Dance of the giants

China and America in South-East Asia

  by R.G. | BEIJING

THE spectre looming over Barack Obama’s eight-day swing through Asia was unmistakable. Behind the talk of a trans-Pacific free-trade zone, and the agreement to rotate American troops through a base in northern Australia, and America’s first participation in the East Asian Summit meeting in Bali, the president’s tour was all about China.

As if to mark the end of a decade in which a rising China was superseded by radical Islam as America’s biggest potential security threat, Mr Obama is now recalibrating his foreign-policy machinery and focusing on the Asia-Pacific region. 

The government in Beijing has used some of the past decade’s worth of breathing-space shrewdly, launching a charm offensive in South-East Asia, building hospitals, roads and schools, and becoming the largest trading partner of many of the region’s countries while America whistled a lonesome, security-obsessed tune. But in the past couple of years, occasional rumbles of thunder out of China—especially on the subject of the South China Sea—have sent South-East Asian governments rushing for the shelter of the American umbrella.

The Obama administration had signalled clearly that its policy shift was coming, but there was still plenty of fulminating about “containment” from China’s increasingly nationalistic news outlets. The loudmouths of Beijing can easily match their bloviating counterparts at America’s Fox News huff for puff these days, and not just towards the United States. The infamously belligerent Global Times warned Australia that it “could not play China for a fool” in agreeing to allow American troops to be based in its northern city of Darwin. One thing is certain, said the newspaper on November 16th: “if Australia uses its military bases to help the U.S. harm Chinese interests, then Australia itself will be caught in the crossfire.”

But China’s relatively avuncular premier Wen Jiabao has snorkelled this reef before. As he arrived for the regional forum known as the East Asian Summit in Bali, he took a hard line, saying that “outside forces should not, under any pretext” interfere in a regional dispute over the control of the South China Sea. Mr Wen may have listened warily as Mr Obama announced further rapprochement with Myanmar, including plans for a visit in December by his secretary of state, Hillary Clinton. Myanmar has, over the past 20 years, developed an extremely close relationship with China, and yet here again was a case of America reasserting its influence in the region. Indeed, it could be taken as confirmation that South-East Asia is a potential crucible for future confrontations between America and China.

And yet Mr Wen managed, almost, to charm as well. An American official briefing reporters as Mr Obama flew home aboard Air Force One said that on November 19th, during a two-hour session, 16 of the 18 leaders present raised concerns about maritime security directly with Mr Wen. The official Chinese news agency reported Mr Wen as saying he did not want to discuss the issue at the summit, but adding that it would be “impolite” not to answer a neighbour’s questions. So he defended China’s stance on the South China Sea.

Though the same American official told the New York Times that Mr Wen’s response was “grouchy” at times, he acknowledged that at least the Chinese premier was “not on a tirade”, nor did he use many of the more assertive formulas that are frequently heard from the Chinese. In the American’s judgment the overall discussion was “constructive, and not acrimonious”. China’s leaders clearly feel that, for now at least, discretion is the better part of grouchiness.

Chinese academics too—an increasingly independent bunch, who have become comfortable discussing international issues candidly with foreign reporters—are at pains to play down whatever threat China might feel posed by America’s latest moves.

“Many of us believe that what America is doing is somewhere between engagement and hedging, but not containment,” says Jin Canrong of Renmin University in Beijing. Mr Jin says that China’s comportment with America is much more mature than it used to be and notes that the two sides enjoy much better channels of communication than they had.

“Chinese belligerence on the South China Sea is mainly for domestic reasons,” agrees Pang Zhongying, also of Renmin University—a bold statement considering how much the Chinese belligerence is shaking up the Asia-Pacific. Mr Pang admits that “domestic pressures could lead to a misjudgement by Chinese leaders.” China is no democracy, but its leaders still have powerful domestic constituencies in the media and the army, as well as among the general public, and must be careful not to come across as weak. At the same time they have plenty of work ahead if they are to convince their neighbours and America that their rise can continue to be peaceful.

Mr Jin says he can understand why people might be nervous about China’s rise. But he insists that instances like the one in March 2010, when Chinese officials sparked concern in Washington by telling senior American officials that the South China Sea was part of China’s “core interests” (on a par with Taiwan), are simply part of a process by which China is trying to settle on its own foreign policy. “We are in the middle of an internal debate,” says Mr Jin, “and the result has not been decided.” Looking at the rapid growth of China’s military forces and the country’s increased forcefulness in the world arena generally, America might find it hard to believe that the debate remains undecided. Meanwhile, Mr Wen and his colleagues will continue to try balancing tough talk with engagement, a challenge not unlike the one facing Mr Obama. With an American presidential election due in November 2012, and a leadership transition in China at about the same time, these will prove tricky waters to navigate for both sides in the year to come.

It has always been more difficult for the rising power to persuade the incumbent power that its intentions are benign. On November 19th the China’s official news agency, Xinhua, published a commentary arguing that if the United States sticks to its cold-war mentality and continues to engage with Asian nations in a self-assertive way, “it is doomed to incur repulsion in the region”. Xinhua’s assessment, it so happens, might be even more aptly applied to China.