By Minxin Pei
Hillary Clinton’s new essay on the US role in Asia makes clear the United States is there to stay. There’s little China can do about it.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spelled out Washington’s policy toward Asia in an essay in Foreign Policy released earlier today. Although the elaboration of this policy seems belated with the Obama administration approaching the end of its third year in office, Clinton spared no pains in describing and clarifying the various components of the United States’ Asia policy.
Among the most avid readers of Clinton’s essay will be senior foreign policy makers in Beijing. The official response to the Clinton statement will most likely be muted. On the surface, at least, she didn’t announce new initiatives or policy changes. The apparent reason for Clinton issuing this document now is to reassure regional allies of the continuing US commitment to the region in spite of its domestic difficulties and rising isolationist sentiments, and to send a strong signal to China that Washington will maintain its current policy of deepening engagement with Beijing. It’s anybody’s guess whether she chose to time her statement on Asia with the imminent arrival of Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping (who will become China’s top leader in 2012) in Washington for his important official visit in November.
However, a closer reading of the document is sure to produce mixed feelings in Beijing. Chinese officials will pay special attention to Clinton’s Asia policy statement at three levels.
Of the most immediate interest to the Chinese is the part on bilateral relations. Here they would most probably feel pleased. She not only placed deepening relations with emerging powers, including China, as the second most important policy component, but also devoted the largest portion of her essay, about one-seventh, to US-China relations. (By comparison, India got one paragraph, and was lumped together with Indonesia when she mentioned other emerging powers.) An additional reason for Beijing to like the Clinton statement is the positive tone in which she cast US-China relations. She appeared to go out of her way to accentuate those aspects of US-China relations that actively strengthen bilateral cooperation in a wide range of areas.
However, Chinese officials’ mood will certainly grow more sour as they examine the other components of the United States’ Asia strategy at the policy level. In particular, they will be unnerved by those policy actions – strengthening bilateral security alliances (identified as the most important component of US policy), forging a broad-based military presence (which essentially means further upgrading and expanding US military capabilities in the Western Pacific), and advancing democracy and human rights. In Beijing’s eyes, these measures are part of a subtle framework of strategic containment and can harm Chinese security interests and undermine the Chinese Communist Party’s rule.
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ozivan
Singapore has been very keen in offering US a permanent naval base for a long time. IMO, the US have in the past been very discrete not to be misconstrued by Indonesia & Malaysia. So US did not accept Singapore’s offer except agreeing to use Singapore’s naval facilites for replenishment and maintenance services.
Now a golden opportunity just presented itself to Singapore & US, helped very much by Philippines & Vietnam cries of ” wolf, wolf ” about China’s assertive actions in the SCS, which resulted in the newest US Combat Littoral Ships deployed to Singapore. Where previously they couldn’t do it through the front door, now they managed to do it through the back door.
In Malaysia, Indonesia & Singapore’s strategic defence calculations; China is not their first threat. Malaysia and Indonesia are more inclined to treat Singapore as their first threat and vice-versa, although the Littoral ships can be assign to secure the SCS whenever needed. Their anti-submarine capabilities are for securing the Straits of Malacca too against muslim Malaysian and muslim Indonesian small but increasing submarine fleets.
That’s how I see it.
Yang zi
Chinese navy has plenty of small ships, it is a very effective defense against blue water navies. US littoral ship is just a concept copy of that.
What you are witnessing is the platou of us mil technology. China is on the verge of winning a local war against US. The fault lies with US, it spent too much on operations, not r & d.
But I do not advocate war against US. If it helps, China can assure US it will never spend more than US on defense. But US hawks are keep squeezing China, the stir up in SCS is worse than a containment. But I am sure China can manage, it just need a targeted and blanced strategy.
Cyrus14
Your dreaming if you think China can win against the US. A Chinese wet dream at best.
John Wong
US naval forces is currently holding position number 1 in the World today. China is not even being ranked number 5 on the list, it will be very unfair to compare China’s PLAN with the US navy. Talking about sea battles experience, count for yourself, how many major battle China has fought in the last 100 years? Note, shooting unarmed fishmen boats cannot be counted as battles, which including using battle group ships with airforce and submarines supports; not to mention using space imagery technology.
I hope war will not break out in Asia, but please stop comparing a cat to a tiger.
Roland
Yes I agree. PLA seems to develop their Naval forces at a fast speed. Withi this speed, I predict that soon we’ll see two fighter jets, two submarines, two boats from PLA collided badly in high sea
ozivan
@John Wong. The PLA has openly admitted that they are 2 decades behind the US, yet nobody cares to listen to what they have said.
But when non-Chinese authors and some bloggers speak of the military prowess of China, they quickly want to challenge them.
They should hear from the horse-mouth, ie the PLA.