Asia finds voice in test of wills with China
Illustration: John Shakespeare
It was a test of wills. The government in Beijing wanted to discourage the leaders of 17 other countries from discussing a sensitive matter of Chinese territorial claims at their meeting at the weekend.
''We hope the South China Sea will not be discussed at the East Asia Summit,'' China's Vice-Foreign Minister, Liu Zhenmin, told an international media briefing last Tuesday. China even dangled $US10 billion in new loans to achieve the right atmospherics for the meeting. It announced the loans, for a core caucus of countries, the 10 members of the Association of South-East Asian Nations, on Friday.
Why was the great rising power of Asia so shy? Because on this subject, where China's claims clash with those of half a dozen other Asian countries, Beijing doesn't want to face its aggrieved neighbours in a bloc.
The Middle Kingdom wants to deal with the nations on its periphery one by one. This maximises China's bargaining power as it confronts its smaller neighbours.
And there was a time, only a year or two ago, when this attempt might have worked. But not this time. In a session of the 18 leaders at the East Asia Summit in Bali on Saturday, Singapore's Prime Minister, Lee Hsien Loong, was the first to break the taboo, according to a US briefing on the subject.
By the end of the two-hour session, leaders of six other nations had joined in raising the topic of the South China Sea - Australia, India and four ASEAN nations in addition to Singapore. The other four were the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and Thailand.
The US President, Barack Obama, also came into the discussion but only after other leaders had spoken on the matter and only to reinforce their concerns, US officials said, in calling for a regional solution rather than China's preferred one-by-one approach.
Obama, according to officials, said that ''while we are not a claimant in the South China Sea dispute and while we do not take sides, we have a powerful stake in maritime security in general and in the resolution of the South China Sea issue specifically, as a resident Pacific power, as a maritime nation, as a trading nation and as a guarantor of security in the Asia-Pacific region''.
Beijing hates US involvement in its territorial disputes - it refers darkly to the US as ''external forces'' whenever this comes up.
After Obama had spoken, China's Premier, Wen Jiabao, judged that he could not longer avoid the issue. The official Chinese news agency, Xinhua, quoted Wen as saying: ''I don't want to discuss this issue at the summit. However, leaders of some countries mentioned China on the issue. It's impolite not to make a return for what one receives. So, I am willing to reiterate China's stance.''
He said ''China goes to great pains to ensure that the shipping lanes are safe and free'', according to a US briefing. The leaders of another seven countries - Indonesia, Russia, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea, Laos and Brunei - went on to talk about maritime security in the region more generally.
By the end of the meeting, only two of the 18 leaders in the room had not broached the issue in one form or another. They were Burma and Cambodia. China's bluff had been called.
Wen's comments suggested no change in China's position but there were hints of some flexibility. He reiterated that China wanted to solve the outstanding disputes with claimant countries but notably did not use the customary keyword ''bilaterally''.
China has claims to areas of the South China Sea, and its highly prospective seabed, that overlap with those of the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and Brunei. Outside ASEAN, it has competing territorial claims with Japan.
An expert at China's Renmin University, Shi Yinhong, concluded that ''President Obama has certainly won the battle to push forward US objectives by hauling the maritime disputes into the agenda'', the South China Morning Post reported.
Obama wasn't the first to broach the topic. But he was the one who emboldened all the others.
His speech to the Australian Parliament last week declaring that the US was in the Asia-Pacific region ''all in'' and ''here to stay'' was backed up by the announcement of a new US Marine deployment to northern Australia.
And as he spoke in Canberra, his Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, had given a similarly emphatic speech from the deck of a US warship in Manila Bay reaffirming US commitments to the security of the Philippines. Perversely, it was China that created the opportunity for the forceful US declaration of its ''pivot'' to the Asia-Pacific region ''with every element of US power'', as Obama put it.
China's assertive behaviour in the region in the past two years ''was an opportunistic response to the US economic failure after 2008'', says Alan Dupont of the University of Sydney. ''It made countries anxious that maybe China's rise wasn't going to be peaceful after all.''
By laying claim to a huge area of international waters as a ''core national interest'' and engaging in skirmishes with naval vessels of the US, Japan, Vietnam and the Philippines, it had ''driven a lot of Asian countries into America's arms'', said the director of studies at the Lowy Institute, Andrew Shearer.
Singapore will host the first regional deployment of the US navy's new coastal combat vessel and Indonesia is looking to strengthen its defence ties with the US. And though Wen's response at the summit was mild, China's cause has been further set back by some of the aggressive responses that have turned up in the official media.
Major-General Peng Guangqian and a naval colonel, Li Jie, said China might have to practise armed self-restraint for another decade while it continued to build up its military might. But after 10 years, it would make pre-emptive strikes on its challengers.
Their remarks were later pulled from Chinese news sites. But exactly this sort of remark makes the region increasingly wary and the US increasingly welcome.
The US has helped Asia find its voice to speak up against China.
Peter Hartcher is the Sydney Morning Herald's international editor.
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