Power Play In Hainan
Beijing appeared to have stumbled into crisis by
holding the crew of an American spy plane and
demanding an apology from Washington. But the
decision was a tactical one, made by leaders keen to
assert China's role as the region's top power
By Bruce Gilley/HONG KONG and David Murphy/BEIJING
Issue cover-dated April 19, 2001
AT FIRST IT SEEMED that Beijing had blundered its
way into a crisis when it decided to hold the 24 crew
members of an American EP-3 spy plane which
emergency-landed in Hainan province after colliding with
a Chinese fighter on April 1.
But Beijing's decision to hold the crew and demand an
apology from Washington was much more calculated,
according to sources informed about its motives and
analysts familiar with its long-term strategy.
The decision reflected a leadership in Beijing working
mightily to assert its role as the leading power of Asia. In
short, Beijing used the incident to assert to Washington
and to Asian capitals its critical role as a guarantor of
regional, if not world, stability in the new century.
The costs and benefits of that strategy have yet to be
totalled up. Certainly the short-term damage to Sino-U.S.
ties could be substantial. But the long-term benefits for
Beijing could begin to pay off after the Hainan Foreign
Affairs Office has returned to handing out coconut
cocktails to visiting foreign tourists.
It was just an aircraft sitting on a tarmac on the South
China coast. Yet there lay the outlines of a fundamental
shift in power relations in Asia in the new century, if
Beijing had its way.
"The U.S. will have to come to terms with China's sense
of unease and aggrievement," at the significant American
military power ranged around China, says Kwa Chong
Guan, the Singapore convener of the regional forum on
security organized under the non-official Council for
Security Cooperation in the Asia-Pacific. That will mean
the U.S. must adjust its presence "to play a role that Asia
wants it to play."
According to high-level sources in Beijing, the Chinese
leadership's tough line was decided at a combined
meeting of the Central Military Commission (which sets
military policy, is headed by President Jiang Zemin and
includes top defence officials) and the standing
committee of the Politburo just before Jiang departed for
a 12-day sojourn to Latin America on April 4. U.S.
President George W. Bush had appeared in the Rose
Garden to demand a return of the crew on April 3. The
dozen people at the meeting in the Zhongnanhai complex
in Beijing laid down the line that the U.S. crew and their
aircraft would not be released before Washington
apologized to China.
Why the tough line? Certainly, it seems the military was
not driving it. Its attitude towards the U.S. military is
probably much less belligerent than often portrayed and it
was clearly embarrassed by the crash of its fighter.
CMC Vice-Chairman Zhang Wannian, who missed the
critical meeting because he was visiting Australia and
New Zealand, sounded a series of conciliatory notes
from the start. "Our friends don't have to worry. We
believe a resolution will be found through diplomatic
channels," he said later.
Nor was rabid nationalism, another bogeyman frequently
cited in Western press reports, to blame. The few
desultory youths who showed up at the U.S. embassy in
Beijing were quickly hustled away as if they were
adherents of the banned Falun Gong religious movement.
Hainan's students were confined to signing a petition in
public. Most people on the streets didn't seem to care.
Rather, analysts say, the hard line was part of a larger
diplomatic strategy Beijing has been preparing for
several years. In short, it amounts to weakening the U.S.
security role in Asia so that China can play a larger role.
By pushing the incident, Beijing was making clear that it
expects to be respected in Asia and that it can bring the
region to the brink of crisis if that demand is not met.
"Power politics and Cold War mentality which run
counter to the trend of the times, remain active," in Asia,
Beijing said in a submission to the Asean regional
security forum last year, making a clear reference to the
U.S. presence in the region. "The act of seeking absolute
security in disregard of other countries' security is bound
to break international and regional strategic equilibrium
and stability."
The fact that the incident involved a U.S. spy plane
which watches China's missile build-up against Taiwan
and its South China Sea deployments made it the ideal
case to highlight China's aim, analysts say. Wang Wei,
the hot-dog pilot whose F-8 fighter collided with the
American EP-3, would become the first hero of the new
revolutionary struggle for China's enlarged role in Asia.
"There are plenty of reasons to think the Chinese
leadership would have taken a hard line on this incident
under any circumstance," says Joseph Fewsmith of
Boston University, an expert on leadership politics in
China. "The Chinese wanted to get something of a
framework, implicit or explicit, for Sino-U.S. relations
over the coming years."
That same message was hammered home by Jiang as he
moved through six countries in Latin America,
challenging U.S. power on its periphery just as the
EP-3 had done to China. Speaking in Chile on April 6
using his newly acquired Spanish, Jiang called for China
and Latin America to build together "a new international
order" that would include "the promotion of world
multi-polarization," meaning an end to U.S. superpower
status.
Jiang also pointedly applauded Latin American nations
for their "battles to safeguard the sovereignty of their
states," including "their maritime rights across the
200-mile limit," an obvious reference to China's claims
that the EP-3 had violated China's rights over its
economic exclusion zone.
It remains far from certain that China's use of the
incident to assert its role in Asia will actually work.
Damaged ties with the U.S. alone could cause a regional
reaction which strengthens the American presence in
Asia. Indeed, one of the first casualties of Beijing's tough
line on the incident could be its planned participation for
the first time as an observer of the annual Cobra Gold
joint military exercise involving Thailand, the U.S. and
Singapore due to take place in Thailand in May (see
article on page 24).
Meanwhile, congressional leaders like Henry Hyde,
chairman of the House International Relations
Committee, also warned that Beijing's handling of the
incident might encourage lawmakers to push for sales of
advanced radar and ships to Taiwan (see article on page
20).
But other signs indicate that the gambit may pay off.
Most immediately, the incident is expected to add to
pressure on the U.S. to avoid similar incidents in the
future. The EP-3 flights have been taking place at least
once a day for the past year and China has been
complaining about their growing proximity to its borders
for just as long.
Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian, in his first public
comments on the crisis on April 9, warned that it showed
the need for the U.S. and China to take more
confidence-building steps. "If this kind of incident
occurred in the Taiwan Strait it would be hard to imagine
what would happen as a result," he said.
The U.S., in a report on its ties to China to the Asean
security group last year, warned of the importance that
"our military leaders are able to clearly understand one
another" so that they could work together in areas "such
as avoiding incidents at sea."
But the incident will put the onus on the U.S. to take
steps, according to Kwa. "The U.S. will need to take the
initiative and be more open about the frequency and
nature of its surveillance flights," he says. "Then perhaps
the Chinese will understand the need for the flights and
be more transparent about their military's own tests and
capabilities."
In the longer term, Beijing's handling has ensured that
regional governments will give it due consideration.
Analysts of all stripes note how the region's two most
serious security threats aside from Taiwan--North
Korea, and India and Pakistan--depend heavily for their
handling on a cooperative approach by Beijing and
Washington.
"It was only because China and the U.S. were united
and acted together that the 1998 India-Pakistan nuclear
testing crisis was resolved," notes Chen Hansheng of
Zhengzhou University. "That is a clear example of how
good Sino-US relations are critical to Asia's stability."
With that in mind, most regional governments view
Sino-U.S. wrestling as a bad thing irrespective of who is
to blame. Virtually every regional government hastened
to urge a speedy resolution of the conflict after it
occurred. The message: If China is unhappy, for
whatever reason, the region will be unstable. After the
EP-3 and its crew have returned to the U.S. and the
yellow ribbons at Oak Harbour naval air base in
Washington state are taken down, that may be the most
lasting legacy of Beijing's handling of an incident that
quite literally flew into its lap.
"The tough way China dealt with this raises its status in
the area as a power which knows what it wants and
doesn't compromise its interests, whether real or
imagined," says G.P. Deshpande of the School of
International Studies of Jawaharlal Nehru University in
New Delhi. "In Asia, where states are quite fragile, most
people will accept this."
feer.com |
