Meantime, the Bush administration, clearly more suspicious of China than its predecessor, has pushed Japan to take a more assertive stance. It has called for closer cooperation between the countries’ militaries and defense industries and has encouraged conservative Japanese politicians who have long wanted to change the Self-Defense Forces into a full-fledged military and revise Japan’s Constitution.

But what has clearly changed Sino-Japanese ties lately was the joint U.S.-Japan declaration on February 19, 2005, the first fundamental revision to the 1966 U.S.-Japan Security Alliance. The declaration has been perceived as Tokyo’s willingness to confront Beijing’s rising might in the region, as well as a new-found Japanese assertiveness on the Asian and world stages. While underscoring Tokyo’s alliance with Washington, it also highlights how Taiwan and cross-Straits relations have become a fundamental determinant in the increasing Sino-Japanese rivalry in the region.[13]

Lately, China has moved swiftly to warn Japan – and, obliquely, the U.S. – in unusually blunt terms that any interference with Beijing’s designs over Taiwan would be dealt with forcefully.

“I would like to say calmly to Japan, the Taiwan issue is a domestic affair and a matter of life or death to us,” China’s foreign minister, Li Zhaoxing, told his Japanese counterpart recently. “It is dangerous to touch China’s matter of life or death.”[14]

Conclusion

The November 2006 defeat of Bush’s Republican Party in the congressional polls was said to be a show of the American electorate’s disappointment over the incumbent president’s military setbacks in Iraq and was expected to open an assessment of U.S.’ aggressive unilateralist foreign policy. While any expected shift in U.S. foreign policy particularly for the Middle East remains to be seen, no such indication is seen in East Asia at this writing.

The point is, U.S. imperialism’s aggressive and belligerent foreign policy in East Asia is fueling more tensions particularly in the Korean Peninsula and North Korea’s defensive posture is drawing unfounded fears and even counter-threats not only from the U.S. but also Japan and members of the United Nations Security Council. Even as it continues to increase its military presence in this vast region through more military access agreements, war exercises and military aid for its vassal states, the U.S. is also seeking to put “counter terrorism” and “multilateral defense cooperation” on the main agenda of such regional formations as APEC and the ASEAN.

China, on the other hand, appears to be staying on the course of its market economy program through closer trade and financial ties with the United States while aggressively promoting similar arrangements with East Asian neighbors notably those belonging to the ASEAN. It appears to be succeeding as far as ASEAN is concerned probably as a way of easing tensions in South China Sea where six ASEAN member-countries have separate territorial claims in the Spratlys and Paracels that compete with Beijing’s irredentist claims. Developing vibrant trade and investment ties with countries in Southeast Asia would open prospects for China to use this new economic relationship particularly with the U.S.’ military allies as a means of scaling down their security commitments with the U.S. that include the military encirclement of China. While appearing to be moderate and economically cooperative with Southeast Asian countries, China is emerging to be at loggerheads with Japan in its drive to secure oil and natural gas reserves in East China Sea and other parts of the world.

But Beijing’s quest for market-driven economic modernization pursued with active trade relations with the U.S. is also driving it closer to cooperate with Washington’s aggressive foreign policy particularly in “counter terrorism” not only in the region but in other parts of the world as well. In the Korean Peninsula, China appears to serve U.S. objectives by its softening influence over Pyongyang but it is also using North Korea as a buffer against hostile U.S. military policy on China as indicated in the Pentagon’s encirclement strategy against that former socialist country as well as in the TMD. It would be interesting to see what lies ahead in the Korea Peninsula and China-North Korea relations.

The rise of China as a potential economic and military power in the region that would threaten U.S. hegemony in East Asia is being used by rightist or neo-conservative power circles in the U.S. to justify an aggressive military posture vis-à-vis Beijing. In the current situation, however, Washington is using carrots to engage China in active trade relations while using sticks diplomacy to prevent it from challenging U.S. military supremacy in East Asia. The so-called China threat animates the U.S. military posturing and, along with so-called threats of terrorism, is seen to justify prolonged American military hegemony in the region.

While there is no clear indication of an imminent hostile confrontation between the U.S. and China, the other flashpoints in East Asia – the Korean Peninsula and the Taiwan issue, for instance – remain potential cauldrons of conflict not only between Washington and Beijing. (Bulatlat.com)

[1] China and Japan’s Simmering Rivalry, Kent E. Calder, Foreign Affairs, March/April 2006.

[2] South China Morning Post, Nov. 1, 2006. According to the Chinese Ministry of Commerce, trade with Southeast Asia jumped to $130 billion in 2005, from just $2 billion in 1980. Trade is projected to reach $200 billion in 2010. China’s investment in the region totaled $35 billion by end-2005. International Herald Tribune, Nov. 2, 2006.

[3] Chinese and Southeast Asian leaders at the China-ASEAN business and investment summit in Beijing late October 2006 spoke effusively of a relationship based on “mutual trust in politics and economic integration.” International Herald Tribune, Nov. 2, 2006.

[4]In late February, Japan and Chile, a gateway to Mercosur, held the first round of FTA negotiations in Tokyo.“China Rivalry Fuels Japan’s FTA drive,” Hisane Masaki, Peace Journalism-New Jersey, USA, February 16, 2006.

[5] Only days after Koizumi left the Middle East early this year, China National Petroleum Corp., China`s largest oil producer, said that together with Korea National Oil Corp., Malaysia`s Petronas, Lukoil of Russia, and local group Uzbekneftegaz, it had obtained a 20-percent stake in a joint oil and gas exploration project in Uzbekistan`s Aral Sea extending about 10,000 square kilometers that potentially has 8 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. “Oil and Gas Features,” Oil raises China, Japan rivalry, Shihoko Goto, UPI, Sept. 5, 2006, Monsters and Critics.com.

[6]“China and Japan’s Simmering Rivalry,” Kent E. Calder, Foreign Affairs, March/April 2006.

[7] September 11, 2005, Japan’s Rivalry With China Is Stirring a Crowded Sea, Norimitsu Onishi and Howard W. French… In turn, in a major readjustment of its defense policy late last year, Japan redeployed its forces away from northern Japan and the containment of Russia to Okinawa and the containment of China in the East China Sea. Japan’s Defense Agency said China was a “concern” because of its nuclear and missile capabilities and the modernization of its navy and air force. Norimitsu Onishi..New York Times.

[8] “Taiwan’s role in the Sino-Japanese rivalry,” Eric Teo, Jamestown Foundation, China Brief, April 29, 2005.

51The submarine incident in November 1994 simply compounded Japanese anxieties. Furthermore, Chinese academics from the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR) in Beijing acknowledge in private this strategic calculation.

[10] Chinese academics from CICIR and Beijing University’s international relations research institutes, on the other hand, view America’s arc of containment as a means to prevent or delay the latter’s emergence as a great power.

[11]China Brief, April 1005.

[12] Another reason is, Taiwan’s historical and cultural affinity with Japan is especially assuring and comforting to Tokyo, whereas Beijing sees a lack of Chinese nationalism and loyalty on the island, as well as dangerous links and collaboration between “Taiwanese separatists” and Japanese “rightists” in their joint hostility against China. Japan’s historical and cultural affinities with Taiwan, the Japanese public’s clear sympathy for the island, as well as its stance on human rights and democracy bolsters the first two strategic considerations. Japan took control of the island in 1895 and administered it until losing it after Word War II. Culturally, Japanese pop has always seduced young Taiwanese and an entire generation of Taiwanese elite and politicians, like former President Lee Teng-hui, were schooled in Japanese universities. In fact, Japan is commonly perceived in Taiwan as a benevolent occupying power, unlike in China or Korea. The mutual sympathy between the Japanese and Taiwanese is so great that should Taipei revert back to the Mainland, differences in the perception of Japan could surface as one of the thorniest issues. China Brief…

[13]“Taiwan’s role in the Sino-Japanese rivalry,” Eric Teo, Jamestown Foundation, China Brief, February 29, 2005.

[14] China Brief, 2005.

Hegemony or Cooperation: Major Contradictions in East Asia Today*
First of four parts

U.S. and China: Harmony Today, Confrontation Tomorrow?
Second of four parts

The Korean Peninsula: U.S. Military Aggression and Pyongyang’s Response
Third of four parts