of the three nations in the South Caucasus, Georgia and Azerbaijan are veritable Pentagon and NATO military outposts on Russia's borders and Armenia just announced it might send troops to Afghanistan to serve under NATO command.

Washington has recently secured the use of seven new military bases in Colombia and has announced similar plans for two naval facilities in Panama two years after reactivating U.S. Naval Forces Southern Command.

Even uninhabited areas of the world (and their energy and other resources) are not beyond the Pentagon's and NATO's purview.

On October 9 the top military commander of U.S. European Command and NATO, Admiral James Stavridis, "warn[ed] of conflict with Russia in [the] Arctic Circle" as The Times of London phrased it.

Last week an Indian writer offered this concise perspective:

"The arc of encirclement of Russia gets strengthened. NATO ties facilitate the deployment of the US missile defence system in Georgia. The US aims to have a chain of countries tied to 'partnerships' with NATO brought into its missile defence system - stretching from its allies in the Baltic to those in Central Europe. The ultimate objective of this is to neutralise the strategic capability of Russia and China and to establish its nuclear superiority. The National Defense Strategy document, issued by the Pentagon on July 31, 2008, portrays Washington's perception of a resurgent Russia and a rising China as potential adversaries." [27]

The analyst doesn't exaggerate.

In February 2008 a Reuters report said that, "The United States is worried that Russia, China and OPEC oil-producing countries could use their growing financial clout to advance political goals, the top U.S. spy chief told Congress...."

National Director of Intelligence Michael McConnell told the Senate Intelligence Committee that he had "concerns about the financial capabilities of Russia, China and OPEC countries."

His concerns, however, suggested military rather than economic and trade matters. A summary of his testimony had little to say of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and much about Russia and China.

"Russia, bolstered in part by oil revenues, was positioning itself to control an energy supply and transportation network from Europe to East Asia, and the Russian military had begun to reverse a long decline....China has pursued a policy of global engagement out of a desire to expand its growing economy and obtain access markets, resources, technology and expertise." [28]

Shortly afterward Russia "demanded an explanation from America over a report by the director of American national intelligence in which Russia, China, Iraq, Iran, North Korea and al-Qaida are described as sources of strategic threats to the U.S, ITAR-TASS has been told by a source close to the Kremlin." [29]

That is, Russia and China had effectively been added to the infamous "axis of evil" targeted by former president George W. Bush in January of 2002.

Though Bush's departure from the White House and his successor's arrival there haven't changed anything, except if anything to makes matters progressively worse.

An Associated Press story of May 1, 2009 mentioned that "The Obama administration is working to improve deteriorating U.S. relations with a number of Latin American nations to counter growing Iranian, Chinese and Russian influence in the Western Hemisphere, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said....[30]

In the latest quadrennial National Intelligence Strategy report last month, U.S. Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair claimed "Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea pose the greatest challenges to the United States' national interests." [31]

China and Russia have replaced subjugated Iraq in the ranks of remaining "axis of evil" members Iran and North Korea.

Blair's report asserted that Russia "may continue to seek avenues for reasserting power and influence in ways that complicate U.S. interests." A paraphrase of the document said of "China, which trades regularly with the United States and owns billions of its national debt," that "Beijing competes for the same resources the United States needs, and is in the process of rapidly modernizing its military." [32]

In 2006 an article appeared in Foreign Affairs, the magazine of the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations, called "The Rise of U.S. Nuclear Primacy," coauthored by Keir A. Lieber and Daryl G. Press, which explored in the frankest manner how the U.S. could deal with its Chinese and Russian "challengers."

As the piece's title indicates, the focus is on nuclear weapons and America's superiority in regards to them.

Its basic contention is summarized in this paragraph:

"For four decades, relations among the major nuclear powers have been shaped by their common vulnerability, a condition known as mutual assured destruction. But with the U.S. arsenal growing rapidly while Russia's decays and China's stays small, the era of MAD is ending - and the era of U.S. nuclear primacy has begun." [33]

That appraisal inevitably led to the conclusion that "It will probably soon be possible for the United States to destroy the long-range nuclear arsenals of Russia or China with a first strike."

The authors examine with coldblooded detachment comparative advancements in each of the U.S.'s triad of nuclear weapons delivery systems - ground-based missile, air and submarine - and how in all three instances Washington could launch crippling first strikes on China and Russia alike.

For example, they state "The U.S. Air Force has finished equipping its B-52 bombers with nuclear-armed cruise missiles, which are probably invisible to Russian and Chinese air-defense radar. And the air force has also enhanced the avionics on its B-2 stealth bombers to permit them to fly at extremely low altitudes in order to avoid even the most sophisticated radar."

And they list both nation's vulnerabilities in an almost gleeful manner:

"The more Russia's nuclear arsenal shrinks, the easier it will become for the United States to carry out a first strike.

"The real U.S. war plan may call for first targeting Russia's command and control, sabotaging Russia's radar stations, or taking other preemptive measures - all of which would make the actual U.S. force far more lethal than our model assumes.

"According to our model, such a simplified surprise attack would have a good chance of destroying every Russian bomber base, submarine, and ICBM.

"China's nuclear arsenal is even more vulnerable to a U.S. attack. A U.S. first strike could succeed whether it was launched as a surprise or in the midst of a crisis during a Chinese alert. China has a limited strategic nuclear arsenal.

"According to unclassified U.S. government assessments, China's entire intercontinental nuclear arsenal consists of 18 stationary single-warhead ICBMs."

To confirm that their study is indicative of not only their own conviction, the authors add that "The improvements to the U.S. nuclear arsenal offer evidence that the United States is actively seeking primacy...The current and future U.S. nuclear force, in other words, seems designed to carry out a preemptive disarming strike against Russia or China.

"The intentional pursuit of nuclear primacy is, moreover, entirely consistent with the United States' declared policy of expanding its global dominance."

In view of what has developed in the interim since its publication, the article provides the unadorned truth about so-called missile defense in stating "the sort of missile defenses that the United States might plausibly deploy would be valuable primarily in an offensive context, not a defensive one - as an adjunct to a U.S. first-strike capability, not as a standalone shield. If the United States launched a nuclear attack against Russia (or China), the targeted country would be left with a tiny surviving arsenal - if any at all.

"At that point, even a relatively modest or inefficient missile-defense system might well be enough to protect against any retaliatory strikes, because the devastated enemy would have so few warheads and decoys left."

The piece ends in acknowledging that with the demise of the Warsaw Pact and any pretense that American and NATO nuclear weapons would be needed against a superior conventional military attack and no further intent, as with Ronald Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative, to compel adversaries to spend themselves into bankruptcy on a strategic arms race, "Washington's continued refusal to eschew a first strike and the country's development of a limited missile-defense capability take on a new, and possibly more menacing, look. The most logical conclusions to make are that a nuclear-war-fighting capability remains a key component of the United States' military doctrine and that nuclear primacy remains a goal of the United States."

As much as words like competition and challenges may factor in the speeches of U.S. and other Western politicians when relating to domestic matters, the White House and the Pentagon will tolerate no serious competition and allow no challengers in their drive for global military, political and economic domination.

When all else fails, and even before, Washington's ultima ratio consists of its nuclear arsenal and delivery systems.
-------
Notes

1) Indo-Asian News Agency, October 12, 2009
2) Russian Information Agency Novosti, October 12, 2009
3) U.S. Department of Defense, American Forces Press Service, October 6, 2009
4) Ibid
5) Reuters, October 12, 2009
6) Indo-Asian News Agency, October 12, 2009
7) Voice of America, October 8, 2009
8) BBC News, October 14, 2009
9) Agence France-Presse, October 15, 2009
10) NATO, October 15, 2009
11) Proliferation Security Initiative And U.S. 1,000-Ship Navy: Control Of World’s Oceans, Prelude To War Stop NATO, January 29, 2009
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/08/26/proliferation-security-initiative-and-us-1000-ship-navy-control-of-worlds-oceans-prelude-to-war/
12) U.S. Accelerates First Strike Global Missile Shield System, Stop NATO, August 19, 2009
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/09/02/u-s-accelerates-first-strike-global-missile-shield-system
Global Military Bloc: NATO’s Drive Into Asia Stop NATO, January 24, 2009
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/08/26/global-military-bloc-natos-drive-into-asia
13) Australian Military Buildup And The Rise Of Asian NATO, Stop NATO, May 6, 2009
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/08/28/australian-military-buildup-and-the-rise-of-asian-nato
14) The Australian, October 15, 2009
15) Outlook India, April 10, 2009
16) The Australian, October 15, 2009
17) Ibid
18) Reuters, July 22, 2009
19) Xinhua News Agency, September 27, 2009
20) Radio Taiwan International, October 14, 2009
21) Deutsche Presse-Agentur, October 14, 2009
22) Chosun Ilbo, October 15, 2009
23) Embassy of the United States of America Bangkok, January 13, 2009
24) Deutsche Presse-Agentur, October 14, 2009
25) Ibid
26) EurasiaNet/Eurasia Insight, October 13, 2009
27) Younes Bhat, Crisis from the Balkans to Caucasus: Munich Speech to Reset Button Mainstream Weekly, October 11, 2009
28) Reuters, February 5, 2008
29) Voice of Russia, February 8, 2008
30) Associated Press, May 1, 2009
31) Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, September 16, 2009
32) Ibid
33) The Rise of U.S. Nuclear Primacy, Keir A. Lieber and Daryl G. Press Foreign Affairs, March/April 2006-

Rick Rozoff is a frequent contributor to Global Research. Global Research Articles by Rick Rozoff

Why we should heed [Indian] navy chief's warning on China

August 26, 2009
Harsh V Pant
rediff.com

Outgoing Chief of Naval Staff and Chairman, Chiefs of Staff Committee, Admiral Sureesh Mehta, drew a lot of criticism recently when he suggested that India neither has the 'capability nor the intention' to match China's military strength 'force for force.'

But he was merely stating the obvious ground reality given that China's GDP is more than thrice that of India and India's annual defence expenditure is less than half of China's. Much of the criticism was unwarranted as Admiral Mehta was probably trying to wake the Indian political class out of its slumber by forcing it to think more clearly about the implications of China's rise for India.

His was a warning about China which is rapidly moving towards the consolidation of its national power and if India does not move proactively it will find it almost impossible to catch up with China.

Towards this end, he suggested that India not only has to achieve higher rates of economic growth but it also needs to build ties with other major global powers and undertake significant reforms in the defence sector.

These steps are necessary as it is clear that if India has to protect its national interests, it will have to challenge China's growing might in its vicinity.

One should look at the euphoria in India surrounding the launch of INS Arihant in this context. Though that euphoria is not entirely unwarranted as decades of investment, India finally has the ability to indigenously build and operate a nuclear-powered submarine, a feat accomplished by only five other countries, it should not blind India to the fact that it has miles to go before it can catch up with China, which has made some significant advances in the waters surrounding India.

Just a few months back China's growing naval capability was on full display when it paraded its nuclear powered submarines for the first time as part of the celebrations to mark the 60th anniversary of the People's Liberation Army.

Gone is the reticence of the yore when China was not ready to even admit that it had such capabilities. Chinese commanders are now openly talking about the need for nuclear submarines to safeguard the nation's interests and the Chinese navy, once the weakest of the three services, is now the focus of attention of the military modernisation programme that is being pursued with utmost seriousness.

China's navy is now considered the third-largest in the world behind only the US and Russia and superior to the Indian Navy in both qualitative and quantitative terms. China's navy has traditionally been a coastal force and China has had a continental outlook to security. But with a rise in its economic might since the 1980s, Chinese interests have expanded and have acquired a maritime orientation with an intent to project power into the Indian Ocean.

China is investing far greater resources in the modernisation of its armed forces in general and its navy in particular than India seems either willing to undertake or capable of sustaining at present.

China's increasingly sophisticated submarine fleet could eventually be one of the world's largest and with a rapid accretion in its capabilities, including submarines, ballistic missiles and GPS-blocking technology, some are suggesting that China will increasingly have the capacity to challenge America.

Senior Chinese officials have indicated that China would be ready to build an aircraft carrier by the end of the decade as it is seen as being indispensable to protecting Chinese interests in the oceans. Such an intent to develop carrier capability marks a shift away from devoting the bulk of PLA's modernisation drive to the goal of capturing Taiwan.

With a rise in China's economic and political prowess, there has also been a commensurate growth in its profile in the Indian Ocean region. China is acquiring naval bases along the crucial choke-points in the Indian Ocean not only to serve its economic interests but also to enhance its strategic presence in the region.

China realises that its maritime strength will give it the strategic leverage that it needs to emerge as the regional hegemon and a potential superpower and there is enough evidence to suggest that China is comprehensively building up its maritime power in all dimensions.

It is China's growing dependence on maritime space and resources that is reflected in the Chinese aspiration to expand its influence and to ultimately dominate the strategic environment of the Indian Ocean region. China's growing reliance on bases across the Indian Ocean region is a response to its perceived vulnerability, given the logistical constraints that it faces due to the distance of the Indian Ocean waters from its own area of operation.

Yet, China is consolidating power over the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean with an eye on India, something that comes out clearly in a secret memorandum issued by the director of the general logistic department of the PLA: 'We can no longer accept the Indian Ocean as only an ocean of the Indians... We are taking armed conflicts in the region into account.'

China has deployed its Jin class submarines at a submarine base near Sanya in the southern tip of Hainan island in the South China Sea, raising alarm in India as the base is merely 1,200 nautical miles from the Malacca Strait and will be its closest access point to the Indian Ocean. The base also has an underground facility that can hide the movement of submarines, making them difficult to detect.

The concentration of strategic naval forces at Sanya will further propel China towards a consolidation of its control over the surrounding Indian Ocean region. The presence of access tunnels on the mouth of the deep water base is particularly troubling for India as it will have strategic implications in the Indian Ocean region, allowing China to interdict shipping at the three crucial chokepoints in the Indian Ocean.

As the ability of China's navy to project power in the Indian Ocean region grows, India is likely to feel even more vulnerable despite enjoying distinct geographical advantages in the region.

China's growing naval presence in and around the Indian Ocean region is troubling for India as it restricts India's freedom to manoeuvre in the region. Of particular note is what has been termed as China's 'string of pearls' strategy that has significantly expanded China's strategic depth in India's backyard.

This 'string of pearls' strategy of bases and diplomatic ties include the Gwadar port in Pakistan, naval bases in Myanmar, electronic intelligence gathering facilities on islands in the Bay of Bengal, funding construction of a canal across the Kra Isthmus in Thailand, a military agreement with Cambodia and building up of forces in the South China Sea.

Given that almost 80 per cent of China's oil passes through the Strait of Malacca, it is reluctant to rely on US naval power for unhindered access to energy and so has decided to build up its naval power at 'choke points' along the sea routes from the Persian Gulf to the South China Sea.

China is also courting other states in South Asia by building container ports in Bangladesh at Chittagong and in Sri Lanka at Hambantota as well as helping to build a naval base at Marao in the Maldives.

Given the immense geographical advantages that Indian enjoys in the Indian Ocean, China will have great difficulty in exerting as much sway in the Indian Ocean as India can. But all the steps that China will take to protect and enhance its interests in the Indian Ocean region will generate apprehensions in India about her real intentions, thereby engendering a classic security dilemma between the two Asian giants.

Tensions are inherent in such an evolving strategic relationship as was underlined in an incident earlier this year when an Indian Kilo class submarine and Chinese warships, on their way to the Gulf of Aden to patrol the pirate-infested waters, reportedly engaged in rounds of manoeuvring as they tried to test for weaknesses in others' sonar system.

The Chinese media reported that its warships forced the Indian submarine to the surface which was strongly denied by the Indian Navy.

Unless managed carefully, the potential for such incidents turning serious in the future remains high, especially as Sino-Indian naval competition is likely to intensify with the Indian and Chinese navies operating far from their shores.

If Admiral Mehta's warning that India is long way off from catching up to China can generate the requisite debate in the Indian political establishment about the rise of China and its implications for Indian strategy, he would have done his bit for the nation.

Harsh V Pant teaches at King's College London and is presently a visiting professor at IIM-Bangalore.

The rising dragon and the wounded eagle: US and China influence in Asia

Friday, July 27, 2007
China on Asia charm offensive as US lies low

SINGAPORE (AFP) - The skipping of major Asian meetings by President George W. Bush and his top diplomat have left the US conspicuously absent in Southeast Asia -- in stark contrast to China, analysts say.

"There's a rising dragon and a wounded eagle," said Simon Tay, chairman of the Singapore Institute of International Affairs (SIIA), an independent think-tank.

But despite public statements of disappointment by regional diplomats, ties between the United States and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) are likely to weather any fallout, they said.

It is important, however, for US officials to recognise ASEAN's importance and for the administration that succeeds Bush to try to repair any damage done, the analysts added.

"I think it's a mistake. Some of them know it's a mistake but I think they are a bit in a bind," Tay told AFP.

US officials this week said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will skip the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) and related meetings in Manila scheduled from August 1-2 because it coincides with a Middle East trip to discuss the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Iraq.

It will be the second time since 2005 that Rice will miss the ARF, the only high-level official security group in the Asia-Pacific region. The 27-member ARF includes Russia, India, China, the European Union and North Korea.

Earlier this month the White House announced that Bush had postponed a September summit in Singapore with leaders of the 10 ASEAN states -- Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

"We certainly see China on a rise, on a soft charm offensive in ASEAN. Anything ASEAN wants from them, within reason, it is given to ASEAN," Tay said, also citing increasing levels of Chinese aid to poorer ASEAN states such as Cambodia and Laos.

In contrast, "you see an erosion of America's soft power" in the region, he added.

Although not connected, China's ascendance and the Bush administration's slackening "are affecting the dynamics here in Asia," Tay said.

"I think people look much more to China than they did pre-Bush. This is something the next (US) administration will have to deal with. It's time to think of an Asia that doesn't have America front and centre as a partner."

Mely Caballero-Anthony, an associate professor at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore, said Rice's absence from the ARF is "an indication of where ASEAN stands in the scheme of things" from the point of view of US foreign policy.

"It appears that in the pecking order, Southeast Asia comes second best to the US concern for the Middle East," she told AFP.

But she said Rice's absence and Bush's deferment of the summit "does not substantially affect US-ASEAN relations" because Washington remains engaged with the region in terms of trade, security and humanitarian assistance.

Caballero-Anthony said China has already been moving to play a larger regional role in Asia, irrespective of what the United States does.

"It's already taking on a more defined role with or without the US showing some slack," she said.

Tay, of SIIA, said that if the US "is distracted and can't play its game, I guess China will do better."

Former ASEAN secretary general Rodolfo Severino said that as long as missing the ARF meeting does not become a trend, US-ASEAN ties will not be affected.

Rice's deputy, John Negroponte, who will take her place at the Manila gathering, "is an old Asia hand" who knows the region well, Severino said.

US Ambassador to Singapore Patricia Herbold defended the US government's decision.

"I think this is such a difficult time and the crises that have to be dealt with can't be postponed," she told AFP.

"If they aren't dealt with now, the ramifications could be very great. So as much as it is a disappointment... it is certainly understandable under the circumstances."

Tay said Washington's view of East Asia is focused "on the flashing red lights" such as North Korea, the Taiwan Strait and terrorism, obscuring the bigger picture.

"At this stage... it is important for America to understand that ASEAN is changing and remains a critical player in East Asian regionalism," he said.

"The problem is not trying to get rid of America. It's trying to get America to remain engaged in the right way."

Asia geopolitics: Japan-Australia security pact to counter China's rise

Claudio Munoz

We're just good friends, honest
Mar 15th 2007 | BEIJING AND TOKYO
The Economist

But China has reason to suspect Japan's military flirtation with Australia

WHEN he signed a security pact with Australia this week, Shinzo Abe, the Japanese prime minister, at a stroke doubled the number of Japan's allies. Until now, Japan has had formal security ties only with America, under whose protection Japan, with a pacifist constitution, has sat since the second world war.

Even if it falls well short of a mutual-defence treaty, to some Australians the agreement signed by John Howard in Tokyo on March 13th is unwarranted. After all, Japan came close to invading their country during the war; Australian prisoners-of-war were brutally treated in Japanese camps; and only a couple of weeks ago Mr Abe had brought ignominy upon himself by denying that foreign “comfort women” had been coerced into working in wartime military brothels. Elderly Australian women are among those who have testified otherwise. Yet the world moves on and in Mr Howard's view “Australia has no better friend or more reliable partner within the Asia-Pacific region than Japan.” Mr Abe spoke of a “shared destiny”.

So if it is now important that the two countries be allies, the natural question is, against whom? To ask this, both sides insist with prim faces, is entirely to miss the point. Co-operation between the two countries has deepened on several levels. Until last July, Australian troops had protected Japanese ones doing reconstruction work in southern Iraq. Nearer to home, peacekeeping troops have worked side-by-side in Cambodia and Timor-Leste.

Alexander Downer, the Australian foreign minister whose own father was a prisoner of the Japanese for more than three years, talks up their co-operation in disaster assistance after the Indian Ocean tsunami of late 2004. The two countries' aid programmes in Asia have shared objectives. Thus the agreement's provisions for regular meetings involving the two sides' foreign and defence ministers, joint military exercises, and more formal arrangements for sharing information would all improve humanitarian missions.

A security agreement is a symbolic way of building up those new aspects of the relationship, says Mr Downer. The two sides will also negotiate a free-trade agreement to strengthen economic ties. All good stuff. But the louder the denials from both sides, the more evident is the main catalyst for the security pact: the rise of China.

That may come as a surprise to some. Australia has often had to defend itself against charges from human-rights groups and others of sacrificing democratic principles for profits in its dealings with China, which has an inexhaustible appetite for the commodities, such as iron ore and uranium, that Australia is able to supply. But as an Australian diplomat explains: “China is a good, constructive commercial partner, but in terms of ideas and values, it will never be anywhere near as close to us as Japan. It's quite clear: Japan is our best friend in Asia.”

Australia's security posture has long been a cause for wariness in China, particularly because of its alliance with America and the possibility that Australia might come to America's aid in a war with China over Taiwan. Still, as long as the new pact does not imply Australian support for Japan in its territorial disputes with China in the East China Sea, China's government will attempt to hide its displeasure. Economic ties come first.

As for Mr Abe, the pact is of a piece with a more robust foreign policy for Japan that was begun by his predecessor, Junichiro Koizumi. Before sending troops to Iraq, Mr Koizumi had also dispatched supply ships from Japan's so-called Self-Defence Forces to the Indian Ocean to help with the war in Afghanistan in 2001.

Since he came to office last September, Mr Abe has redoubled Mr Koizumi's commitment to Japan's alliance with the United States, but wants to do more than just shelter under America's wing. He has pushed for faster deployment of missile-defence systems in the face of North Korean provocation. He has turned the Japanese Defence Agency into a full ministry, with a seat in the cabinet. And he wants the pacifist article nine of the constitution to be revised. Mr Abe has sought a new partnership with India, while building security ties with South-East Asia.

It all amounts to a strategy of balancing China's geopolitical reach: Japan, in other words, is not about to roll on its back to let China be the region's top dog. Mr Abe's domestic ineptitude may mean a short term in office, as the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and its coalition partner face crucial elections for parliament's upper house in July. Even if so, Japan's emerging regional posture is likely to survive him.