China fails the tsunami test
Big power ambitions, bit player when the chips are down
By Michael Moran
Brave New World columnist
MSNBC
Updated: 2:32 p.m. ET Jan. 5, 2005
As the ships, aircraft and crews of the Australian, New Zealand, Indonesian and Indian navies rushed to the aid of a region scoured by a tsunami, joining a large American flotilla and various British, Thai, Japanese and Malaysian units, the Chinese fleet remained in port.
In fact, the only significant statement from China’s defense ministry in the days following the tsunami was a Dec. 27 announcement that China and Russia would hold major air and naval war games later this year.
News reports of that announcement focused on Russia’s motives – it was speculated that this was Moscow’s way of showing how irritated Russia was that its tampering with Ukraine’s election had been thwarted by Western pressure. Yet the tin ear China showed for the suffering of its neighbors is even more important. At a time when tens of thousands in its neighborhood were at risk of starvation, dehydration and disease, China’s focus was right where it has been for centuries: China.
No hands on deck
With the exception of the American 7th Fleet, based in Japan, China maintains the largest amphibious force in the region, a force with precisely the kind of ships desperately needed in parts of the region rendered inaccessible by the battering waves. The newest and heaviest of these vessels, the 11 ships of the Yuting class, are capable of delivering large amounts of aid to the ragged shorelines now occupying the place where port facilities once sat. Designed for a Taiwan invasion scenario, they also can produce enough fresh water each day to keep a medium-sized city alive. Even little Singapore dispatched two smaller landing vessels to the devastated region.
So why are the Chinese still at their moorings?
The answer is complicated by China’s historic policy of “non-interference” in the internal affairs of its neighbors, and in some places — India, in particular — by historic suspicions and resentments built up over centuries of rivalry. But China's low profile also speaks volumes about the gap between its rhetoric, which stresses its coming of age as a great power in Asia, and the reality of China’s inward-oriented foreign policy.
"They don't have experience in doing this kind of thing, unlike the U.S., which just pushes a few of the right buttons and the relief effort starts," says William Turcotte, professor emiritas at the U.S. Naval War College. "But they have the sea-lift - they certainly could help. Maybe this will embarrass them into doing something next time."
Playing possum
Like many countries, China committed money to tsunami relief -- $63 million, carefully trumping the $50 million pledged by its diminutive rival, Taiwan. Beijing also sent a number of search and rescue teams to the region and has encouraged private giving. (In contrast, Japan’s $500 million was the top pledge by any country until Wednesday, when Australia's $764 and Germany's $674 leapfrogged it.
To be sure, China's $63 million donation is welcomed, as is any aid from any country. But China is not just any country, particularly not in East and Southeast Asia, where its break-neck economic growth and maturing military might cast a large and long shadow.
With the United States deeply distracted in the Middle East, China has moved, sometimes subtly, sometimes less so, to fill what many see as a regional leadership void.
fact file Far East power shift
China has grown to eclipse Japan – and increasingly the United States – in terms of economic and political clout in the Pacific Rim. Choose a category below to learn about the region’s changing dynamics.
• GDP growth (%)
• Trade within Asia
• Income per capita
• Military spending
• Crude oil imports
• Other petroleum imports
Millions of U.S. Dollars.
Negative figures represent a trade deficit.
Chinese workers assemble television sets at a Haier Group factory in China's eastern port city of Qingdao
China U.S. Japan
1980 220 13,020 10,530
1985 280 16,960 11,060
1990 320 23,440 27,100
1995 520 28,260 40,830
2000 840 34,370 35,420
2001 890 34,400 35,610
2002 940 35,060 33,550
Current U.S. Dollars.
Military delegates arrive at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing for a plenary session of China's parliament, the National People's Congress (NPC)
China U.S. Japan
1980 5.4 6.0 0.9
1985 2.9 6.5 1.0
1990 1.7 5.4 1.0
1995 5.9 3.8 1.0
2000 5.3 3.0 1.0
Percentage of GDP
Source: The International Institute for Strategic Studies
China 1980-1985: National income is used instead of GDP.
Vehicles travel along Yanan elevated highway in Shanghai. China was the world's fastest-expanding major car market in 2003.
China U.S. Japan
1980 373 304,027 223,046
1985 255 206,140 172,156
1990 2,923 351,041 198,531
1995 17,090 419,050 232,802
2000 70,265 525,110 219,991
2001 60,260 538,808 212,116
Energy balances are provided in thousand tons of oil equivalent (ktoe).
Comprises crude oil, natural gas liquids, refinery feedstocks, and additives as well as other hydrocarbons.
China U.S. Japan
1980 468 51,905 29,138
1985 905 58,352 40,545
1990 3,568 62,420 64,019
1995 17,390 41,955 52,241
2000 24,963 76,012 53,724
2001 28,315 81,689 49,366
Energy balances are provided in thousand tons of oil equivalent (ktoe).
Comprises refinery gas, ethane, LPG, aviation gasoline, motor gasoline, jet fuels, kerosene, gas/diesel oil, heavy fuel oil, naphtha, white spirit, lubricants, bitumen, paraffin waxes, petroleum coke and other petroleum products.
Sources: Kaori Kaneko/MSNBC/OECD/IMF/World Bank/IISS • Print this
Its neighbors, once deeply suspicious of its designs, increasingly feel comfortable looking to Beijing for economic leadership and even for cues on how to vote on such issues as the Iraq War at the United Nations. China's own behavior has encouraged its neighbors to expect more of it in times like these.
Flexing muscles - selectively
China’s influence in many of these countries, including Indonesia, Singapore, Vietnam and the Philippines, is magnified by highly successful ethnic Chinese minority communities that took roots centuries ago in many countries around the region.
In some ways, the tsunami disaster came at a particularly inconvenient time for Beijing. Over the past two months, Beijing has made bold moves, given its inward looking history, to assume the helm of the world’s most dynamic region.
In November, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), a group once heavily inclined toward Washington and to which China does not even belong, asked China to organize and lead a new regional trading bloc – a group that could, potentially, dwarf both the EU and NAFTA is its commercial size. Not coincidentally, it is ASEAN which will host the Thursday summit of donor nations to discuss the tsunami tragedy.
The announcement of joint exercises with Russia's military, too, was a departure for China, which fought a short, violent border war with the Soviet Union in 1969 and in the past has only flirted with a Sino-Russian alliance.
At the same time, the Chinese government has been trying to avoid calls for a reappraisal of its status as a major recipient of international aid and interest free development loans from the World Bank, Asian Development Bank and other NGOs. As China has grown into the seventh largest economy in the world, its neighbors, especially Japan, which is the leading foreign investor in China, have called for China to “graduate” from aid recipient to donor nation.
The other rising power
Contrast China’s stance on the tsunami with that of India, itself seriously affected, and Beijing’s behavior looks even less impressive.
Within hours of the disaster, India – China’s near equal in terms of population and economic growth – told the world it did not need disaster relief for the time being, suggesting such money be diverted to poorer nations.
What’s more, India dispatched navy ships and cargo aircraft to its devastated cousins in Sri Lanka, immediately staking a claim for itself in the “core” group of donor nations.
Some Americans, and some in the region, may think it just as well that China remains a one-dimensional player on the world scene, a kind of gigantic idiot savant with a monster economy but no desire to engage in any foreign affairs issue that won’t be a direct benefit to it. That is an understandable sentiment, given the potential for China to be a disruptive, authoritarian force in world.
But coaxing China out of the somewhat paranoid shell through which it has viewed the world for centuries is in the longer term interest of the United States and Asia. Had China, on Dec. 27, announced that its naval transports planned joint relief operations with Japan or the U.S. fleet instead of war games with Russia, an important line would have been crossed. Unfortunately, for China, Asia and the world, Beijing just can’t see the logic – yet.
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Now that China has 1.3 billion people you’d think that they could chip in something. Even if they just gave 50 cents for every person in China, that would still be like 65 million dollars.
Well, the people, themselves, can't give anything; the average person earns about 30 US bucks a month. The government should be doing something, though, if they don't want the world to shun them in the event of them needing support from the US, or any other large country, for whatever reason. Which you know they will.
"I'm for it so we can put Nuclear power plants up there, and then beam the power back to earth on a laser beam." ~ Whidden
The government should be doing something, though, if they don't want the world to shun them in the event of them needing support from the US, or any other large country, for whatever reason. Which you know they will.
Egg-sactly. And they're gonna want some support when the bubble around this whole China/Taiwan thing finally pops. They certainly wouldn't want anyone opposing them on the issue due to their (now) pathetic record on international relations.
"I'm for it so we can put Nuclear power plants up there, and then beam the power back to earth on a laser beam." ~ Whidden
In light of the tsunami that hijacked Asia, which was a sincerely awful natural disaster, I believe that we should not allow the carnage there to overshadow the man-made tsunami that engulfed Iraq nearly two years ago, namely, the US-led invasion, which has left, according to the Red Cross, a hundred thousand civilians either dead and displaced.
I agree entirely with the aid that has been generously pouring into the devastated Asian region, however, should we not, as members of the public, be dipping our hands into our pockets and proffering a similar amount of aid and charity to the thousands of Iraqis whose lives have been permanently vandalised by the forces of mankind? It appears that both the majority of the media and the public alike have more sympathy with the victims of natural disasters as opposed to military ones.
I just find it slightly contradictory that my government (the British) and the American government are rushing head first to Asia to throw aid at the disasterous region, however, are both sets of governments doing it because of the mayhem and misery that has unfolded in Iraq since they invaded the country? Is it a guilt thing? That's what I don't understand about successive US governments: on the one hand they support nasty dictators such as Hussein, Pinochet, Armas, Batista, Suharto etc and on the other they give lots of aid to disaster-hit regions. It is the Jeckyll and Hyde nature of the US (and Britain to a lesser degree) that confuses many non-American and Brits.
01-06-2005 04:31 AM
What goes around comes around.
