Despite Chuck Hagel’s outburst and Chinese Deputy Army Chief lieutenant-General Wang Guanzhong’s riposte in Singapore recently, experts do not really believe that the ties are about to unravel dangerously
Seldom does one see America go with its guns blazing against an adversary as formidable as China from the platform of an international security conclave. But that’s precisely what US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel did in Singapore last weekend. He not only accused Beijing of “destabilising” the Asia-Pacific region, with its “unilateral” actions in the South China Sea, but went on to issue a blunt warning: “The United States will not look the other way when fundamental principles of the international order are being challenged.”
The Chinese are known for their inscrutable ways. So the top China representative at the Shangri-la Dialogue, Deputy Army Chief lieutenant-General Wang Guanzhong, did not react immediately. On the contrary, he went ahead with his bilateral meeting with Hagel hours later, even kicking off the session with a tongue-in-cheek remark: “You were very candid this morning, and to be frank, more than our expectations. Although I do think those criticisms are groundless, I do appreciate your candour.”
Wang waited for his turn at the conclave the next day to strike back. “Hagel’s speech was full of hegemony, threat and intimidation. It was a speech to abet destabilising factors to create trouble and make provocations. It was not a constructive speech,” he said. Wang used the occasion to turn the fire on China’s other bete noire, Japan. He even accused Hagel and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of “coordinating” their speeches to attack China. As he put it, such “provocative” statements are “unacceptable”.
The face-off in Singapore is just one of several witnessed between the United States and China in recent weeks, prompting observers to wonder where the uneasy relationship may be headed. The week also saw Washington target Beijing on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of China’s ignominious Tiananmen Square crackdown on pro-democracy protesters. “We call on Chinese authorities to account for those killed, detained or missing in connection with the events surrounding June 4, 1989,” said a White House statement. Secretary of State John Kerry demanded the release of protesters still serving sentences, telling Beijing to “end the ongoing pattern of harassment, detention and official retribution”.
China came up with a sharp response, virtually telling the United States to mind its own business. A spokesman of the Chinese Foreign Ministry charged Washington with making “irresponsible remarks” and asked it to “stop using the so-called human rights issues to interfere in China’s internal affairs and take concrete actions to maintain the development of China-US relationship”.
Tension had been building up even before the Singapore conference with the United States indicting five officers of the Chinese military on charges of hacking into computers and stealing American trade secrets. It was the first action of its kind instituted by the US Justice Department against any foreign country for alleged economic espionage through cyber means. The American companies hacked into are said to include US Steel, Alcoa, Westinghouse, Allegheny and SolarWorld. “This administration will not tolerate actions by any nation that seeks to illegally sabotage American companies and undermine the integrity of fair competition in the operation of the free market,” declared US Attorney General Eric Holder.
Beijing reacted furiously with its Foreign Ministry summoning US Ambassador Max Baucus to lodge a formal complaint and announcing suspension of its participation in the US-China Cyber Working Group. “The US, by this action, betrays its commitment to building healthy, stable, reliable military-to-military relations and causes serious damage to mutual trust between the sides,” it commented. While terming the charges preposterous and smacking of double standards, the Foreign Ministry accused the US of hypocrisy by referring to Edward Snowden’s revelations last year that Washington had indeed overseen the hacking of Chinese companies.
Additionally, China this week appeared to be preparing the ground for its own retaliatory action, targeting American tech majors, as the country’s State media blasted the United States for cyberspying and demanded severe punishment for the “pawns” of America’s PRISM surveillance programme. The People’s Daily named Google, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, Yahoo and Cisco as the US’ “pawns” that threatened China’s cybersecurity and its Internet users by “coordinating with the PRISM programme to monitor China”.
In the midst of these developments over a broad front, the Pentagon has submitted a report to the US Congress in which it speaks of China pressing ahead with its military capabilities and preparing for contingencies in the South and East China Seas where it has been involved in tense territorial disputes with its neighbours, including Japan and the Philippines. China, according to this annual report, also continues to prepare for a potential conflict in the Taiwan Strait which, in its view, includes deterring or defeating the United States.
In the Pentagon’s assessment, China’s presence is growing in all regions of the world. Its military expenditures continue to grow in keeping with its aspirations of a regional and world power. In March, China announced a 12.2 per cent increase of its military spending to $132 billion. Chinese leaders see this era as a “period of strategic opportunity”. At the same time, the report cites the leadership’s reported “desire to maintain peace and stability along their country’s periphery, expand their diplomatic influence to facilitate access to markets, capital and resources, and avoid direct confrontation with the United States and other countries”.
If the Hagel’s outburst and the Chinese general’s riposte in Singapore stokes public concern about the worsening relations between the two big powers, in tandem with the other areas of friction, experts do not really believe that the ties are about to unravel dangerously. Yet it may be safe to say that the relations will continue to be often testy as they indeed have been for years.
As Bonnie Glaser, a China specialist at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, has been quoted by Reuters as saying in Singapore: “Relations are definitely not at a breaking point. leaders are aware that their countries have huge stakes in this relationship and they are committed to trying to find areas where interests do overlap, where they can work together.”
Perhaps the biggest of these stakes is on the trade front. Despite all the issues bedevilling their commercial relations, China happens to be the US’ second biggest trading partner, after Canada. The overall trade turnover of $579 billion as of 2012 is heavily imbalanced in China’s favour. With American exports to China at $141 billion and imports at as much as $439 billion, the US’s trade deficit in goods and services stands at a whopping $298 billion. Add to this mix is the fact that China remains America’s largest foreign creditor, holding US Treasury securities of a mind-boggling $1.27 trillion as of March this year.
(The writer is Washington correspondent, The Pioneer)