Mar 10, 2010 By Peter J Brown
Asia Times (Hong Kong)The United States-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) last month held a lengthy hearing on China's activities in Southeast Asia and the implications for US interests in the strategic region. The USCC was addressed by five members of the US Congress, a pair of senior US government officials and 10 experts and came at a time the US has promised to re-focus its diplomacy towards Southeast Asia.
USCC commissioner Larry Wortzel emphasized China's rising economic influence in the region, noting that numerous China-funded resource extraction projects were underway "with the goal of fueling China's continued economic development". He noted that Beijing also provides low-interest loans to fund infrastructure projects, especially in Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia.
While China's economic overtures in the region are well documented, Wortzel noted that China has recently expanded its security interactions with Southeast Asia, including through arms sales and joint military exercises. "High-level military visits between China and Southeast Asia have been on the rise, as have port calls from Chinese naval vessels," said Wortzel.
The hearing followed a trip in December by USCC members to Taiwan and Vietnam, where discussions were held regarding China's growing presence in the region. While security ties are expanding, the USCC was frequently reminded in Vietnam that there was increasing anxiety in Hanoi about China's growing assertiveness in the South China Sea, where several regional countries have overlapping claims.
"As the Chinese navy improves its strength to include a possible aircraft carrier fleet in the near future, the balance of power in the region will swing strongly in China's favor,” said Wortzel. "Already some nations are beginning to react, as demonstrated with Vietnam's recently announced plans to purchase from Russia six advanced submarines and 12 fighter aircraft. The confirmed presence of oil and natural gas in the region only exacerbates this trend," said Wortzel.
US congressman Dana Rohrabacher, a ranking member of the House's Foreign Affairs Committee, was more outspoken in his criticism of Beijing's rising regional influence, referring to China as "a totalitarian country seeking to become a totalitarian empire [and] spreading its influence and domination throughout the region, particularly in Southeast Asia".
Of all the countries in Asia, "perhaps the most friendly relationship [China] has is with the gangster regime that now controls Burma [Myanmar]. China has armed the Burmese junta to the teeth and in exchange it has ripped off the Burmese people, taking their great natural resources," said Rohrabacher.
Ellen Frost, visiting fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, said Southeast Asian governments are keeping a watchful eye on China's growing military might. While they have been greatly reassured by China's recent behavior, some are still unsure of China's ultimate goals, she said.
"Older leaders remember the time when China was actively supporting insurgencies in their countries. Rather than seeking to build a coalition against China, Southeast Asian statesmen have opted to 'embed' China in organizations whose location and agenda are in their control," said Frost.
"They calculate that enmeshing China in a plethora of agreements and committees encourages peaceful and cooperative behavior and bolsters regional stability. But just to be safe, many ASEAN governments are reaffirming or strengthening their military ties with the United States." The Association of Southeast Asia Nations (ASEAN) countries are Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
Frost emphasized that ASEAN leaders are seeking to maximize their collective voice in the region and in the wider world. "They calculate that giving China a leading role in regional organizations makes it more likely that other powers will pay more attention to the region and engage with ASEAN countries on even more attractive terms," said Frost.
Double-edged economics
According to David Shear, US deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, "It is clear that both [China] and the ASEAN countries see mutual benefits to be had from expanded trade," and, "China's economic ties to the region will likely grow further under the China-ASEAN Free Trade Agreement [CAFTA] that became effective [on] the first of this year."
Shear also contended that in the process "China has produced local economic dislocation and tensions for some Southeast Asian economies" and there is growing concern "that competition from low-cost goods from China could adversely affect their domestic industries". Shear noted that Indonesia has already called for a revision to the agreement due to those concerns.
While Southeast Asians "recognize big opportunities in China, they continue to see economic ties with the US and others as vital", said Shear.
China's total trade with the region reached US$193 billion in 2008, up from $45.5 billion in 2001. While Beijing's direct investment in the region still pales compared with the US and Japan, its direct aid has been considerably larger.
Beijing has put forward a $10 billion infrastructure investment fund to improve roads, railways, airlines and information-telecommunication links between China and ASEAN countries, according to ASEAN secretary general Surin Pitsuwan. Beijing has also provided a $15 billion credit facility to promote regional integration and connectivity, he said.
Chinese diplomacy, often referred to as "soft power”, has also emphasized cultural connections. For example, more Thai students - some 10,000 - now study in China than in the US. Shear noted that China opened its first Confucius Institute in Asia in 2004 and that today there are 70 across Asia and 282 globally. "There are 12 institutes in Thailand alone, and China recently opened the first institute in Cambodia," said Shear.
The competition for hearts and minds has also taken to the airwaves. While the US has long promoted Radio Free Asia and Voice of America radio programs in the region, China launched China-Cambodia Friendship Radio in December 2008. "The actual effects of China's efforts on local views of and sensitivities to Chinese interests remain an area of US interest," said Shear.
"It has been said that in order to pursue successful diplomacy in Southeast Asia, all you have to do is show up. This is too low a standard and this administration will do more," said Shear. He acknowledged that previous US presidents had missed Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summits, secretaries of state had bypassed ASEAN Regional Forum meetings and senior US officials had not spent enough time tending to regional bilateral relationships.
"The [Barack] Obama administration's message to resolve this problem has been simple: we're back and ready to be actively involved," said Shear, noting that Washington intends soon to name a Jakarta-based ambassador to ASEAN and begin consultations on how the US can play a role in the East Asia Summit, a grouping of 16 countries in the East Asian region that meets annually.
Ernest Bower, senior adviser and director of the Southeast Asia Program at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies emphasized that "Southeast Asia wants and needs the US [to] step up its game and articulate a strategy to advance its interests in the region. Only then will Southeast Asia's atavistic hunger for balance be fed."
Bower said China is not perceived in Southeast Asia as "a very large, awkwardly ideological, self-focused, security concern to the north", but rather "an engaged and interested neighbor providing significant benefits in trade, aid, tourism and the promise of increased investment and prosperity".
"China has made it easier for Southeast Asian students to travel and study in China and is providing scholarships at several levels, including master's and doctorate degrees. Chinese policies toward Southeast Asia over the last 15 years have transformed from ideological to opportunistic and pragmatic," said Bower.
He said on occasion China has overplayed its hand to its disadvantage, including in the South China Sea or when it pressured the government in Cambodia to send Uyghur refugees back to China late last year.
"The region's leaders recognize these examples as the iron fist that flexes under the velvet glove of China's new diplomacy," said Bower. "Southeast Asia's primary concern, as it was 15 years ago, remains maintaining balance among the major powers ... Perhaps the most significant difference between China and the US in Southeast Asia is that China has a clear strategy for the region, and the US does not," he said.
Divergent diplomacies
Walter Lohman, director of the Asian Studies Center at The Heritage Foundation in Washington, noted key differences in how the US and China conduct diplomacy towards the region.
"You simply cannot understand ASEAN's decision-making process the way we learned it in school, with countries strategically seeking to maximize advantages without consideration for the domestic, sometimes personal, demands on leaders. The Chinese approach to economic diplomacy accounts for this dynamic in a way that ours does not," said Lohman.
"The US cannot replicate the Chinese effort in Southeast Asia. Obviously, American officials are accountable to the American people in a way that the Chinese are not to their own. We cannot structure trade agreements in ways that choose winners and losers by diplomatic or industrial policy imperative.
"The Chinese are also closer and have more diplomats to throw at ASEAN. We can do better than we are in covering ASEAN, but we cannot match the Chinese diplomat for diplomat, forum for forum," Lohman added, saying that the US should not "buck the current economic order", but instead "leverage" into it.
"If the Chinese want to invest in ASEAN's infrastructure, fine. The US should have relationships in the region that help ASEAN determine its priorities and voice its concerns. If Chinese multinationals want to invest in ASEAN, great. Work to bring them into compliance with US-friendly standards and integrate them into American supply chains," said Lohman.
"If there is to be more ASEAN-China trade, American companies ought to be invested in it on both sides of the border and integrated into markets back home. Fighting current economic trends undermines the credibility of our leadership."
Catharin Dalpino, visiting associate professor at Georgetown University, addressed Beijing's sub-regional strategies and how China's role in mainland Southeast Asia "is increasingly distinct from its relationship to maritime Southeast Asia".
"This is primarily a matter of degree rather than dramatic differences in Chinese policy toward the two sub-regions; however, China's greater focus on and penetration of the mainland has created a de facto separation," said Dalpino. "This growing edge in mainland Southeast Asia has not developed in a vacuum; it was facilitated by the unevenness of US policy toward these two sub-regions for several years and Washington's relative neglect of mainland Southeast Asia."
She noted, for instance, that "the alliance with Thailand has been on auto-pilot for several years".
"On a more fundamental level, younger-generation Thais do not grasp a rationale for the alliance relationship and point to the reluctance of the United States to offer bilateral aid to Thailand in the 1997 financial crisis and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, which are remote to many Thais, as examples of the dissonance between the two countries," said Dalpino.
Bronson Percival, senior advisor at CNA's Center for Strategic Studies in Virginia, contended that "the US is well-balanced in Southeast Asia" and that it had consistently insisted that the "theme is not the US versus China in Southeast Asia".
"Moreover, the Obama administration has now reversed popular anti-Americanism during the [George W] Bush administration and the widespread perception of US neglect through several symbolic gestures, including signing ASEAN's Treaty of Amity and Cooperation. The US Pacific Command has built a dense network of military-to-military ties, particularly in maritime Southeast Asia," said Percival, who called for the US to "shift its focus in Southeast Asia from humanitarian issues such as Burma to critical security issues such as the South China Sea.
"We don't know if Beijing is launched on a process of 'nibbling imperialism' in the South China Sea, but preventing Chinese domination of this sea and maintaining free passage for US armed forces and for energy supplies is critical for US alliances in Northeast Asia and, indeed, for the maintenance of the entire US position in East Asia." he said.
Peter J Brown is a freelance writer from Maine USA.
