When
the Association of Southeast Asian Nations last month failed to agree a joint
position on the South China Sea, the disputed waters contested by several
of its members and China, many observers lamented the organisation’s weakness.
But in Beijing, the outcome was quietly
celebrated as a success for its new foreign policy strategy as China seeks to
use key allies to push through its own interests in the region.
Cambodia, which this year chairs
the 10-nation Asean group, blocked an attempt by the Philippines and Vietnam to
include a reference in the summit communiqué to a recent stand-off with China
in the South China Sea.
“We co-ordinated very well with
Cambodia in that case and . . . prevented an incident which would have been
detrimental to China,” says Chen Xiangyang, a foreign policy expert at the
China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations.
Analysts say Cambodia’s move to
do China’s bidding is a glimpse of things to come as Beijing seeks to build
foreign policy alliances it long eschewed. Deterred from such alliances by the
collapse of its pact with the Soviet Union in 1961, China decided in 1982, when
it started opening up after more than a decade of self-imposed isolation during
the cultural revolution, that it should follow a strict policy of
non-alignment.
But following the 2008 financial
crisis, the Arab Spring and
the growing US push to reassert its presence in Asia, this strategy is
increasingly being challenged at home.
“The situation in China’s
backyard has become more complicated, and there is a feeling that things are
running out of control,” says Mr Chen. “Following the increase in Chinese
power, we will need more friends. Otherwise we run the risk of isolation.”
Some Chinese scholars believe
Beijing has already started watering down its traditional non-alignment dogma.
The country distinguishes between
“strategic relationships” – a title it is happy to attach to any ties that the
other side wants to give more weight to – and “special relationships”. China
has long pursued a small number of special relationships, including a
friendship treaty with North Korea, close ties with Pakistan that include
anti-terrorism and military co-operation, and a strong partnership with
Cambodia.
China has also cultivated friends
such as Iran and Sudan, but Chinese foreign policy experts say these
relationships are mainly driven by economic interests such as securing
resources and could never become part of a Chinese alliance system.
In contrast, Beijing is experimenting
with broadening and strengthening its ties in Asia into relationships that
could become building blocks for an alliance. Analysts point to China’s role as
a big aid donor and investor in Cambodia and Phnom Penh’s increasing
co-operation with Beijing. It arrested Patrick
Devillers, a Frenchman whom Chinese authorities wanted to question in
connection with the scandal surrounding disgraced politician Bo
Xilai. In 2009, Cambodia extradited 20 Uighur refugees to China whom
Beijing suspected of involvement in sectarian violence in its restive
western region of Xinjiang.
There were recriminations over
Cambodia’s role at the the Asean meeting with some accusing China of
intervening too forcefully in the group’s politics. But in recent days
officials from the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand have sought to draw a
line under the events in Phnom Penh saying that long-term relations with
Beijing are more important.
Thitinan Pongsudhirak, professor
of international relations at Thailand’s Chulalongkorn University, says China
knows it has the power to influence Asean countries and that a more engaged
role by the US in the region is also causing friction within the group.
“The rebalancing [of the US in
Asia] means certain Asean members can rely on the new US posture to hedge and
leverage vis-a-vis China . . . In short, current internal Asean rifts are
attributable not just to China’s assertive rise but also the US’ vigorous
re-engagement.”
China’s relationship with Russia
is also undergoing a major change. Chinese diplomats say the escalating crisis in Syria has
pushed the countries much closer. Beijing and Moscow have jointly voted down
three UN Security Council resolutions on Syria against a closed front of other
countries.
“In the past, we happened to take
the same position in the UN Security Council in some cases, but that was just
because our national interests just happened to overlap, and there were other
countries sharing our views, like in the Iraq case,” said one diplomat. “Now we
have been pushed into a quasi-alliance.”
Some experts who advise Beijing
also argue that China should do more to build ad hoc alliances with the other
Brics – Brazil, Russia, India and South Africa – around certain topics where
the big emerging markets have common interests. But many Chinese foreign policy
experts say such experiments fall far short of what is needed.
Yan Xuetong, dean of the
Institute of Modern International Relations at Tsinghua University who has been
one of the fiercest critics of non-alignment, says Beijing must completely
abandon the dogma and replace it with a web of military alliances reaching from
North Korea all the way down to Sri Lanka.
“We live in an international
order dominated by the US’ military alliances,” he said. “China is not offering
its neighbours security guarantees, so as China is rising, fears are emerging
among them as to what our intentions might be.”
Some Chinese scholars believe the
country has the building blocks in place for an extensive alliance system of
its own. The Shanghai Co-operation Organisation, a body co-founded by Beijing
which includes Russia as well as several central Asian states, could be part of
it in addition to North Korea, Myanmar, Cambodia, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.
Such ideas have the potential to
deepen unease, especially in India which has long feared strategic encirclement
by China. Beijing has repeatedly denied such intentions. But Pakistan and Sri
Lanka have large ports that could be used for military purposes, and the
prospect that the Chinese navy could be given regular access to them is feeding
those fears.
Chinese analysts believe that
signs of opening-up in some of the more unsavoury countries Beijing counts as
friends could even speed up the process of building an alliance network.
Kim Jong-eun, North Korea’s new
ruler, set up an economic reform group in his ruling party last month, feeding
expectations that he might start Chinese-style economic reforms. “Both Myanmar
and North Korea are seeking reform and opening,” says Mr Yan. “They are
following China’s path. That would make them more suitable as real allies for
us.”
Kathrin
Hille
Additional reporting Gwen
Robinson in Bangkok, Jeremy Grant in Singapore and Roel Landingin in Manila
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