Opposition Leader See Vietnam Losing Influence [-Vietnam Go Home!]

Sam Rainsy (middle) is currently in exile, facing a prison of 12 years on forgery, disinformation and incitement charges related to public claims he has made of Vietnamese border encroachment.

Sok Khemara, VOA Khmer
Washington, DC Wednesday, 17 November 2010

“But if we have a lot of countries as friends, we can find a balance in the relationships...so we can change positions and not allow any one country to freely oppress us.”

The influences of the US and China have begun to overshadow Vietnam, in what could prove a positive development, Cambodia's leading opposition lawmaker says.

“Cambodia is in the strategic zone, so all superpower countries want to have influence over Cambodia,” Sam Rainsy told VOA Khmer.

At the same time, he said, neither country wants to see Cambodia “falling into the other's hand.”

Meanwhile, China and Vietnam have a number of competing interests, including border and sea disputes.

“China does not want Cambodia to become a province or colony of Vietnam at all,” he said. “That's why we see China coming to invest and to escalate its influence in Cambodia. As I understand it, China is a positive element for Cambodia.”

When larger powers compete for Cambodia, it has a positive impact, he said. “If they don't pay attention, they forget about Cambodia, how we are suffering.”

On the other hand, if only one power takes interest in Cambodia, such as China during the Khmer Rouge regime, Cambodia doesn't benefit. When Cambodia was under the influence of Vietnam, following the ouster of the Khmer Rouge, “Cambodia suffered too,” he said.

“But if we have a lot of countries as friends, we can find a balance in the relationships...so we can change positions and not allow any one country to freely oppress us,” he said. “Now I believe that Vietnam's influence will be curtailed, because the US has a strong influence over Vietnam itself, and China also is increasing its influence over Cambodia. So we can try to move away from an influence of Vietnam that is too strong.”

With its Soviet backing long gone, Vietnam will look to the US to resist China, he said. “And I believe that the US still maintains the stance of democracy and wants Cambodia to become a real democratic country that fairly respects human rights.”

Chinese vice president arrives in Cambodia

2009-12-20
Associated Press

Cambodia is nominally more democratic than Myanmar, but Hun Sen is an autocratic ruler who uses his ties with China as a balance against dependency on Western nations.

Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping arrived Sunday in Cambodia on the last leg of a four-nation Asian tour.

His arrival came a day after Cambodia bowed to Beijing's wishes and sent back a group of 20 Muslim asylum-seekers sought in connection with violent anti-government protests, despite concern by human rights activists that they face persecution.

Chinese officials had described the ethnic Uighurs as "criminals," and Cambodia - which maintains warm relations with Beijing - said it was expelling them because they had illegally entered the country.

Cambodian Foreign Ministry spokesman Koy Kuong said Xi Jinping's party arrived by plane in the northwestern province of Siem Reap, home to the famed Angkor Wat temple complex.

On Monday Xi will go to the capital, Phnom Penh, where he will hold talks with Prime Minister Hun Sen and preside with him over the signing of 14 agreements, mostly concerning economic assistance to Cambodia, he said.

The trip is seen as significant because Xi Jinping is widely considered the leading contender to eventually succeed President Hu Jintao.

Xi's previous stops on his tour were Japan, South Korea and Myanmar. Koy Kuong said Xi and his delegation will leaves Cambodia on Tuesday.

While economic powerhouses Japan and South Korea are rivals to China, Myanmar and Cambodia are two of Southeast Asia's poorest countries, where China uses its wealth to spread its influence.

Beijing is the closest and most powerful ally of military-ruled Myanmar, and has major investments in the country, which is shunned by the West because of its failure to restore democratic rule.

Cambodia is nominally more democratic than Myanmar, but Hun Sen is an autocratic ruler who uses his ties with China as a balance against dependency on Western nations.

U.S. Strengthens Southeast Asia Ties, Playing Catch-up to China

By Daniel Ten Kate

July 22 (Bloomberg) -- The Obama administration plans to join a friendship accord with Southeast Asia, six years after China signed up and signaled a challenge to U.S. military might and economic interests in the resource-rich region.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will sign the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation with the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations today at a meeting in Phuket, Thailand. The non-binding agreement would give the U.S. a seat at regional forums as a counterweight to rising Chinese clout.

“As China rises in the region, it is in the U.S. interest to provide an alternative great power to which Asean countries can relate,” said Donald Weatherbee, professor emeritus at the University of South Carolina, who has studied the region since the 1950s. “For the U.S. to deliberately diminish its engagement could lead to a bandwagon effect toward China with negative consequences for other friends and allies in Asia.”

The treaty accession reflects growing U.S. unease with China’s increasing political, economic and military power in a region that contains sea lanes vital to world trade, as well as coal, oil and other commodities. The U.S. Navy’s 40,000-strong force in the 7th Fleet has helped police Southeast Asian waters since World War II.

China’s trade with Southeast Asia has grown almost 20 times since 1993 to $179 billion last year, with its share of total Asean commerce rising to 10.5 percent from 2 percent. The U.S. share of trade with the region during that time fell to 12 percent last year from 17 percent even as two-way shipments almost tripled to $201 billion, according to Asean statistics.

‘New Opportunities’

“In the days and months ahead, the United States will seek new opportunities to work with Asean and partners across the region,” Clinton wrote in the Bangkok Post yesterday.

Asean, whose 10 members include Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines, aims to create a European Union-style economic bloc by 2015 to integrate a market of 583 million people. The region’s waterways include the Straits of Malacca, 1.7 miles (2.7 kilometers) wide at its narrowest point, through which about 80 percent of China’s oil imports pass.

Members of Asean are seeking to benefit from China’s economic ties without becoming smothered by its military superiority. Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia the Philippines and Taiwan claim all or part of the oil-rich Spratly Islands in the South China Sea. China says it owns the 3,000 islands spread over an area the size of California.

Island Disputes

The sea, stretching from Singapore to the Straits of Taiwan, carries half the world’s merchant fleet by tonnage each year. China has said all disputes should be resolved peacefully according to a 2002 agreement with Asean in which every country agreed not to inhabit the islands.

All countries that claim the sea should find a “solution through dialogue and consultation,” China’s foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang said last month. China “attaches great importance to safeguarding national sovereignty as well as its citizens’ safety and legitimate rights and interests,” he said.

For the past two years, China has put pressure on companies from the U.S. and elsewhere to stop them working with Vietnamese oil companies to explore the South China Sea, Scot Marciel, the U.S. ambassador to Asean, told Congress at a July 15 hearing. The Chinese government last year said it opposed a plan by Exxon Mobil Corp. to explore for petroleum in the region with Vietnam.

‘Imbalance of Power’

“Only the United States has both the stature and the national power to confront the obvious imbalance of power that China brings to these situations,” Senator Jim Webb, a Virginia Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told last week’s hearing. “We have an obligation to maintain a geostrategic balance in the region that ensures fairness for every nation in Asia.”

U.S. sanctions against Asean member Myanmar for failing to release political prisoners including opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi were among the reasons the Treaty of Amity has been delayed, according to the Congressional Research Service. Australia, already a signatory, maintains sanctions on Myanmar.

In signing the treaty, the U.S. joins most other Asian powers. Accession is a prerequisite to joining the East Asia Summit, an even larger grouping of Asia’s powers that may precede a wider economic community.

‘Stabilizing Force’

Both China and the U.S. have an important role to play in maintaining peace in Southeast Asia, Thai Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya said this week. Whereas China is “an important market for Asean countries,” the U.S. Navy’s patrol of the sea ways makes it “a stabilizing force,” he said.

Asean’s push for alliances with all of Asia’s powers reflects its desire to avoid getting caught up in a wider battle, said Simon Tay, chairman of the Singapore Institute of International Affairs. For centuries, the region has found itself a battleground of colonizers and ideological fights, a vulnerability that remains, Tay said.

Asean also includes Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Cambodia, Brunei and Laos.

“The key is not so much what Asean as a grouping does, but what China and the U.S. do together,” Tay said. “If these two big guys fight, it doesn’t make much difference.”

To contact the reporters on this story: Daniel Ten Kate in Phuket, Thailand at
dtenkate@bloomberg.net

Wen Jiaboa issues marching order for Hun Sen in S'pore

2007/11/19

Wen Jiabao Meets Respectively with Leaders of Vietnam, Cambodia and Myanmar

(Extract on meeting between Hun Sen and Wen Jiabao only)

On November 19, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao meets with Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen in Singapore

Wen said China attaches great importance to economic and trade cooperation with Cambodia and is ready to take further measures to increase imports from the country. China will make unremitting efforts to ensure the prompt completion of roads, bridges, hydro-electric plants and other key cooperation projects in Cambia to high standards to benefit the Cambodian people. Meanwhile, China is ready to continue discussing new areas and new ways of mutually beneficial cooperation with Cambodia and enhance the level of bilateral economic and trade cooperation.

Hun Sen said his country will hold various events in cooperation with China to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the diplomatic ties. He hoped both sides will take it as a new milestone to further strengthen friendly cooperation. Cambodia is forging ahead in its domestic economic development, he said, expressing hope that China will continue to support and participate in Cambodia's infrastructure construction. Cambodia welcomes more investment from China, the prime minister added.

China unwavering in support for Myanmar

Saturday, November 17, 2007
By Robert J Saiget
AFP

China appears to have renewed their courting of the regime, paying uneconomic prices for gas exploration to successfully outbid India

BOOMING China needs energy and that means it needs Myanmar, observers say - a lucky break for the ruling generals, who have been able to ignore global outrage thanks to staunch support from Beijing.

As the international community lined up to denounce the junta for its bloody crackdown on pro-democracy protests led by Buddhist monks two months ago, China supported a UN statement of condemnation but took no tougher action. Beijing has stuck to its policy of non-interference in Myanmar’s affairs, repeatedly calling for stability followed by democratic progress, and insists that international sanctions against the regime are not the answer.

That is the message Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao will deliver to Southeast Asian leaders next week at their summit in Singapore, a meeting expected to focus on the situation in the former Burma. But observers say that China’s call for democratic change is compromised by its significant investments in resource-rich Myanmar’s energy reserves - and its desire to keep rival India from gaining better access to them.

Another key reason for China’s unwillingness to talk tough is that the communist rulers in Beijing would not like to see a democratic uprising or political chaos in a neighbouring country. “I don’t think there is any change in substantive issues in the Chinese stand on Burma,” R. Hariharan, a Myanmar expert at the Chennai Centre for Chinese Studies in India, told AFP.

“With the junta playing up the energy issue in developing closer relations with India, China appears to have renewed their courting of the regime, paying uneconomic prices for gas exploration to successfully outbid India,” he said. “The energy business is almost fully in Chinese pockets.” Beijing invests heavily in the development of Myanmar’s energy and natural gas sectors - resources it needs to fuel its juggernaut economy - and is a major supplier of weapons to the impoverished military-run nation.

Bilateral trade climbed nearly 50 percent in the first eight months of the year to be worth 1.08 billion dollars, according to official Chinese data. Beijing views Myanmar as strategically important, as it is a gateway to the Indian Ocean. It also needs the military regime’s help to stamp out the drugs trade across their shared 2,100-kilometre border, Hariharan noted.

“China’s position has changed a little bit, but not much - it is asking for democratic change in Burma and wants dialogue between the junta and the opposition,” said Min Win, a lecturer at Chiang Mai University in Thailand. “But China doesn’t want change, in the sense it does not want to see outside pressure on Burma or the military. China fears that if a new government is formed in Burma, it will lose its influence to the West.”

Ahead of Wen’s trip to Singapore, during which he will meet with ASEAN leaders and counterparts from other Asian powers, assistant foreign minister He Yafei said stability in Myanmar remained China’s primary concern. “We have repeatedly said that we will help Myanmar achieve stability, democracy and development,” He told journalists. “Our primary goal is to see stability in Myanmar - we can never allow chaos in Myanmar. We cannot allow Myanmar to turn into another Iraq. No matter what other countries think, China’s position on this is very firm.”

Next week’s ASEAN summit will be followed by the East Asia Summit, where Southeast Asian leaders will be joined by their counterparts from Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea.

Any statement on Myanmar from that meeting is seen as carrying additional weight, given China and India’s involvement. UN envoy Ibrahim Gambari has described China’s role during the crisis as “helpful”.

The Chinese minister said the recent meeting between detained opposition leader Aung Sang Suu Kyi and the junta’s liaison showed that Myanmar was moving in the right direction following September’s violence, and becoming more stable. “The international community should be encouraged by this,” He said.

Transcript of Milton Osborne's interview on King-Father's refusal to testity at the KRT

Former king refuses to testify at Khmer Rouge trials

12/09/2007
Radio Australia
Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Click here to listen to the interview

Cambodia's former king says he'll refuse to testify at the UN-backed Khmer Rouge war crimes tribunal and has requested a meeting with officials on his conduct under the rule of the Khmer Rouge between 1975 and 1979.

Presenter - Sen Lam Speaker - Milton Osborne, visiting fellow, Lowy Institute, Sydney

OSBORNE: I don't think it will have any significant impact. He's still an important figure because of his historical importance, but he has very little political impact in the present day.

LAM: And of course King Sihanouk, the former king, there were reports implicating him I suppose during the rule of Khmer Rouge that he collaborated. What do we know about Norodom Sihanouk's role during the years of the Killing Fields because I understand that he stayed in Cambodia during all that time?

OSBORNE: Well, not quite all that time. In fact, after the victory of the Khmer Rouge in April 1975, it wasn't until the latter part of the year, around September, that he actually returned to live in Phnom Penh. And although initially he was given the honorific title of chief of state, that was taken away from him fairly early on in 1976. And I think it's correct to say, and fair to say, that during the entire time he was living in Cambodia, in Phnom Penh, during the Khmer Rouge rule, he was effectively under house arrest.

LAM: He did, however, led a relatively comfortable life.

OSBORNE: Oh, yes, yes he did. He lived in air conditioned circumstances. He was allowed interestingly enough to listen to international radio, to shortwave radio, and he was given priority treatment in terms of the sort of food he was allowed to eat.

LAM: Indeed, and yet there were times when he feared for his life, but in the end, the Khmer Rouge left him alone. Why do you think that was so?

OSBORNE: No one is absolutely sure. One possibility is that against all of their other brutal actions during that period they did think that it was important to keep him as some sort of bargaining chip for the future if things went wrong. Probably, and we can't be certain of this because there's no documentation, but probably he was also allowed to remain in the position he held there as a prisoner under house arrest because the Chinese government, which had very considerable influence over the Khmer Rouge rulership, they didn't want him to be harmed.

LAM: And Milton Osborne, there were allegations questioning Sihanouk's allegiances at the time of the Khmer Rouge regime. Did he play an active role? I mean, surely he wasn't totally oblivious to what was happening around him. So do you think he was really more guilty of inaction, of not speaking out?

OSBORNE: I don't think he was in a position after 1975 and while he was under house arrest effectively in Phnom Penh to speak out. I think he had good reasons to be fearful about his life. Some of his close associates were taken away and presumably killed. We don't have all of the details of that. But I don't think he really was in a position to make his concerns public.

LAM: Well, Norodom Sihanouk himself lost five children I understand during that time.

OSBORNE: Well, he lost 14 relatives in addition to children directly of his own.

LAM: Right, at the hands of the Khmer Rouge. And yet he has criticised the UN backed tribunal in the past. What do you think are his misgivings about these trials?

OSBORNE: I think the misgivings so far, as his own personal position is concerned, is that he sees no reason why he should have to be brought before the tribunal. He has said in various earlier communications that he relies on the immunity he was granted under the 1993 Cambodian constitution, and he sees no reason why he should shed that immunity. And I believe his own Armour propre is engaged that he feels that as a former king, he should not be called before a tribunal established by the United Nations.

Chinese influence spans globe [-Actress Mia Farrow calls the 2008 Beijing Olympics: The "Genocide Olympics"]

Chinese automaker ZhongXing Automobile, or ZX Auto, plans to spend $400 million to open a car assembly plant in Tijuana, Mexico.

By William Foreman
Associated Press

KARRATHA, Australia — For nearly three decades, Chinese peasants have left their villages for crowded dormitories and sweaty assembly lines, churning out goods for world markets. Now, China is turning the tables.

Here in the Australian Outback, Shane Padley toils in the scorching heat, 2,000 miles from his home, to build an extension to a liquefied natural gas plant that feeds China's ravenous hunger for energy.

At night, the 34-year-old carpenter sleeps in a tin dwelling known as a "donga," the size of a shipping container and divided into four rooms, each barely big enough for a bed. There are few other places for Padley to live in this boomtown.

Duct-taped to the wall is a snapshot of the blonde girlfriend he left behind and worries he may lose. But, he says, "I can make nearly double what I'd be making back home in the Sydney area."

The reason: China.

For years, China's booming economy touched daily life in the West most visibly through the "made-in-China" label on everything from clothes to computers. But now, economic growth is giving rise to something more that can't be measured just by widgets and gadgets — a shift in China's balance of power with the rest of the world.

China's reach now extends from the Australian desert through the Sahara to the Amazonian jungle — and it's those regions supplying goods for China, not just the other way around. China has stepped up its political and diplomatic presence, most notably in Africa, where it is funneling billions of dollars in aid. And it is increasingly shaping the lifestyle of people around the world, as the United States did before it, right down to the Mandarin-language courses being taught in schools from Argentina to Virginia.

China, like the United States, is also learning that global power cuts both ways. The backlash over tainted toothpaste and toxic pet food has been severe, as has the criticism over China's support for regimes such Sudan's.

To understand why China's influence is increasingly pushing past its borders, just do the math.

When 1.3 billion people want something, the world feels it. And when those people in ever increasing numbers are joining a swelling middle class eager for a richer lifestyle, the world feels it even more.

If China's growth continues, its consumer market will be the world's second largest by 2015. The Chinese already eat 32% of the world's rice, build with 47% of its cement and smoke one out of every three cigarettes.

China's desire for expensive hardwood to turn into top-quality floorboards for its luxury skyscrapers has penetrated deep into the Amazon jungle. For example, in the isolated community of Novo Progresso, or New Progress in Portuguese, one of the biggest sawmills was started by the mayor with financing from Chinese investors.

China accounts for 30% of the wood exported from logging operations in remote towns across Brazil's rain forest, where trucks carry the finished product hundreds of miles along muddy roads to river ports, said Luiz Carlos Tremonte, who heads an influential wood industry association. Many Chinese purchasers now travel to Brazil to clinch deals, and are almost always accompanied at business meetings by friends or relatives of Chinese descent who live there.

"Ten years ago no one knew about China in Brazil; then the demand just exploded and they're buying a lot," Tremonte said. "This wood is great for floors, and they love it there."

The Bovespa stock index in Brazil has climbed more than 300% since 2002, riding the China wave.

China is buying coal mining equipment from Poland and drilling for oil and gas in Ethiopia and Nigeria. It has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into Zambia's copper industry. It is the world's biggest market for mobile phones, headed for 520 million handsets this year. The list goes on.

Along with looking to other countries for goods for its people, China is also going far and wide in search of markets for its products.

In war-torn Liberia, where electricity is hard to come by, Chinese-made Tiger generators keep the local economy humming. Costlier Western brands, favored by aid agencies and diplomats, are beyond the reach of small business owners such as Mohammed Kiawu, 30, who runs a phone stall in the capital, Monrovia.

A used Tiger generator costs around $50, he said over the steady beat of his generator. "But even $250 is not enough to buy a used American or European generator. They are not meant for people like myself."

The Chinese generators are more prone to break down, Kiawu said. When the starter cable snapped on one, he replaced it with twine. But by making items for ordinary people, he predicted, China "will take control of the heart of the common people of Africa soon."

China is having to make up for decades of economic stagnation after the communist takeover in 1949.

When Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping began dabbling in economic reforms in 1978, farmers were scraping by. By 2005, income had increased sixfold after adjusting for inflation to $400 a year for those in the countryside and $1,275 for urban Chinese, according to China's National Bureau of Statistics.

"The Chinese don't want war — the Chinese just want to trade their way to power," said David Zweig, a professor at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. "In the past, if a state wanted to expand, it had to take territory. You don't need to grab colonies any more. You just need to have competitive goods to trade."

If China stays on the same economic track, it would become the world's largest economy in 2027, surpassing the United States, according to projections by Goldman, Sachs & Co., a Wall Street investment bank. And unlike Japan, which rose in the 1980s only to fade again, China still has a huge pool of workers to tap and an emerging middle class that is just starting to reach critical mass. Many development economists believe China still has 20 years of fairly high growth ahead.

But the transition to a larger presence on the global stage comes with growing pains, for China and the rest of the world.

As Beijing plays an ever bigger role in the developing world, some Western countries fear it could undermine efforts to promote democracy. In its attempt to secure markets and win allies, China is stepping up development aid to Africa and Asia. Chinese President Hu Jintao pledged last year to double Chinese aid to Africa between 2006 and 2009, promising $3 billion in loans, $2 billion in export credits and a $5 billion fund to encourage Chinese investment in Africa. China has also promised Cambodia a $600 million aid package and agreed to loan $500 million to the Philippines for a rail project.

But China also extends aid to states such as Myanmar, Zimbabwe and Sudan whose human rights records have lost them the support of the West. Actress Mia Farrow has labeled next year's Beijing Olympics — a point of pride for China — the "genocide Olympics" because of China's support for Sudan, at a time when the West seeks to punish it for its military actions in Darfur. China buys two-thirds of Sudan's oil output.

"In some ways, it will be integrating us into a new international order in which democracy as we've known it or the right to open organized political activity is no longer considered the norm," said James Mann, author of The China Fantasy, a book about China and the West.

China is also facing some of the unease that powers before it have encountered. In Africa and Asia, some complain that massive China-funded infrastructure projects involve mostly Chinese workers and companies, rather than create jobs and wealth for the local population. And Moeletsi Mbeki, a political commentator and brother of South African President Thabo Mbeki, likens the trade of African resources for Chinese manufactured goods to former colonial arrangements.

"This equation is not sustainable," Mbeki said at a recent meeting of the African Development Bank in Shanghai. "Africa needs to preserve its natural resources to use in the future for its own industrialization."

The backlash is also coming on the consumer front, with Chinese goods earning a dubious reputation for quality. In the United States, there is a furor over the standard of Chinese imports. In Bolivia, vendors peel off or paint over any indication that their wares were "Hecho en China," Spanish for "Made in China."

A woman selling bicycles in El Alto, a poor city outside the capital, La Paz, insisted they were made in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan or even India. With some prodding, she acknowledged the truth. "They're all Chinese," she said, declining to give her name lest it hurt her business. "But if I say they're Chinese, they don't sell."

Even those who benefit from China's growth express some wariness. Aerospace giant Boeing expects China to be the largest market for commercial air travel outside the United States in the next 20 years, buying more than $100 billion worth of commercial aircraft, U.S. trade envoy Karan Bhatia said in a recent speech.

"Right now, we're hiring every week," noted Connie Kelliher, a union leader. "Things couldn't be better."

Yet Boeing workers remain wary of China's ambitions to build its own planes. next year China plans to test-fly a locally made midsize jet seating 78 to 85 passengers. It also has announced plans to roll out a 150-seat plane by 2020.

"It's kind of a double-edged sword," Kelliher said. "You want the business and we want to get the airplane sales to them, but there's the real concern of giving away so much technology that they start building their own."

That's what happened to Western and Japanese automakers, which made inroads in the Chinese market only to see their designs copied and technologies stolen. Already, China's vehicle manufacturers are venturing overseas, exporting 325,000 units last year — mostly low-priced trucks and buses to Asia, Africa and Latin America.

"We're taking a bigger piece of the pie," said Yamilet Guevara, a sales manager for Cinascar Automotriz, which has opened 20 showrooms in Venezuela in the past 18 months, offering cars from six Chinese makers. "They ask by name now. It's no longer just the Chinese car. It's the Tiggo, the QQ."

China's biggest car company, Chery Automobile Co., just announced a deal with the Chrysler Group to jointly produce and export cars to Western Europe and the United States within 2½ years.

Given the speed of China's ascent, it's perhaps not surprising that China itself is trying to calm some of the fears. Its slogan for the Beijing Olympics: "Peacefully Rising China."

Contributing: AP correspondents Jonathan Paye-Layleh, Alan Clendenning, Dan Keane and Ian James

60 Cambodian soldiers with scholarships leave for China for training

August 31, 2007

About 60 soldiers from different departments of the Ministry of National Defense of Cambodia left for China on Friday to get military training courses, an official said.

"We have received scholarships from the Chinese government to study in military sections," Meng Hay, an official in the information and propaganda department of the Ministry of National Defense, told Xinhua at the Phnom Penh International Airport where the soldier students had gathered in early morning before setting off to China.

"When we arrive in China, we will go to study at different schools in different provinces," he said, adding that each soldier will learn a professional skill, such as anti-terrorism, infantry, computer, Chinese language, navy, airplane repairing, tank and artillery.

"I am very happy to have the opportunity to learn in China because I can upgrade my knowledge about infantry," Meng Hay said.

He added that he got high scores at the Royal Military Academy of Cambodia in Phnom Penh and upgraded his English language skills nearly a year before he passed the test to get the scholarship.

Source: Xinhua

[China] Boosting Maritime Capabilities in the Indian Ocean

People's Liberation Army (P.L.A.) Navy seamen stand guard during a visit by Chinese President Hu Jintao to the Stonecutters Naval Base in Hong Kong on June 30. (Photo: Mike Clarke / AFP-Getty Images)

August 23, 2007
Dipanjan Roy Chaudhury
New Delhi, India
WorldPress.org

Maritime power represents military, political, and economic power, exerted through an ability to use the sea or deny its use to others. It has traditionally been employed to control "use-of-the-sea" activities undertaken by nations for their general economic welfare and, often, even for their very survival. Maritime power and naval power are not synonymous, the latter being a sub-set of the former. Traditional land powers are more and more focusing on developing their maritime capabilities to safeguard their economic interests and extend their sphere of influence.

Historically, China has been a land power. However, over the past two decades, it has found itself increasingly dependent on resources and markets accessible only via maritime routes. This has left Beijing with the dilemma of how to safeguard its trade routes and flow of resources in a world in which the United States is the dominant naval power, and both India and Japan — China's neighbors and strategic rivals — are stepping up their own naval capabilities.

Ensuring a continuous supply of energy has come to be the most important prerequisite for China in building an advanced, industrialized state. Despite being the world's sixth largest oil producer, China has been a net importer of oil since 1994. It imported 40 million metric tons in 1999 and is projected to import 100 million tons by 2010. China's dependence on seafood has increased in recent years. China will therefore have to ensure security of its sea lanes and shipping industry to ensure its continued development As of today, 85 percent of China's trade is sea-based. Also, with its 26 shipyards, China has emerged as the world's fourth largest shipbuilder. Thus for both reasons, China needs assured access and control over its adjacent oceans.

China and Indian Ocean Nations

China's perceptions regarding other major powers, especially Moscow and Washington, have been the most important external factor molding its Indian Ocean vision and policy initiatives. While initially it was American containment that explained all their activities in the Indian Ocean, the Sino-Soviet split in the early 1960's made China suspicious of Moscow's initiatives and intentions in this region.

In the recent years, a new great game has begun between India and China to bring the Maldives and Sri Lanka under their respective sphere of influence in the Indian Ocean Region (I.O.R.). After Myanmar and Bangladesh, to complete the "arc of influence" in South Asia, China is determined to enhance military and economic cooperation with the Maldives and Sri Lanka. China's ambition to build a naval base at Marao in the Maldives, its recent entry into the oil exploration business in Sri Lanka, the development of port and bunker facilities at Hambantota, the strengthening military cooperation and boosting bilateral trade with Colombo, are all against Indian interests and ambitions in the region.

Although China claims that its bases are only for securing energy supplies to feed its growing economy, the Chinese base in the Maldives is motivated by Beijing's determination to contain and encircle India and thereby limit the growing influence of the Indian Navy in the region. The Marao base deal was finalized after two years of negotiations, when Chinese Prime minister Zhu Rongzi visited Male' in May 2001. Once Marao comes up as the new Chinese "pearl," Beijing's power projection in the Indian Ocean would be augmented.

Recently, Sri Lanka allocated an exploration block in the Mannar Basin to China for petroleum exploration. This allocation would connote a Chinese presence just a few miles from India's southern tip, thus causing strategic discomfort. In economic terms, it could also mean the end of the monopoly held by Indian oil companies in this realm, putting them into direct and stiff competition from Chinese oil companies. At Hambantota, on the southern coast of Sri Lanka where Beijing is building bunkering facilities and an oil tank farm. This infrastructure will help service hundreds of ships that traverse the sea lanes of commerce off Sri Lanka. The Chinese presence in Hambantota would be another vital element in its strategic circle already enhanced through its projects in Pakistan, Myanmar and Bangladesh.

It is Sri Lanka's strategic location that has prompted Beijing to aim for a strategic relationship with Colombo. Beijing is concerned about the growing United States presence in the region as well as about increasing Indo-U.S. naval cooperation in the Indian Ocean. China looks at using the partnership with Sri Lanka to enhance its influence over strategic sea lanes of communication from Europe to East Asia and oil tanker routes from the Middle East to the Malacca Straits. China has been consolidating its access to the Indian Ocean through the Karakoram Highway and Karachi, through the China-Burma road to Burmese ports and through the Malacca Straits, especially once they have established their supremacy over the South China Sea.

China's Indian Ocean policy has been clearly influenced by its ties with the other major powers. Its interest in the Indian Ocean started partly as a reaction to its perception that increasing United States presence there was aimed at encircling China. The policy has also been directly linked to its problems with New Delhi. China feels India is facilitating the American presence in the Indian Ocean region as a means of countering Beijing.

The United States Navy maintains a substantial permanent presence in the I.O.R. from its Fifth Fleet base in the Gulf, its substantial naval and air assets at Diego Garcia as well as by rotational deployments of Seventh Fleet units from the Pacific, centered on one or two nuclear-powered, nuclear-armed aircraft carriers. It was last deployed in major hostilities against Iraq, was briefly involved in Somalia and was on call to resist the Australian preemptive intervention in East Timor.

Chinese Naval Power and the Indian Ocean Region

The Indian Ocean, along with other sea lines of communication, have attracted the attention of Chinese naval planners. The takeover of the Panama Canal by a private Chinese firm after the United States withdrawal in 1999, reported Chinese threats to intervene in the Straits of Malacca and the active Chinese role in the West Asian region indicate unfolding Chinese interest this region. Beginning from the early 1980's, Chinese naval modernization underwent a sea change, partly with the modified perceptions about the value of the oceans.

China has launched an ambitious futuristic weapons development program, including high energy microwave beam-weapons, ship-based laser cannon and space-based weaponry to destroy communication and reconnaissance satellites. The country is the greatest source of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and missile technology. History has shown that China is not averse to using force in order to achieve its aims, and its attitude towards its neighbors is a constant source of concern.

Gwadar in Pakistan, Hambantota in Sri Lanka and Sitwe (Akyab) in Myanmar have functioned essentially as fishing harbors. The growing Chinese interest in these places and China's generous offer of assistance to these countries for converting their fishing harbours into maritime ports of international standards has aroused doubts about Beijing's motive in increasing its naval presence in the region.

Beijing is trying to give its Navy a greater visibility, operability and rapid action capability in the Indian Ocean region than it enjoys now. Gwadar, Hambantota and Sitwe form important components of its maritime security strategy. China is also interested in the island nation of Seychelles. It is important to monitor the growing Chinese interest there as part of any study of China's maritime strategic moves.

Beijing has given signal to the world of its aspirations to assume a role beyond its natural geographic and historical maritime boundaries. Any Chinese threat to India's maritime interests in the near future is economic and political as well as military. China is setting up a series of military bases as part of an endeavor to project its power. In Bangladesh, Beijing is seeking extensive naval and commercial access. Dhaka already shares close defense ties with Beijing. In Myanmar, China is also building naval bases and electronic intelligence gathering facilities at Grand Coco Island in the Bay of Bengal. However, the military junta, wary of excessive dependence on China, has turned to New Delhi for military supplies. In Cambodia, Beijing is helping to build a railway line from South China to the sea. In Thailand, China is funding the construction of a $20 billion canal across the Kra Isthmus. This would allow ships to bypass the Strait of Malacca. China has also set up electronic posts near the Persian Gulf to monitor ship traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.

New Delhi's Role in the Indian Ocean Region

India has been apprehensive about China's growing naval expansion in the Indian Ocean, which New Delhi views as encirclement. As China's naval diplomacy take roots in the region, India cannot remain a mute spectator and, much like China, has increased its military engagement in the region. India now regularly conducts naval and military exercises with the United States, Japan, and China, as well as with its South Asian and South-East Asian neighbors. New Delhi has signed a defense agreement with Singapore and has cooperative arrangements with many nations stretching from the Seychelles to Vietnam. It has participated in mechanisms to protect maritime traffic passing through the strategic Malacca Straits.

In recent years India has intensified its pace of cooperation with countries in the Indian Ocean littoral. After the success of its tsunami diplomacy, New Delhi is looking forward to evolve new channels of naval diplomacy with these countries. During the past year, the just-retired Indian Navy chief, Admiral Arun Prakash, visited many South East Asian and South Asian capitals. The primary goal of these visits was to enhance bilateral cooperation and strengthen naval ties.

Two Indian warships recently made friendly port calls in Bangladesh and Myanmar. The navies of India and Bangladesh have also discussed possibilities of connecting the Vishakapatnam and Chittagong ports. An access agreement with Dhaka would allow more extensive patrolling, both sea borne and from the air in these sensitive waters. The Indian navy is also keen to maintain vessels at the Bangladeshi ports, to compete with Beijing's strategic gains in that sector. China has signed a training and equipment agreement with Dhaka.

India's geographical location at the natural junction of the busy international shipping lanes that crisscross the Indian Ocean has had a major impact upon the formulation of New Delhi's maritime strategy. The sea area around India is among the busiest in the world, with over 100,000 ships transiting the shipping lanes every year. The Straits of Malacca alone account for some 60,000 ships annually. India itself has a 4,670-mile long (7,516 km) coastline and several far-flung island territories. The 13 major and 185 minor ports that mark India's coastline constitute the landward ends of the country's sea lines of communication. The development of additional ports is a high-priority activity and is taking place all along the western and eastern seaboards of the country. India, today, has a modest, but rapidly-growing merchant-shipping fleet, presently comprising 756 ships and totaling 8.6 million "Gross Registered Tonnes," with an average age of around 17 years, as compared to the global average of 20 years. The Indian Navy and the Indian Coast Guard are major stabilizing forces in the movement of energy across the Indian Ocean, not just for India, but for the world at large.

The region of India's maritime interests, which on primary geographic considerations might suggest itself only as the north Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea, in fact has to take maritime factors into account and developments in distant areas such as the western Pacific, South China Sea, the eastern Mediterranean, the central and southern Indian Ocean. Also under review are islands such as Diego Garcia, Madagascar, Mauritius, Reunion and the Seychelles, in addition to South Africa and Australia as they dominate the southern approaches to the Indian Ocean. This is because of the flexibility and mobility of naval forces and the rapidity with which they can traverse large distances, concentrate, deploy, withdraw or disperse.

India's maritime diplomacy, like its broader diplomatic effort, radiates out in expanding circles of engagement, starting with the country's immediate maritime neighborhood. As a mature and responsible maritime power, New Delhi is contributing actively to capacity building and operational coordination to address threats from non-state actors, disaster relief, support to United Nations peacekeeping and rescue and extrication missions.

In fact, India's maritime diplomacy is now an essential component of New Delhi's "Look East" policy. India has concluded bilateral arrangements with Thailand and Indonesia for joint coordinated patrols by the three navies in the Bay of Bengal at the mouth of the Malacca Straits. New Delhi is also ready to contribute to capacity building of the littoral states in the interests of maritime security. Southeast Asian navies participate in the bi-annual MILAN exercises. At the multilateral level and within the maritime domain, India has launched a series of initiatives to provide an inclusive and mutually-consultative forum in which the navies and maritime security agencies of the region - whether large or small - can meet and discuss common issues that bear upon international security.

Economic growth and opportunities in the Asia-Pacific and Indian Ocean have attracted China into taking an interest in the region. Beijing feels compelled to look outwards in order to craft joint strategies for achieving faster economic growth and peace and security. China is a long-term concern by reason, not only because of its phenomenal economic growth and military power, but because of its ambitious and determined drive towards great global power status. The drive is already manifesting itself in the modernization of its armed forces — in particular the expansion of its navy and maritime capabilities. The Chinese, however, argue that their initiative towards the Indian Ocean is guided by both strategic and economic compulsions and capabilities, as a significant proportion of its sea borne trade (around 85 percent) passes through the Indian Ocean.

Given its sensitivities to the United States and India, China has supported proposals for the Indian Ocean as a Zone of Peace. The country's long-term strategic outlook is global and not regional. Beijing seeks to develop its naval capabilities and seek definite sea superiority over other naval powers in the region. Some of China's initiatives in the Indian Ocean are also geared to preventing any littoral country from granting Taiwan their membership. China's ability to deter Taiwan thus is more effective since the Indian Ocean states seem willing to oblige Beijing. Thus, Taiwan is not a member of the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission although it is represented in the fishing associations of the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.

By 2020 China plans to deploy task forces consisting of two aircraft carriers, two S.S.B.N.s, six S.S.N.s, 18 destroyers and about 30 frigates in the I.O.R. However, until about 2045, it will be difficult for China to deploy its naval forces permanently in the Indian Ocean. By that time, it remains to be seen if Pakistan, Myanmar and other countries in the region become full-fledged Chinese allies.

India is trying to create a balance of power in the I.O.R, as the country is emerging as a major power and is often regarded as a pivotal influence in the region's geopolitics. It has established a "Far Eastern Strategic Command" headquartered in Port Blair to monitor the military situation in the region. However, in order to have a strong hold over the region, India needs economic assets as well as a strong military presence. India must have access in the region of Chinese influence, by establishing political, economic and security ties with East and Southeast Asian countries. New Delhi must strengthen its ties with other major regional and global forums to maintain its sphere of influence. At a strategic level, India will have to attempt to balance China's power realistically, through development of its own economic and military potential and through building strong relationships with neighbors, and regional organizations like the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (A.S.E.A.N.).

Domino Theory redux: Cambodia caught up between the US and China ... again?

Adm. Timothy J. Keating, right, commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, gestures as he talks to journalists at Ministry of Defense in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2007. The United States is ready to assist Cambodia in military training and exercises to improve the country's capabilities to fight global terrorism, Keating said Tuesday. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)

Tue Aug 21, 2007

PHNOM PENH (AFP) - The region's top US military commander Tuesday expressed concern over China's rapid military build-up, just days after an unprecedented display of Beijing's firepower during war games with Russia.

"China professes to be advocating a peaceful rise," said Admiral Timothy J. Keating, head of the US Pacific Command, during his first official trip to Cambodia, where he met with senior defence officials.

"Some of the systems they're developing and some of the capabilities that they're demonstrating would indicate to us that perhaps their intentions aren't exactly beneficial to security ... throughout the pacific," he said.

"So we're watching carefully," he added after talks with Cambodian Defence Minister Tea Bahn.

Cambodia has in recent years become a stronger focus for both Washington and Beijing. China, a former patron of the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime, continues to eclipse the impoverished country's other donors with hundreds of millions of dollars in largely-unconditional aid.

Just moments before Keating's arrival at Cambodia's defence ministry, Chinese ambassador Zhang Jin Feng was seen leaving with a delegation of senior Chinese military officials.

Zhang divulged little about her talks, and Keating downplayed the ambassador's appearance, and said that his visit to Cambodia this week was not to counter Beijing's regional military influence.

"I don't view my visit as offsetting anyone else's. We're anxious to have more transparency with China," he said.

"We are not competing against the People's Republic of China militarily."

But after years in the diplomatic wilderness, Cambodia's star has abruptly begun to rise with the United States.

In particular, military ties to the country, largely snapped after Prime Minister Hun Sen ousted his then-political counterpart in a 1997 coup, were re-established two years ago with the promise of limited military aid.

Since then, at least three senior US military commanders, including Keating, have made swings through Cambodia, and in February the navy's USS Gary became the first US warship to visit the former communist country in more than 30 years.

Keating said more cooperation is possible, mainly in the form of training and military exercises.

Cambodia has also emerged as a key regional partner in Washington's "war on terror," and Keating told reporters that the US would ramp up counter-terrorism cooperation with authorities here.

"We're willing to do what we can to make their capabilities even better, and this involves information sharing, surveillance techniques and the capability to track the flow of finances around the world," he said.

Porous borders and poor policing have made Cambodia a concern for terror watchers, who warn that extremist organisations could use the country as a refuge or staging ground for operations.

Unlike the US, China has a non-aggression treaty and a free trade agreement with ASEAN which includes Cambodia

Sunday, August 12, 2007
Military buildup seen hitting China's inroads in Asia

WASHINGTON (AFP) - China may be making huge strides in projecting "soft power" in Southeast Asia amid US preoccupation in Iraq, but the region remains wary of the Asian giant's military ambitions, experts say.

Once a US stomping ground, Southeast Asia is seeing greater Chinese involvement in diplomacy, trade, investment, cultural and educational exchanges as well as foreign aid to less developed states.

A critical component of China's "soft power" diplomacy is the emphasis on engaging the region as a whole -- unlike the United States, which has focused primarily on bilateral relations.

The United States helped set up the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) as a bulwark against communism 40 years ago, but today China is "increasingly the most influential external actor in dealing with ASEAN," said Joshua Kurlantzick, a visiting scholar at the Washington-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Also, unlike the United States, China has acceded to ASEAN's Treaty of Amity and Cooperation -- a non-aggression treaty -- and forged a free trade agreement with the group comprising Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

"This makes it appear like China is more committed to regional free trade, and there has been much less protest in Southeast Asia against the China deal than against some of the deals with the US," said Kurlantzick, author of "Charm Offensive: How China's Soft Power Is Transforming the World."

When Washington tightened visa policies after the September 11, 2001 attacks, Beijing moved to aggressively encourage Chinese education in the region -- funding primary schools, setting up Confucian institutes at universities, and offering scholarships and visitor programs for rising Asian leaders, Kurlantzick said.

"As a result, China is going to train many of the next generation of ASEAN opinion leaders, who once would have gone to the US or the UK or Australia," he said.

Despite China capitalising on US policy mistakes to boost its charm offensive in the region, President George W. Bush's administration seems unperturbed.

"Having more China does not mean less US in Southeast Asia," said US Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill. "There is plenty of room for all of us and we don't see China as a 'winner,'" he said.

Hill said that Washington was not competing with China "for the hearts and souls of Southeast Asia.

"In fact, we want Southeast Asia to have a good relationship with China. We do not see this at all as opposed to our interests."

But China is beginning to notice US attempts to counter Beijing's influence, especially amid concerns over Chinese military build-up that could challenge traditional US naval dominance in the region.

At a recent seminar on trends in the distribution of military, economic and "soft" power in Asia Pacific hosted by the US-based East-West Centre, Chinese participants cited perceived US attempts to build "counter-Chinese coalitions" in the region, an expert said.

"Responses to the Chinese arguments, both by Americans and some other Asian participants, were that China's open and positive approach is welcomed and has improved China's image in the region," said Richard Baker, an Asia-Pacific expert at the centre.

But, Baker, a former US diplomat, said the participants also noted "lingering uncertainties and scepticism as to China's future conduct" with its increasing "hard power."

Beijing announced an official military budget of 45 billion US dollars for 2007. The US Defence Intelligence Agency however estimates that it is up to three times the amount.

More specifically, China's naval build-up is sparking regional insecurities and fuelling an arms race according to Stratfor, a leading US security consulting intelligence agency.

"The more China focuses on its maritime frontiers, the more alarm bells will sound in East Asia and the United States," the agency said in a recent commentary.

Against this growing suspicion, China has to show greater goodwill and respect for its regional partners before its soft power is fully effective in creating a "positive" image in the region, according to some participants at the East-West Centre conference.

HRW criticized Beijing's ties with oppressive regimes and dictatorships in Sudan, Burma, Cambodia and Zimbabwe

Group: China cracking down on activists

Aug. 2, 2007
By ANITA CHANG Associated Press Writer
The Associated Press

BEIJING — One year before the start of the Beijing Olympics, the Chinese government has failed to live up to promises of greater human rights and has instead clamped down on domestic activists and journalists, Human Rights Watch said Thursday.

China, which has long been criticized for its human rights record, has cracked down on dissent to stave off potential political instability, the human rights group said.

"The government seems afraid that its own citizens will embarrass it by speaking out about political and social problems, but China's leaders apparently don't realize authoritarian crackdowns are even more embarrassing," Brad Adams, the Asia director of New York-based Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.

The Beijing Olympics, which begin Aug. 8, 2008, are a huge source of pride for China. In bidding for the games back in 2001, Chinese leaders promised International Olympic Committee members that the Olympics would lead to an improved climate for human rights and media freedoms.

Instead, there has been "gagging of dissidents, a crackdown on activists and attempts to block independent media coverage," Adams said.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry had no immediate comment on the Human Rights Watch statement. In the past, China has said it was fulfilling all the commitments made in it's bid for the games.

The IOC said it believed the Olympics have had a positive effect China.

"While some may question China's ability to meet it's obligations related to the Beijing Games, we think it is premature to state that China has failed to live up to it's pledges," IOC spokeswoman Giselle Davis said.

Human Rights Watch sighted several examples of activists who have been obstructed, including a husband-and-wife couple, Hu Jia and Zeng Jinyan, who have been under constant surveillance and travel restrictions since May for allegedly "harming state security."

Others include Jingo Yanking, a military surgeon who broke government secrecy to reveal the true scale of Beijing's SARS outbreak in 2003. He has reportedly been banned from leaving China to accept a human rights award in New York.

Hu, an AIDS activist, said law enforcement authorities told him last year, while he was in custody for nearly six weeks, that Olympic security measures started two years ahead of the Beijing Games.

"Olympic security includes extinguishing all threats," he said. "The greatest threats aren't necessarily terrorists or crime, the greatest threats are those who reveal China's social problems and protest the government."

Like many dissidents, Hu is under constant surveillance by plainclothes officers. His wife, Zeng, who is five months pregnant, was barred from attending a human rights meeting in Switzerland in June and had her passport confiscated.

For foreign journalists in China, Beijing has loosened decades-old reporting rules that required government approval for travel and interviews. Yet at the same time, it has clamped down on domestic media and Internet essayists.

"The Chinese government shouldn't waste this unique opportunity to use the 2008 Games to demonstrate to the world it is serious about improving the rights situation," Adams said.

The group also criticized Beijing's ties with oppressive regimes and dictatorships in Sudan, Burma, Cambodia and Zimbabwe. China has been accused of not doing more to stop the bloodshed in Darer, where more than 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million others displaced since February 2003.

China buys two-thirds of Sudan's oil exports, exports weapons to the country and is an investor in Sudanese dams and other infrastructure projects. Beijing has urged a political solution to the Darer crisis and, as a veto-wielding member of the U.N. Security Council, has blocked efforts to sanction Khartoum.

Steven Spielberg, who is working as a consultant on the Games' opening ceremony, has urged Chinese President Hu Jintao to change his government's policy on Sudan after the filmmaker was publicly branded a collaborator by Mia Farrow.

Farrow, a U.N. goodwill ambassador, has labeled the Games the "genocide Olympics."

After resisting calls for intervention, China dispatched a special envoy and lobbied Sudan to accept a U.N. peacekeeping force. The U.N. unanimously agreed Tuesday to send a 26,000-strong peacekeeping force to Darfur by the end of this year.

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."

U.S. diplomat: China is a source of corruption in Cambodia

U.S. diplomat says China's role in Southeast Asia often unproductive
2007-07-26

WASHINGTON (AP) - A senior U.S. diplomat said Thursday that China's growing influence in Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos has often been unhelpful and has contributed to flourishing corruption.

China has worked to increase its economic and political presence throughout Southeast Asia, analysts say, and has pumped in large amounts of money meant to help build roads and other infrastructure to encourage Chinese trade and businesses in the region.

But Eric John, a deputy assistant secretary of state, said that China does not do enough to link its aid with pressure for the countries to improve human rights, corruption and other issues of worry.

«We certainly wouldn't want China not to be involved, but, in many ways, its influence can be unproductive,» John said at the Heritage Foundation think tank. «It's a country that has allowed, for example, corruption to flourish with its assistance.

In communist-led Laos, a country of about 6.5 million people with long borders with Thailand and Vietnam and shorter ones with Myanmar, China and Cambodia, John spoke of vast Chinese economic influence.

«That leads to political influence and it makes it a tough country to crack for other countries to be able to positively influence them,» he said.

Separately, John said that Myanmar continued to suffer under the military, which has ruled since the early 1960s. «It's continuing to get worse,» he said.

In a recent and rare meeting in Beijing, John pressed senior representatives of Myanmar's government to free imprisoned Nobel laureate and pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who has spent more than 11 of the past 18 years in detention.

In Cambodia, John said there had been «a lot of quiet improvements» and a steady boost in U.S.-Cambodian ties, in religious tolerance and in military cooperation with Washington.

But Cambodia still has huge corruption problems and is still «a country that, to put it mildly, heavily leans toward the executive branch in how it governs.»

Phnom Penh kowtowing to the will of The "communist" Middle Kingdom

Cambodia Reasserts One-China Position

Heng Reaksmey, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
25 July 2007

Cambodia will adhere to its one-China policy, continuing to oppose any move by Taiwan for independence or UN recognition, foreign affairs officials said Wednesday.

Foreign Affairs Minister Hor Namhong said in a statement that Cambodia's UN ambassador should seek to oppose Taiwan's moves for recognition, following a meeting between the minister and Chinese Ambassador Zhang Jinfeng.

The UN Monday denied a Taiwanese request for recognition, maintaining that Beijing is the only representative of China.

Cambodia will also raise the issue at the next meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, Hor Namhong said, as Taiwan's continued insistence to be independent of China destabilizes the region.

China considers Taiwan a renegade province, and Cambodia supports the Chinese position. China is a permanent member of the UN Security Council.

A 1971 resolution recognizing Beijing over Taipei prevents Taiwan's membership into the world body, the UN office of legal affairs said, according to the Associated Press.

President Chen Shui Bian has vowed to continue to push for UN recognition.

Hun Sen's regime sold out to the People's Republic of China in order to obtain aids and donations

July 25, 2007
Cambodian government firmly opposes Taiwan authority's "trick" to join UN

Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Hor Namhong here on Wednesday expresses firm opposition against the Taiwan authority's "trick" to join the United Nations under the name of Taiwan.

He made these remarks while meeting with Chinese Ambassador to Cambodia Zhang Jinfeng at his ministry, according to a press release issued by the ministry.

Hor Namhong reiterated the Cambodian government's consistent stance of supporting the one-China policy and its firm opposition of the Taiwan authority over its bid to join UN.

In addition, he said, the recent activities by the authority of Taiwan to organize referendum to join UN under the name of Taiwan are just another serious step to seek "de jure Taiwan independence, " which will absolutely not succeed.

The Cambodian government will stick to its consistent and firm stance and will oppose Taiwan to join UN, he said.

"There is only one China in the world, namely the People's Republic of China, and Taiwan is an integral part of China," he said.

According to Resolution 2758 of the UN General Assembly in 1971, China resumed its seat in UN, which is a globally recognized fact, he added.

On Monday, a spokesperson for UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said that the UN Office of Legal Affairs had rejected the application for UN membership by Taiwan leader Chen Shui-bian.

Source: Xinhua

China Plays Nice With Neighbors [only because it will ask something back in return]

Tuesday, July 17, 2007
By Philip Nice
theTrumpet.com (Philadelphia, PA, USA)

Beijing continues its policy of courting rather than confronting certain states. It will remember to collect those favors.

China continues to tighten ties with its Southeast Asian neighbors, expanding its sphere of influence in the region through financial, infrastructural and military aid. Beijing appears happy to extend this assistance, but according to some analysts, this may have less to do with a warm, fuzzy feeling in Chinese officials’ hearts than with a quiet ambition to build a superpower.

Prior to the 1997 Asian economic meltdown, Beijing generally dealt with its neighbors using hard-nosed policies that further fueled the region’s long-standing fear of China. Over the past decade, however, it has transformed many of those relationships. Beijing has used its booming economy to provide military hardware, build civic infrastructure and offer advantageous loans to governments in need.

In doing so, it has also put a number of states in its debt.

In tiny East Timor, China is building a lavish foreign ministry and a presidential palace as well as barracks for the Timorese military. It has also provided military uniforms, medical and police groups, and training for civil servants and farmers.

“The Chinese government thinks that as good partners, good neighbors and good friends of Timor-Leste, we are obligated to give a helping hand,” Chinese Ambassador Su Jian said. “The leaders of Timor-Leste regard China like an elder brother and a most reliable friend.”

Beijing has also extended its right hand of friendship to Myanmar and Cambodia, gaining considerable influence in both countries, and is even building highways, an aqueduct and other projects in the Philippines, which has traditionally maintained close ties with Washington. Thailand and Indonesia have also received Chinese handouts.

“China’s experience is very rich in helping small and developing countries in Africa,” Su said. “The Chinese government knows exactly what these countries need and also can provide them with very pragmatic skills and technology. It is very suitable to development of these small countries.”

Some think it is also very suitable to development of Chinese strategy.

PetroChina has secured a contract to conduct surveys in East Timor and may potentially invest in an offshore field. The nation also lies on a somewhat strategic sea-lane, which Beijing wouldn’t mind keeping an eye on.

Tiny East Timor is just one example of China’s growing sphere of influence across the region. Analysts feel Beijing’s actions there and elsewhere reflect an agenda based on more than just the “golden rule.”

“China’s friendly stance is part of a broad diplomatic and economic policy throughout the region that has acquired the epithets ‘soft power’ and ‘charm offensive,’” the International Herald Tribune reports (July 11).

Joshua Kurlantzick, author of Charm Offensive: How China’s Soft Power is Transforming the World, feels China’s courtship of its neighbors does not mean Beijing is forgetting to put its own interests first.

“In a region where there is a historic fear of China, they are promoting the idea that China is a friendly partner,” he said. “And they do see these countries as far more strategic than the United States does, and so they are willing to spend resources on them.” Washington’s concentration on terrorist threats and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has made this an easy task to accomplish.

“They have been expanding their influence and building their links to governments in a very careful, sophisticated way,” Daljeet Singh, a Singapore-based policy analyst, said. “They are aware that in the past there was a good deal of suspicion of China, and their soft approach is designed to appease, to increase their footprint and their influence through trade agreements, free-trade offers, strategic partnerships.”

China’s helpful offensive is putting ious in its pocket and could turn traditionally American allies into Chinese allies in the future. Beijing’s well-documented re-colonization of Africa may well set a precedent for a similar offensive closer to home.

Look for China eventually to claim the favors it is currently handing out and to form a Far-Eastern superpower. Read “China’s Quiet War” for more information on Beijing’s global strategy.

Cambodia officially opens new parliamentary headquarters

Jul 7, 2007
DPA

Phnom Penh - Cambodia officially opened its 24 million- dollar new National Assembly Saturday in a lavish traditional Buddhist ceremony presided over by King Norodom Sihamoni and seven of the nation's most venerable Buddhist monks.

With 7,777 guests in attendance, the timing of the opening to coincide with the anniversary of factional fighting in 1997 which ousted then First Prime Minister and Funcinpec leader Prince Norodom Ranariddh was almost certainly for its astrological significance rather than irony.

Cambodian People's Party (CPP) lawmaker Cheam Yeap declared that 2007 was the anniversary of democracy which was established in Cambodia in late 1946. Observers noted that Prince Norodom Sihanouk's rule from 1953 until UN-organized elections in 1993 Cambodia was ruled by single parties.

The new National Assembly was built entirely by Cambodians, from architectural design to construction, and using only Cambodian funding, Cheam Yeap added.

King Sihamoni said the new building was 'a great monument to Cambodia's idealism and commitment' to democracy.

Neither the CPP nor its junior coalition partner Funcinpec marked the anniversary of the July 5 and 6 fighting, which left hundreds dead, saying that was in the past. Instead they turned their full attention to Saturday's ceremony.

A public museum inside the National Assembly includes a remarkably record of Cambodia's strides towards its current multi-party democracy, with a rollcall of parliamentarians from 1946 onward listing 10 names of the Khmer Rouge's Democratic Kampuchea (DK) regime leaders.

Brother Number 2, Nuon Chea, who is expected to be a prime candidate to face impending 56-million dollar joint Cambodia-UN trials of former leaders of the regime, tops the list rather than the movement's deceased leader Pol Pot. It was unclear why only 10 of 250 DK parliamentarians' names were recorded.

Saturday's ceremony was attended by the nation's parliamentarians and senators from all parties, as well as a range of dignitaries and representatives from foreign embassies.

Although the building is extensively and almost exclusively decorated with prime examples of Cambodian artwork, one tribute from a foreign nation was prominently displayed during the opening tour - a gift of a large painting of the Great Wall of China presented by the Chinese government just days before the inauguration.

India has its own 'soft power' - Buddhism

Jul 4, 2007
By Sudha Ramachandran
Asia Times (Hong Kong)

BANGALORE - As the Sino-Indian battle for influence in East and Southeast Asia intensifies, India is backing its political and economic diplomacy with soft-power diplomacy. To counter China's efforts to keep India out of the region on the grounds that it is an "outsider", India is drawing attention to its solid Buddhist credentials.

Buddhism originated in India around the 5th century BC. But after flourishing here for many centuries, it declined in the land of its birth. However, it spread across Asia, winning adherents in such countries as Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Japan, Korea, Tibet, Mongolia and China.

Buddhist monks traveled far to spread the religion. Scholars came to India to study at its universities. There was a healthy exchange of ideas, of philosophic, religious and cultural traditions right from ancient times. The impact of this interaction and exchange can be seen and felt to date across Asia. It is this shared Buddhist heritage that Delhi is now emphasizing in its engagement with East and Southeast Asia.

"China has sought to keep India out of regional arrangements in Southeast Asia by portraying India as an outsider. By underlining the multi-millennia-old bond of Buddhism that it shares with these regions, India is quietly clarifying that it is not a gatecrasher," said an official in India's Ministry of External Affairs.

Although the founder of Buddhism, Siddhartha Gautama, or the Buddha as he came to be called, was born in Nepal and not India, all the important milestones in his life, whether it was his enlightenment, his first sermon or his attainment of nirvana, happened in India. Most of the important sites of significance to Buddhists the world over are in India.

While India has emphasized its cultural and civilizational links with East and Southeast Asia for decades, this diplomacy has received a boost with the pan-Asian initiative to revive Nalanda University.

An ancient seat of learning, Nalanda University was primarily a center of Buddhist studies, but it also imparted training in fine arts, astronomy, politics and languages. The university died a slow death around the 12th century AD.

A giant, multinational effort is now on to set up an international university at Nalanda that will capture the grandeur, spirit and essence of this renowned seat of learning. Several countries, including India, Japan, Singapore and China, are part of this effort.
And while India is at the center of the Nalanda initiative (the university being located here), China is ensuring that its links with the university are not forgotten. Besides being part of a mentor group (headed by Nobel laureate Amartya Sen) that will provide vision and direction to the Nalanda initiative, China has contributed funds for the Xuan Zang Memorial Hall in the university. "It is making sure that its links with Buddhism are noted," said the Indian official.

Xuan Zang was a Chinese Buddhist scholar of the 7th century AD who spent two years at Nalanda. His contribution to Buddhism is substantial. Not only did he translate Indian Buddhist texts into Chinese during his years in India, but it was from his translated Chinese copies that scholars recovered Indian Buddhist texts lost in subsequent years.

Buddhism might have arrived in China several centuries after it was born in India, but China has more Buddhists than India does today. In fact, with 100 million, it is home to the largest number of Buddhists in the world.

In recent years, China has been making a concerted attempt to project a Buddhism-friendly image of itself, drawing attention to its Buddhist heritage. Monasteries and temples destroyed during the Cultural Revolution have reportedly been rebuilt. Last year, China played host to the First World Buddhist Forum at Hangzhou in which Buddhist monks and scholars from 37 countries participated.

China's projection of a Buddhist-friendly image today has to do with its Tibet policy.

"Having destroyed Tibetan Buddhism and put in its place a state-sanctioned version of Buddhism, Beijing is making grand gestures to shore up its Buddhist credentials. It wants to soften its image for East and Southeast Asia but, more importantly, Tibet," said the official. "Hence Beijing's bonding with Buddhism."

The Hangzhou meet, he said, was aimed at presenting China as a country that is in favor of harmonious living with its neighbors. More important, it provided Beijing with an international platform to present to the world Gyaltsen Norbu, the Panchen Lama (Tibet's second-ranking spiritual leader) it appointed in 1995, and to showcase its Buddhist credentials. The Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists who fled to India in 1959 in the wake of the Chinese occupation of Tibet, was not invited to the gathering.

China's effort to project its Buddhist credentials has been tarnished by its record in Tibet. Indian officials say that so long as the Dalai Lama lives in India and millions of Tibetan Buddhist refugees remain in India, China's claims over Buddhism will be weak. While China's Buddhist credentials are questionable thanks to its blood-soaked record vis-a-vis Tibetan Buddhists, that of India's is impeccable. China cannot match India's formidable record as a protector of Buddhism. India has provided refuge to millions of Tibetan Buddhists fleeing Chinese oppression.

Indian officials admit that in the past India neglected highlighting adequately its central role in the Buddhist world and its Buddhist legacy. In the process, "it surrendered the mantle of being the custodian of Buddhist heritage and its leadership role in the Buddhist world, which was quickly appropriated by countries like Japan and China", said the official. This is being corrected now.

Indrani Bagchi writes in The Times of India: "In the past five years, India has fought back, to reclaim what the government believes is India's by right - that it is India which is at the heart of the Asian civilization, that in many ways, India has been the cultural trend setter."

Last year, India built a Buddhist temple in Luoyang in China. The temple is in the Baima temple complex where a Chinese emperor welcomed Buddhist monks from India 2,000 years ago. "The temple in Luoyang has been built in the Indian style," said the official. "It marks the fact that Buddhism traveled to China from India." It underscores the fact that Buddhism in China is an Indian export.

India has made Buddhism the core of its soft-power push in Asia. This is aimed not only at reminding countries of their long-standing links with India but also that the roots of their cultural heritage lie in India.

The dispute between India and China over territory and their race for military and economic supremacy are a familiar tale to the outside world. The outcome of these contests will determine who will dominate Asia - if not the world - in the coming decades. Less visible but equally important is their tussle over ownership of Buddhism. This keenly fought contest will determine which of the two is Asia's "mother civilization".

Sudha Ramachandran is an independent journalist/researcher based in Bangalore.