For several years, one big theme has dominated talk of the future of Asia: As China rises, its neighbors are inevitably drawn into its orbit, currying favor with the region’s new hegemonic power.
The presumed loser is the US, whose wealth and influence are being spent on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and whose economic troubles have eroded its standing in a more dynamic Asia.
But rising friction between China and its neighbors in recent weeks over security issues have handed the US an opportunity to reassert itself, one the Obama administration has been keen to take advantage of. Washington is leaping into the middle of heated territorial disputes between China and Southeast Asian nations, despite stern Chinese warnings to mind its own business.
The US is carrying out naval exercises with South Korea to help Seoul rebuff threats from North Korea, though China is denouncing those exercises, saying they intrude on areas where the Chinese military operates.
Meanwhile, China’s increasingly tense standoff with Japan over a Chinese fishing trawler captured by Japanese ships in disputed waters is pushing Japan back under the American security umbrella. Wen Jiabao, the Chinese prime minister, has refused to meet with his Japanese counterpart, Naoto Kan. On Tuesday, he threatened Japan with “further action” if it did not unconditionally release the fishing captain.
On Friday, President Obama is expected to meet Southeast Asian leaders and promise US help to peacefully settle South China Sea territorial disputes with China.
“The US has been smart,” said Carlyle A. Thayer, a professor at the Australian Defense Force Academy, who studies security issues in Asia. “It has done well by coming to the assistance of countries in the region.” Adding: “The idea of the China threat, thanks to its own efforts, is being revived.”
Asserting Chinese sovereignty over border lands in contention — from Tibet to Taiwan to the South China Sea — has long been top priority for Chinese nationalists, an obsession overriding other concerns. But this complicates China’s attempts to present the country’s rise as a boon for the whole region and creates wedges with its neighbors.
Nothing underscores that better than the escalating diplomatic conflict between China and Japan over the detention of the Chinese fishing captain by Japanese authorities, who say he rammed two of their vessels around the Senkaku or Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea. The islands are administered by Japan but claimed by both countries.
The dispute may strengthen the military alliance between the US and Japan, as did an incident last April when a Chinese helicopter buzzed a Japanese destroyer. Such confrontations tend to remind Japanese officials that they rely on the US to balance an unpredictable China, analysts say.
“Japan will have no choice but to further go into America’s arms, to further beef the US-Japan alliance and its military power,” said Huang Jing, a scholar of the Chinese military at the National University of Singapore.
In July, Southeast Asian nations, particularly Vietnam, applauded when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the US was willing to help mediate a solution to disputes that those nations had with China over the South China Sea. China insists on dealing with Southeast Asian nations one on one, but Clinton said the US supported multilateral talks. Freedom of navigation in the sea is an American national interest, she said.
President Obama meets on Friday with leaders from the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or Asean. Participants are to issue a joint statement opposing the “use or threat of force by any claimant attempting to enforce disputed claims in the South China Sea”. The statement is clearly aimed at China, which has seized Vietnamese fishing vessels in recent years and detained their crews.
Asian countries suspicious of Chinese intentions see Washington as a natural ally. In April, the incident involving the Chinese helicopter and Japanese destroyer spooked many in Japan, making them feel vulnerable at a time when Yukio Hatoyama, then the prime minister, had angered Washington with his pledges to relocate a Marine Corps air base away from Okinawa.
His successor, Kan, has sought to smoothen ties with Washington and emphasized that the alliance is the cornerstone of Japanese foreign policy.
“Insecurity about China’s presence has served as a wake-up call on the importance of the alliance,” said Fumiaki Kubo, a professor of public policy at the University of Tokyo.
Michael Wines contributed reporting from Beijing, and Martin Facksler from Tokyo. Zhang Jing contributed research.
China denies Japan rare-earth ban
China denied reports it banned the export of rare earths to Japan in retaliation for the detention of a Chinese fishing boat captain, threatening supplies of a raw material vital to hybrid cars, laptops and iPhones.
“China does not have a trade embargo on rare earth exports to Japan,” Ministry of Commerce spokesman Chen Rongkai said in a telephone interview today. Industrial Minerals Co of Australia, an industry publication and consultancy, first reported the ban yesterday, citing an unidentified “leading Japanese rare earth buyer.”
