China Wants to Manage US Policy

By Sushil Seth

China's leadership has tended to largely follow Deng Xiaoping's (鄧小平) advice to "hide our capacities and bide our time." What it means is that Beijing should avoid confrontation with the West, principally the US, until it is in a position to prevail.

And its priority area to prevail is Taiwan. Since the US is committed to help Taiwan defend itself in the event of a Chinese attack, it would mean having to confront the US.

A virtual showdown in the Taiwan Strait in 1996, with two US warships cruising in that direction, had a sobering effect on China.

Since then Beijing has followed a mixture of strategies, including legislative annexation of Taiwan and declaring in essence that any declaration of independence in Taiwan would require China, under its domestic legislation, to take military action.

And to impress its seriousness, Beijing is building up a huge arsenal of missiles targeted at Taiwan by reportedly adding "more than 100 missiles a year to the 1,000 already aimed across the Taiwan Strait."

The context for this new evaluation of the Chinese threat is the Pentagon's annual report to the US Congress on China's military buildup, with another double-digit increase of about 18 percent in its military budget.

China's military spending, according to official figures, recorded an average annual rise of close to 15.8 percent between 2003 and last year.

The official figures, in any case, are a gross underestimation and the real annual defense spending is likely to have been double the official figure, or US$150 billion.

The People's Liberation Army is being transformed, according to the Pentagon evaluation, from a mass army "designed for protracted wars of attrition on its territory to one capable of fighting and winning short-duration wars along its periphery against high-tech adversaries."

And here Taiwan fits into the Chinese scheme of things, if Beijing were to consider a military option.

Even if the military option is not exercised, it nevertheless has to be pretty serious and credible to have the desired effect, as with the massing of hundreds of missiles aimed at Taiwan.

China would like to avoid military confrontation with the US over Taiwan or anywhere else, with the US being by far the strongest military power.

Hence it has a mix of other strategies. Within Taiwan, for instance, it has managed to create important political and business constituencies that favor accommodation with Beijing regarding Taiwan's political status.

These groups, like the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), do not necessarily want to abandon Taiwan's identity but might explore an arrangement to maintain autonomy within the "one China" principle.

Beijing has often maintained that it is prepared for talks within the "one China" formula. And if China, and a KMT government in Taipei, were to work out a formula that rules out a separate Taiwan, any US commitment to defend Taiwan might become redundant.

But it might not be all that simple because any working arrangement between Beijing and Taipei will have a long time frame. And a new government in Taiwan will not be all that keen to abjure US protection during a long transitional relationship between Beijing and Taipei.

At the same time, there is also the "little" matter of considering the popular opinion in Taiwan. The Taiwanese do not want confrontation with China.

But, at the same time, they don't seem keen to be absorbed into it. With Taiwan's vibrant democracy, any ruling political party rash enough to embed with China might not have long to rule.

While China might find living with a new KMT government (if voted into power) congenial, it cannot count on a smooth political trajectory. And the US commitment to defend Taiwan is likely to remain relevant.

Beijing is aware of this, and hence is continuing to build its military capability designed, in the short and medium term, to deter the US from taking on China.

In other words, the US might find the cost of confronting China prohibitive.

And here China's rapid buildup of its submarine fleet is quite instructive. In a recent report from Beijing, New York Times correspondent David Lague wrote: "American and other Western military analysts estimate that China now has more than 30 advanced and increasingly stealthy submarines, and dozens of older obsolete types."

They believe that "by the end of the decade ? China will have more submarines than the United States, although it will still lag behind in overall ability," Lague said.

Another way by which China seeks to manage the US is by creating political leverage on international issues that are important to Washington.

So much so that a view is gaining in some quarters in Washington that Beijing could be a useful partner in managing some of these issues.

This view is reflected in a recent Foreign Affairs article. Authors Stephanie Kleine-Ahlbrandt and Andrew Small wrote: "In just two years, China has moved from outright obstructionism and a defensive insistence on solidarity with the developing world to an attempt to balance its material needs with its acknowledged responsibilities as a major power."

"And so when Washington and its allies formulate their policies toward pariah states, they should assume that China, although in some respects an obstacle, is now also a critical partner," they wrote.

With the US looking to Beijing for support on international issues at a time when Washington is overstretched, Taiwan tends to become a side issue.

The problem, though, is any sign of appeasement on Taiwan would be read by China as the US' faltering resolve to keep actively engaged in the Asia-Pacific.

Some of the regional countries are already factoring this into their policy formulations by seeking political accommodation with China as the pre-eminent regional power.

Sushil Seth is a writer based in Australia.