US making presence felt in Beijing's backyard

So it was with considerable symbolism that president Obama arrived on Wednesday in Canberra, Australia’s capital, for a trip that will include an announcement that the United States plans to use Darwin as a new centre of operations in Asia as it seeks to reassert itself in the region and grapple with China’s rise.

The US is taking some first steps — bold in rhetoric, still mostly modest in practice — to prove to its Asian allies that it intends to remain a crucial military and economic power in the region as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan draw to a close. The new Australian base, coming after decades in which the Pentagon has been slowly but steadily reducing its troop presence in Asia, puts American planes and ships closer to trading corridors in the South China Sea, where some traditional American allies worry that China is trying to flex its military muscle.

Over the past year and a half, China has moved to assert territorial claims in the resource-rich but hotly contested waters near the Philippines and Vietnam. Many of the region’s smaller countries have asked Washington to re-engage in the region as a counterweight. “The US needs to show the Chinese that they still have the power to overwhelm them, that they still can prevail if something really wrong happens,” said Huang Jing, a foreign affairs analyst and visiting professor at the National University of Singapore. “It’s a hedging policy.”

For the US, the more muscular approach toward China has far-reaching implications, not just geopolitically but also economically. With Republicans at home calling for punitive measures against China for its currency and trade practices, Obama wants to appear strong in pressing Beijing. He made headway on an ambitious American plan to create a Pacific free trade zone, known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, that for now, would not include China.

For the Pentagon, which faces sweeping budget cuts in Congress, shifting its focus toward Asia provides a strong argument against cutting back its naval presence in the Pacific — something that defence secretary Leon E Panetta explicitly ruled out in a recent visit to the region. He and secretary of state Hillary Clinton have been prime proponents of the emphasis on Asia, with Mrs Clinton shoring up old alliances, like those with Japan and South Korea, and cultivating new partners, like India and Indonesia.

Inside the White House, that emphasis has been reinforced by the president’s national security adviser, Thomas E Donilon, who has argued that the US needs to ‘rebalance’ its strategic emphasis, from the combat theatres in Iraq and Afghanistan toward Asia, where he contends that Washington has put too few resources in recent years, because of its preoccupation with the two wars.

Large military power

China has become the largest trading partner with most of the countries in the region, undercutting American economic influence. It also is projecting military power more broadly than at any other time in modern history. Its true military budget is not made public, but experts say it has at least tripled over the past decade, allowing China to strengthen a relatively weak maritime presence by building more modern ships that can operate with greater range and arming its first aircraft carrier. It has shown off what appears to be new stealth aircraft and has bought advanced weapons from Russia.
US military spending remains many times larger than analysts’ projections of China’s real military budget, but much of that has been sucked into the Afghan and Iraq conflicts.

Further, the Obama administration has committed to cutting $400 billion over 10 years, and budget battles may result in further cuts.

The American situation widens the opening for a more assertive China. Earlier last year, Chinese officials warned administration officials visiting Beijing that China would not tolerate any interference in the region. This year, Chinese ships or planes began taking more forceful action. Officials in the Philippines say Chinese forces entered Philippine waters or airspace six times, including once when a Chinese frigate fired in the direction of a Philippine fishing boat. Vietnam has reported that Chinese ships cut the cables of two exploration ships carrying out seismic surveys.

The United States began pushing back last year. A quadrennial Pentagon review
identified several countries in the region as strategic partners. The United States also began to restore bilateral ties with Myanmar (formerly Burma) and to promote ties with Indonesia.

Most dramatically, at a regional meeting in Hanoi in the summer of 2010, Clinton emphatically argued that the United States had a vital interest in maintaining open and peaceful sea lanes in the South China Sea.

She called for all disputes to be settled in international forums. China’s foreign minister stormed out. Administration officials have hewed to Clinton’s line. “The South China Sea is a very important maritime common for the entire region” but also for the US, Adm Robert F Willard, commander of the United States Pacific Command, told reporters traveling with Obama. The navigation lanes account for $5.3 trillion in bilateral annual trade, of which $1.2 trillion is American, he said.

Obama administration officials say its stronger role is not just because of American interests. Benjamin Rhodes, deputy national security adviser for strategic communications, said Obama was focusing on “responding to both the extraordinary interest we have in the region, but also a demand, an interest from the nations of the region for the United States to play a role.” As a sign of this,  Obama will join the leaders of 16 other nations for the sixth East Asia Summit meeting in Bali this week, the first time an American president has participated in the forum.

 The more robust American position is proving difficult for many in China to accept. Global Times, a subsidiary of the Communist Party’s flagship newspaper, People’s Daily, wrote Tuesday that the United States was trying to ‘form a gang’ against China’s territorial claims on the South China Sea. Many Chinese have grown angry over the American moves in the region, which are frequently reported and heavily criticised in the state-controlled press.

“The United States is trying to use the small nations as marionettes,” said Ge Fen, a Hangzhou-based television producer. “It’s trying to hide behind them to encircle China.” But many more sober voices are also present.

“If the Chinese government is clever, it would do well to think about the reason why the US is suddenly so popular in the region,” said Shi Yinhong, director of the Centre on American Studies at the Renmin University in Beijing. “Is it because China has not been good enough when it comes to diplomacy with its neighbouring countries?”

There are some signs that China may be adjusting its policies to answer such criticism. Over the past few months, it has shown a renewed willingness to strike more cooperative deals with its neighbours. “We’re back in a cautiously optimistic position,” Professor Thayer said.