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War or Peace?

The Asia-Pacific region in the year 2013

p. 51-61


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1April 2013

2In the Asia-Pacific region, the year 2012 was marked by repeated demonstrations of diverse forces by, on the one side, China, the emerging superpower feared more and more by its neighbours. Lee Kuan Yew, former adviser to Chinese decision-makers, said recently that Asia needs a reinforced US military presence more than ever in order to contain the “hegemony” of one of the oldest empires in the world. The forces on the other side other side include Japan, India, Viet Nam and the Philippines. The tension over Senkaku/Diaoyu Island between China and Japan, instead of being reduced, became greater and greater at the beginning of the year of snake, with closer and closer confrontations between military and quasi-military aircraft and ships belonging to China, Japan and the US. Not to mention the arms race among the main competitors: China, Japan, India, Viet Nam, the Philippines, the two Koreas and Taiwan.

3One conflict can masque hide others. The sovereignty claimed by both Japan and the Republic of Korea over Tokto/Takeshima Island has opposed two neighbours with a traditionally good relationship because of their alliances with the US. The dispute over Huangyan Scarborough Shoal Island between China and the Philippines was one of the major events in the region last year. And the constant conflict between Viet Nam and China over the Paracels and Spratley islands indicates that no solution will be found in the near future. The most unthinkable was the third nuclear test set off by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, despite warnings from the international community, including Beijing. Last but not least, India, another emerging regional superpower, is clearly in competition with her neighbour to the north. China recently took control of Pakistan’s maritime port city, Gwadar, an operation considered an immediate threat by India. New Delhi is now increasing its arsenal of nuclear weapons, especially ballistic missiles that can reach all Chinese cities, and fleets of submarines and aircraft carriers. Furthermore, India is accelerating deployment of an ambitious space arms system. India is also in permanent territorial conflict with China, and the topic of Tibet, the government in exile of which is still in Dharamsala, sours the relationship between India and her neighbour on the other side of the Himalayas.

4All this appears to lead to a question by geopolitics observers: Will the Asia-Pacific region become a theatre of regional military conflict between China and one of her neighbours in 2013?

5The clouds are certainly gathering over the region, and the risk for a conflict becomes greater and greater. But the configuration of the power games among the different players, which might be compared with that in another period, the Fighting Kingdoms in ancient Chinese history, between 500 to 200 BC, is so complicated that the numerous geopolitical tensions finish by cancelling each other out, and the long-term strategic priorities of different players often overcome short-term considerations of “saving face”. Before coming to a quick conclusion, we will take a closer look at the current situation.

6First of all, the major player is the US and its relationship with China. During the first mandate of the US president, Barack Obama, the bilateral relationship between Washington and Beijing was normalized. Economic exchanges between the two countries continued to increase, and the level of US bonds held by China reached a new level by January 2013, US$ 1,264 billion, with a net growth of US$ 441 billion in the first month of the year compared with 2012, according to the US Treasury Department, the trend appearing to be confirmed. Consequently, the Chinese and the US governments have reached a consensus that, despite many others divergences, a healthy, pacified bilateral relation is of benefit for both countries. In contrast, the US is “returning to the Asia Pacific region” with the deployment of armed forces that have returned from Europe, Iraq and Afghanistan. This paradox is interpreted by Chinese hawks in the Army and in Government as the latest version of the strategy of containment defined during the Cold War. But this time, the enemy in the sights of the Pentagon is a different one: yesterday it was called the Soviet Union, while that of today and the future is called China, with her emergence in terms of both economic and military power, and is considered a major challenge of the new century for the unique superpower after the end of Cold War. Obama in his second mandate will certainly continue this “fuzzy strategy”. Thus, Hilary Clinton unambiguously declared before leaving office that the US would support Japan in any conflict and oppose any unilateral attempt to change the right of Japan to Senkaku/Diaoyu Island. The message appears to have been well received, because both China and the US voted for resolution 2094 of the Security Council of the United Nations, which condemned North Korea for the third nuclear weapon test. Another signal from Beijing, of interest to specialists in international problems, was the promotion of Yang Jiechi, former Chinese Ambassador to Washington and former Minister of Foreign Affairs, during the session of the National Assembly of People’s Representatives held in March to State Secretary in charge of diplomatic affairs in the new Government under the leadership of Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang. This shows, to some extent, that Beijing is not yet ready to engage in a serious conflict with Japan that would immediately involve a military intervention against the largest political and commercial partner on other side of the Pacific Ocean, aware of the importance of the good relationship with Washington. In private, some Chinese decision-makers recognize that, although the reinforced US military presence in the Asia-Pacific region does not please China, no another world power is capable of maintaining peace and stability in this very unstable area or to pay the enormous bill for this objective. Apart from the US taxpayers, who could offer the luxury of covering this huge but necessary budget? Nevertheless, the Chinese hawks continue to prepare their conventional and nonconventional arsenal, in both inner and outer space, in preparation for a direct or indirect military conflict with the US. Two crucial activities are priorities: to keep purchasing Russian aircraft such as S-35 (to balance the US F22 and F35) and submarines, and to develop regular Internet arms and test their capacity to attack the web sites of the governments of the US and other western countries, their armies and their strategic industries: an intensified war in a virtual space in contrast to the apparent peace in the traditional space. The hawks also continue to provoke the US with radical speeches, but these remain at the verbal level, as smart players of a conventional war of nerves.

7The next actor is China, another major emerging power in the region, which is at a time of transmission of power inside the country. President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Li Keqiang have just taken control of the Chinese Communist Party and the central Government with a new team, younger than the previous one. A large, long political show has begun, as expected by both local and outside spectators. Firstly, the freshly built leadership team must gain legitimacy to succeed the previous team and rule a country with 1.3 billion inhabitants without an election. Attainment of such legitimacy, however, looks like rare earth today in this vast country that is becoming more and more difficult to control. One resource that is still available and has proven to be useful in the past by Milosevic in the former Yugoslavia and more recently by Putin in the Russian Federation: nationalism. This game requires an imminent, permanent outside enemy, and one has fallen precisely at this moment: Japan. As a result, the Sino-Japanese dispute over Senkaku/Diaoyu Island has hardened since last September. It is curious that the Chinese authorities have suddenly taken such a radical position, declaring that they are ready to go to war with Japan, whereas they were ambiguous, prudent and silent in the past three decades with regard to this issue, when a number of nongovernmental organizations in Taiwan, Hong Kong and the mainland tried to defy the Japanese authorities by going to the Island on their own initiative. Although the actions were peaceful, they were aggressive in the mass media, as such stories are widely reported by local journalists, placing the Beijing Government in an embarrassing situation. In the 1990s, Deng Xiaoping, the former Chinese leader, said that he preferred to wait for leaders of future generation of the two countries to find a solution to the problem of Senkaku/Diaoyu Island, convinced that the leaders of his generation, in China as well as in Japan, did not have enough political wisdom to settle it.

8The radical talk of the new leadership team is being addressed more to an internal than to an external audience. Mao Zedong, leader of first generation of Chinese Communist Party, “the great helmsman”, took power in the country through the People’s Liberation Army. He did not need to prove his legitimacy because he had a strong belief in jungle law, as had many Chinese emperors. Deng Xiaoping, leader of second generation and “the small helmsman”, also did not need to prove his legitimacy as he was the leader of both the Army and the Party, directly under Mao’s leadership. Jiang Zeming, leader of the third generation, was appointed by colleagues of Deng; and Hu Jintao, leader of the fourth generation, was appointed directly by Deng. The legitimacy of the last two was not contested inside the Party or the Army. While Xi Jinping’s case is different, for his candidateship is the fruit of numerous negotiations and compromises inside the black box. Many young lions from aristocratic “red” families such as his, but more ambitious and daring, will want to take his place by any means. The case of Bo Xilai, author of an aborted coup d’État in 2012, was only one of the known episodes. A nationalist campaign therefore seemed to be necessary to win the battle of legitimacy after the 18th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party held last autumn, during which the new leader was officially appointed. In western countries, people are used to opinion polls, while many others considered them dangerous drugs of a democratic regime and to be forbidden in China. The risk of such campaigns is to control them at the right moment in order to avoid turning it into an endless auction. The state of the art consists of stopping it at a relevant moment, at a relevant place and by a relevant person.

9There are always crisis and opportunity (the basis for the word “crisis” in Chinese). This time, North Korea is creating a new crisis in the region with a third nuclear weapon test on 12 February 2013, offering a good opportunity for China, Japan and the US to forget their divergences and join to find a solution to the regional “troublemaker”. North Korea, with a totalitarian regime, needs to permanently provoke the international community in order to keep the people behind the young, green leader Kim Jong-en, to divert people’s attention to outside issues instead of the multiple internal crises. That is how the country exists. The last provocation was nevertheless a good reminder to Washington, Tokyo, Seoul and Beijing that the imminent, most dangerous threat is not Senkaku or Toktot Island, both no-man’s lands, but Pyongyang. Despite divergences in terms of strategic interest, the greatest common denominator is still maintaining peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific region. Any action that could lead to a military conflict among these major partners would seriously compromise not only their common interests but also their own interests. This is the unavowed consensus of these principal actors, and it is the prospect of a nuclear threat from North Korea that curiously reduces the tension, due to increased nationalism between China and Japan.

10The second element is that China, more than any other country and at any other moment, needs a peaceful environment in which to develop her economy in the context of the worldwide financial crisis, which has already strongly affected Chinese exports, pillar of the world factory. Third, the Government in Beijing also needs sustainable economic growth in order to resolve a number of problems of high priority, such as social injustice and inequality, which continue to have negative effects on society, with several hundred thousand riots in the country every year. Fourth, other important issues must be faced, such as widespread pollution of water, air and the environment, and the toxic food scandals, which revolt Chinese urban and rural populations more and more. Fifth, one deep concern of the Government is the durability of the interethnic conflict. Only political and social reform and a reform of the legal system can help bring solutions to these high-priority problems in the short, medium and long term. The new leadership is, however, like previous ones, afraid of the side effects of such reforms, which will inevitably end the one-party regime in the country. Some sociologists have openly raised another delicate question, to which the answer remains uncertain. In a war between China and Japan and the United States, should the young men in military service in the Chinese army, all from single-child families and most from poor families excluded from the economic miracle, be ready to offer their lives to defend the interests of the rich and powerful social classes, represented by both Party and Government officials, whose wives and children have already emigrated from the country with all of their capital to countries considered to be potential enemies, such as the US, Japan, European countries and Canada? A war against Japan is thus unimaginable at the moment. What is more, Japan has been investing heavily in China over the past 30 years, creating numerous jobs in the country. It would therefore be very difficult for Chinese consumers to boycott Japanese products, in response to political leaders’ nationalist speeches, which are addressed more to Chinese than to Japanese people.

11In Japan, the new Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, who returned to the Government several years after having been defeated by the opposition party, has his own preoccupations. The first is to reconquer the electorate lost by his Liberal Democratic Party. To do so, he must plan and apply a long-term strategy, giving the image of a hardline, radical man who will no longer bend under foreign pressure, especially political pressure from China, and rhetoric close to that of the extreme right.

12Within this strategy, Shinzo Abe attempted to review the relevance of the Tokyo Judgement after the Second World War, provoking outcry from the US, the Republic of Korea and China. Shinzo Abe is an excellent agitator and demagogue, with no taboos or complexes. His nationalist, populist talk easily attracts large audiences, because, unlike Germany, the war crimes have never been punished and the war criminals are still honoured openly by a number of right-wing politicians. The ground is fertile for the growth of extreme right parties, especially during the economic crisis into which Japan has been plunged for more than 10 years. The ecosystem of Japanese politics demonstrates once more the fragility, the absence of maturity of the imported democratic system and the difficulty of developing a healthy civilian society as in European countries.

13Another extraordinary phenomenon is the culture of face, a specific Asian issue to which Japan, the Koreas and China are strongly attached, because they share the same fundamental values of the same civilization. For example, it is unthinkable that a Japanese right-wing politician could do something like Willy Brandt, Prime Minister of Germany, did on 7 December 1970, when he fell to his knees in front of the tomb of Polish victims killed by German Nazis. It is impossible to imagine, even in political fiction, a Japanese Prime Minister falling to his knees in front of the memorial to the victims of the Nanking Massacre perpetrated on 13 December 1937. Several thousands years of the culture of face explains why Japanese, Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese people cannot recognize their faults, as such behaviour would be perceived as weakness by the public, and the consequence would be fatal for a politician’s career. The speeches pronounced by Shinzo Abe since he returned to the power on the Tokyo Judgement in respect to the US, about Senkaku Island in respect to China and about Tokto Island in respect to South Korea are logical results of the Asian culture of face. Psychologically speaking, the refusal to recognize war crimes and the assumption of a victim image for the two US atomic bombs exploded over Hiroshima and Nagasaki in summer 1945 represent the collective unconsciousness of a certain category of Japanese people. The high rate of support, up to 60%, from the public for Shinzo Abe is not surprising after his hardline, polemical and controversial speech about the dispute over Senkaku/Diaoyu Island pronounced in the US and widely covered by the local and Japanese press. He represents the personal face of a politician who refuses the image of having been beaten during the last election, which matches the collective complex of face in his electorate, who reject the image of a nation that was beaten during the Second World War.

14Like China, Japan has his own priorities to manage, which are much more important than no-man’s islands: firstly, the reestablishment of the domestic economy, which has been plunged into recession for a long time; second, renewal of traditional technology, such as that used in the television industry, in order to match the needs of the new generation of worldwide consumers more closely; third, to take back the place of second economic superpower after the US, consolidate it and seriously prepare its entry into the United Nations Security Council, one of the major obstacles being China’s veto. All this in the context in which regional and world economic power is defined more and more by the number of nearby newly industrialized countries, such as South Korea, China and India. But the imminent threat, or nightmare, for Japan in terms of security is a North Korea armed with nuclear weapon, launching missiles into both Japanese airspace and maritime space.

15While the emergence of China presents a long-term threat for the country, resolution of this issue needs more time, more patience and more wisdom in both countries, which are so interdependent in terms of domestic economy that any military conflict will immediately have a double-edged effect. China is still the workshop closest to Japan, with a large pool of low-cost, competent, competitive labour. It is also the largest market for Japanese products and one of the largest suppliers of energy and raw materials, such as rare earths, which are essential for the computer and mobile phone industries and for the electric car industry. Last September, when some nationalist politicians in China called for a boycott of Japanese products, especially Japanese cars, one of the leaders of the civil nuclear sector in China said in private that construction of the future park of nuclear plants planned by the Government for 2020, consisting of about 60 reactors, will depend on the supply of critical equipment from Japanese companies like Mitsubishi. A gem of black humour during several episodes of toxic, thick fog over more than 50 large Chinese cities between the end of 2012 and the beginning of 2013, when the crisis over Senkaku/Diaoyu Island reached its apex, was that people who had called for a boycott on Japanese products rushed to electronics shops to buy air cleaners made in Japan to install them in their beautiful houses.

16In the Republic of Korea, passage of the leadership occurred peacefully and calmly, despite some contestation about election fraud. This was seen in the context of reconstitution of Korean identity, a historical process started the day after the closing ceremony of the Olympic Games in Seoul in 1988, as occurred after the Tokyo Olympic Games in 1964. The reconstruction of Korean identity met major obstacles: the division of the nation since 1945, and the end of the Japanese colonization. So the dream of a renaissance of the Korean nation will take longer than expected, especially after the experience of the fall of the Berlin wall. Nevertheless, South Korea did not hesitate to demonstrate strong determination in claiming sovereignty over Tokto/Takeshima Island against Japan and over the White Mountains against China, at least symbolically, as South Korea knows that its true enemy is neither Japan nor China but her neighbour to the north, inside the frontiers but beyond the 38° line. North Korea is no longer content to be a simple pawn controlled by China in the face of challenges from the US and Japan on international and regional chessboards but has begun to negotiate greater autonomy and independence from her traditional supplier of energy, food and financial aid. The exit of Pyongyang from the six-country talks presided over by Beijing marks a break in the traditional relationship between China and North Korea, the little brother. Consequently, big brother must review its policies towards the little one, who no longer wants to dance to the conductor’s baton in Beijing. All this completely changed the configuration of the power games in the region, at a very bad moment for China, which was obliged to approach the position of the US and of Japan to contain North Korea, the permanent 'troublemaker', with a young, impetuous, unpredictable leader.

17Viet Nam is a country that knows historically how to deal with its immense neighbour to the north in political, economic and military affairs. For example, there is a respectful, cordial relationship in terms of cooperation between the two Stalinist parties, because both face the same challenge: how to perpetuate the regime in their country in a vital space that is reduced daily now that the Soviet bloc has disappeared. But it is another story between the armies, with a very cold, even glacial, contentious relationship from time to time. Often, the Vietnamese army takes a hardline position vis-à-vis China on the Paracels and Spratley Islands, while the Party keeps maliciously silent. As the country does not have the military budget of the Chinese Army to build an aircraft carrier, the chiefs of the Armed Forces decided to buy half a dozen Russian submarines that could secretly attack the aircraft carrier of the Chinese fleet, an asymmetric but pertinent strategy. The Vietnamese Army masters “The Art of War” and “Thirty-six Stratagems” better than the Chinese Army, as proved during the war between the two countries in 1978, when the Chinese invaders lost a lot of face. Today, the Vietnamese strategy is to defy the threat of its big brother-enemy and to use its geographic advantages in terms of proximity to the disputed islands to apply sovereignty de facto, by intensive exploitation of either petroleum or tourism, and to continue to develop its silent fleet of submarines.

18The Philippines Government has made another choice, relying on the protection of the US Pacific Fleet to prevent a military attack from China in the dispute on Scarborough Shoal Huangyan Island. The choice is both clever and economical, because the US forces are more dissuasive than any other, allowing the Philippines people to sleep tranquilly on the waves of the Pacific Ocean.

19India is one of the three regional powers, with China and Japan. The country, propelled by rapid economic and demographic growth, became such an important geostrategic pole in Asia that its potential cannot be ignored. For many years, India has tried to find a place on the international scene to match its ambition, real power and importance in terms of civilization. India is today a declared competitor of China in every respect, including political, economic, social, cultural and even military and is intent on joining the Security Council of the United Nations. It also has a huge arsenal of nuclear weapons, a fleet including aircraft carriers that controls="true" access to the Indian Ocean from the Pacific Ocean side, and a very ambitious space exploration programme. India is thus a non-negligible potential enemy, which could present a real threat to her large neighbour to the north of the Himalayas. China is in a delicate situation today, with Japan, South Korea and Taiwan to the east, the ASEAN countries to the south in an immense island chain from east to south that China would have to break if it wanted to send its marine force beyond its maritime space, and by India to the west, capable of launching an attack against her historical enemy at any moment. The strategic alliance between China and Pakistan, the brother-enemy of India, is one of the solutions imagined by China, which has just taken control of the city port of Gwadar. This “purely commercial” operation by Beijing is a nightmare for New Delhi, which is very sensitive to any presence of the Chinese Navy in the Indian Ocean. This delicate situation shows Chinese hawks that they could not fight two military conflicts, on the east and the west front. The actual tactic used by China is therefore to multiply economic exchanges with India and to implicate India more and more into the BRICS, so that it can reduce tensions with India and postpone any future conflict. Two further contentious issues between China and India are disputed territory in the Himalayas, which has led to military conflicts since 1960, with an unsettled frontier, and the problem of Tibet and the Dalai Lama, with a government in exile based in Dharamsala, in India. On the first issue, negotiation between New Delhi and Beijing appears to be fruitless, although it is still under way; on the second issue, no one can predict when or how a solution will be found in the short or medium term.

20Having drawn a geopolitical and geostrategic map of the Asia-Pacific region, we now have some elements for reflection. Firstly, the configuration of the diverse powers in the region, which resembles the “Fighting Kingdoms” of ancient China, could serve as a mechanism for balance in the area. Second, the actual situation could encourage the actors to stack their cards in order to create new alliances among themselves, or crossed alliances. For instance, India, an ally of the Soviet Union during the Cold War, is now being approached by the US and Japan, while Pakistan, the brother-enemy of India and a historical ally of the US is renewing and reinforcing this alliance after the event of 11 September 2001. But there is nothing to prevent this country from making a strategic alliance with China for several decades. North Korea probably left the six-country talks after its third nuclear test in order to be considered a more important partner by Washington, with which Pyongyang prefers to have direct negotiations rather than being manipulated by Beijing. Third, there are many points of tension among the major actors of the region, but some of them might be reciprocally annulled when the parameters are unpredictably changed. Thus, North Korea, the “troublemaker”, has reduced the tensions between the major actors by testing nuclear devices and missiles, creating a new tension in the region, which modified the risk map in several countries. North Korea, with its new leader, looks like a black horse in the geopolitical game. Nothing, however, can predict sunshine in the Asia-Pacific region in 2013, the year of the snake, which symbolizes wisdom and pragmatism. Clouds may gather suddenly anywhere; cyclones and depressions can cause collateral damage, but scientists know that the tension is lower in the heart of a typhoon while the coefficient of security is larger. On the horizon of 2013, the clouds will disappear one after another, for the simple reason that, after the succession games in the different capitals, the nationalist shows must mark a pause so that everything can return to its normal place.

21One question of perspective in conclusion. Some researchers in geopolitics who are specialized in affairs in the Asia-Pacific region in French and other European universities have proposed the scenario of an Asian Union, based on the European Union model, for eradicating all factors that might lead to war. This is, of course, a good initiative, and the scenario is an ideal one. But the conditions are far from being present. Looking at Europe’s more than 60 years of experience, a beautiful success story despite actual difficulties, we find that one of the basic conditions for success is that all member countries have the same fundamental values. This is not the case, however, in the Asia-Pacific region. Let’s take China for example. Since 2008, when Ma Ying-Jeou, the Kuomintang candidate, won the presidential election in Taiwan, tensions with the mainland decreased, and the bilateral relationship between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait began to warm up. But President Ma, who has just renewed his mandate, avoids discussing the possibility of reunification with the mainland or of political dialogue; his only aim is to develop commercial exchanges, for he knows better than anyone else that the people of Taiwan, even though they consider themselves Chinese, would refuse to join the regime of the mainland, because their fundamental values are totally different. The strategy adopted by President Ma is to wait for changes inside China. The case is similar for the two Koreas. The Asia-Pacific region was one of the major theatres of the Cold War, and, although the Cold War has finished everywhere else, no on can predict its end in this region. In this context, how can people imagine integration of the largest continent in the world? Another problem is religion. India and Pakistan have been in permanent religious conflict since 1947, when India was divided into two countries with well-defined religious frontiers, unlike the European Union, to which the Catholic religion has contributed substantially. The last problem, but not the least, is where the frontiers of a future Asian Union should stop? Would the US, Australia, Central Asia, West Asia and the Middle East eventually join the map of the Asian Union? And what role would they play?

22In conclusion, the perspective of an Asian Union should not be ignored, and the mains actors in the region should learn from the European Union’s experience and that of the African Union to prepare a common future, with a long-term strategic vision. Dreaming of an ideal is the first step towards that ideal. However, people need time and the necessary conditions to make the ideal a reality, step by step. On the first page of the historical novel The Three Fighting Kingdoms, Shi Naian and Luo Guanzhong wrote: “The trend of the evolution of the world is that when a country is divided, it find its unity in the end. When it is unified, it will find its division again.”

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