The Marmot’s Hole

It was a 4-page translation, so please read the damn thing

The Weekly Chosun magazine ran a piece a little while’s back on China’s growing economic, political and military clout in and along the Indian and Pacific oceans. Anyway, for the benefit of non-Korean speakers, I’ve translated the piece below, and added some brief notes of my own. Enjoy.

Based on 30 years of rapid growth in its economic power, China is expanding its influence in Africa and Latin America.

Making moves toward a maritime empire by building naval bases in Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean.

For Asians, the 21st century is the century of hope. Fukuzawa Yukichi, called the father of Japan’s 19th century modernization, expounded that Japan had to leave Asia, saying, “We can survive only by leaving Asia and joining the West.” In fact, Japan has behaved like a Western nation.

From the end of the 20th century, however, the situation has changed. With the rate of economic development of Asian nations like China, India and Korea pulling ahead of the West, the belief that one can survive only by leaving the West and joining Asia is gaining strength. Predictions are pouring forth that Asia will become the economic center of the world. But can Asia liquidate its racial, religious and cultural differences and historical grievances and stand atop the center of the world?

China has already attained the position of a superpower. So much so that without realizing it, the Western theory of the “Yellow Peril,” that China’s rapid growth is threatening, has changed to China’s “White Peril” theory, that the West is exerting on us too much influence.

China’s place in the world can be guessed just by looking at a few economic statistics. For nearly 30 years since Deng Xiaoping’s economic reforms of 1978, China has posted high growth of nearly 10 percent annually. Before opening up, China languished in poverty behind the “Bamboo Curtain,” but last year, its GDP was the fifth largest in the world behind France. Its foreign direct investment is far and away No. 1 in the world. There are even predictions that by 2020, its economy will surpass Japan as the world’s No. 2.

But neatly amassing cash in your home safe doesn’t automatically translate into power. You become a “powerful clan” when your influence with those around you matches you capabilities, and those around you sense your power. When viewed in this regard, China has already begun to show the world its might as a superpower.

You can get a cross section by looking at the international prestige of Shanghai mayor Han Zheng. You’d be wrong to see him as just the head of one of China’s regional governments. He’s so big that unless you’re a prime minister or at least a minister, foreign VIPs have a tough time meeting him when they visit Shanghai. When Korean regional leaders visit Shanghai, they virtually have to beg city officials to book a meeting with Mayor Han.

As a superpower, one of China’s more prominent moves is its policy of southward expansion. China is accelerating its economic and military advance through the entirety of the Indian and Pacific oceans, making strategic moves toward becoming a maritime empire. China has built a port in Gwadar, near Pakistan’s biggest city of Karachi. China operates a maritime reconnaissance and electronic intelligence station on Myanmar’s Coco Islands. Ahead of this, then Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji visited the Indian Ocean island nation of Maldives in 2001. During his visit, Zhu worked out an agreement for a 25-year lease on Marao, the Maldive’s largest island, for construction of a Chinese naval base. China planned to base nuclear submarines in Marao. The rental agreement for Marao was canceled one month later when a surprised United States put pressure on the Maldives. But China seemingly intends to push its plans again, with a Chinese military official secretly visiting the Maldives in 2004. It’s a strategy to place the Indian Ocean, the transportation route for all its oil, under its military influence.

(Marmot’s note: The Chinese had better hope its a submarine base, because if the rest of the Maldives looks like its capital city, I’d say with global warming, a sub-marine base is exactly what it’s going to be before the 25-year lease is up)

The scope of China’s maritime advance is stretching all the way to the Pacific Ocean. Premier Wen Jiabao led a delegation of 200 for a four nation tour that included Australia and New Zealand from April 1. On this tour, Wen stopped by Fiji on April 5. It was the first visit to Fiji by a Chinese premier. Wen’s visit was to attend the first ever China-Pacific Island Countries Economic Development and Cooperation Forum. During the forum, the Chinese premier held summit meetings with six Pacific Ocean nations and obtained deals for close cooperation. In order to do this, China had for several years previously carried out minute plans costing large amounts of money. According to 2004 statistics, China gave 17 million U.S. dollars in development aid. It built a TV station in Samoa and a fish processing plant in the Cook Islands. Recently, it gave sports facilities to Kiribati and Fiji.

China’s power is extending all the way to the other side of the globe. China has recently been signing trade and military cooperation deals with countries in Central and South America. Chinese President Hu Jintao visited Brazil in 2004 and agreed to invest 100 billion U.S. dollars over 10 years. China is bringing Latin American officers and soldiers to China for military training, and throughout Central and South America, Chinese-made weapons are being deployed. For the United States, which regards Central and South America as its backyard, the Chinese advance into the region, along with the appearance of a series of leftist governments in the region, has to strike a nerve.

Africa, too, is not outside the Chinese field of fire. China has already appeared as Africa’s third-largest trading partner behind the United States and France. China provided a 2-billion U.S. dollar loan to Angola, with Angolan oil as collateral. It has invested in platinum mines in Zimbabwe and copper mines in Zambia. Over the last 10 years, about 600 Chinese companies have entered Africa. They don’t discriminate against backwaters like Angola and Sudan, where Western capital isn’t being invested.

Against a background of globally expanded influence, China has begun in earnest to flex its power in international politics. In the UN General Assembly in September, China—claiming to speak for “developing nations”—played a decisive role in frustrating Japan’s attempt to join the UN Security Council as a permanent member. In Central Asia, it has built up the capacity to confront the United States straight on. Through last July’s meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, China demanded the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.

Seoul University international relations professor Jeong Jae-ho said, “China’s growth as a Great Power is not unprecedented; it’s its fifth restoration following the Han, Tang, Ming and Qing era.” He added, “Over the next 50 years, the U.S.-China relationship will be the core variable in the international political structure, just like the U.S.-Soviet relationship was for the 20th century.”

About China’s growth as a global superpower, many feel it’s not completely bad. They say the Chinese government’s stable development of the lives of its 1.3 billion people against a background of rising national power can do much to stabilize world affairs. In particular, they say it could be the key factor in political stability in Asia.

About Western concerns surround China’s growth as a superpower, the Chinese government consistently maintains that China is still a poor country which is not a superpower threatening the world. Every chance it gets, the Chinese government reiterates that China’s per capita GDP is 1,700 U.S. dollars, not even in the world’s top 100.

As part of its efforts to appear less threatening, the Chinese government published last year a white paper entitled, “The Path of Chinese Peaceful Development.” The paper consistently claims that China’s “wealthy country and strong military” policy does not threaten the international community, but rather plays a positive role of helping world peace and prosperity. But China has many weak spots. Its domestic capital, needed to guarantee autonomous power as a superpower, is fragile. It’s refusal to recognize freedom of the press and its continued human rights issues are a major stumbling blocks that need to be resolved for the country to be recognized in the international community as a truly development nation. The key is how the Communist Party of China handles the demands for democratization that will arise due to economic development. Conflicts between cities and rural communities, the gap between rich and poor, and policy misalignment between the central government and regional authorities could constrain China’s smooth development. There are still many issues China must resolve if, as it claims, it’s to attain the position of a Great Power ready to help the world.

MARMOT’S NOTES

Generally, I don’t fear the Dragon. Do I trust Chinese intentions? Well, I trust them to look out for Chinese interests, which probably clash with U.S. interests in certain areas (Central Asia, for starters). I also trust Beijing to pursue policies that seek to maximize its regional and global clout. All of this is quite natural, and in the long run probably beneficial for everyone involved, especially if—as I suspect—China’s economic development encourages growing social complexity that in turn encourages political development toward greater democratization and openness.

Furthermore, you’ll forgive me my skepticism about all the “China as No. 1 (or No. 2)” talk. Similar scaremongering about Germany and Japan was a veritable cottage industry in the United States during the 1980s. All I have to say is I’ll believe the hype when I see the results.

In fact, as I’ve said many times before here, if anything scares me about China, it’s that I don’t entirely trust the health of its economy. There’s no doubt that China’s been growing at an impressive clip (albeit from a relatively low base), but questions still abound, at least for me. How solid is that development? How much longer can China maintain rapid growth? How trustworthy are Chinese statistics, and at any rate, upon whose numbers are Chinese policymakers basing their decisions? Could something even remotely close to what happened in other East Asian states in 1997 happen in China? My biggest concern is that at a time when the CCP has all but discarded its Marxist underpinnings and justifies its continued monopoly on power through economic development and nationalism, if said party were to become unable to deliver the economic goods, it would leave it only the latter card to play. And that would be good for absolutely nobody.

Now, as for China’s growing influence abroad, obviously, there are areas where U.S. policymakers should be concerned, but frankly, if China wants to waste its money in places like North Korea, Myanmar, Pakistan, Central Asian despots, Zimbabwe and Venezuela, hey, be my guest. Look at all the goodwill U.S. support for Third World kleptocrats during the Cold War ultimately engendered. Or, for that matter, look at all the tangible returns on investment Soviet support for its allies brought Moscow. And besides, if buying off developing countries (and gaining access to their resources) is the game, I’d say the United States is in a pretty good position to compete with China as long as it was prepared to waste millions in taxpayer money keeping ultimately unsustainable regimes afloat for short-term geopolitical gain. Granted, some developing countries might feel more comfortable taking Chinese money simply to say no to the American “empire,” but Chinese money seems to be accompanied by Chinese companies investing in local resource extraction, something in African Studies we used to call “neo-imperialism,” so let’s see how long that lasts before it starts pissing off the locals. From the U.S. experience, I’d say not very long. Who knows, rather than competing, maybe China and the United States will end up commiserating.