China's overreach is discomforting

Aug. 10, 2011

A. Gaffar Peang-Meth
Written by
A. Gaffar Peang-Meth

China's rising power is a fact, but the "Chinese Century" is still a matter open for debate. An examination of Chinese courses of action should tell us of China's foreign policy goals and national interests as defined by her leaders.

Interestingly, whereas American Thomas Jefferson's self-evident truths -- that "all men are created equal ... with certain unalienable rights" -- are ideals envied by the world's peoples, many of whom hope to see them emulated in their own nations, the billions of U.S. dollars spent and the thousands of U.S. soldiers lost have not made Americans popular in Afghanistan or Iraq.

However, Chinese businessmen and engineers are doing well in business there, and Chinese oil companies have acquired bigger stakes in the oil industry in those countries than have U.S. companies.

Headlines about China's rising influence and quiet power grab, and of Asian countries facing an increasingly intimidating China are numerous: China's navy is second only to the U.S.; China in dispute with neighboring Southeast Asian nations over the Spratlys; China seeking domination over the South China Sea.

Covering some 3.5 million square kilometers, the South China Sea is considered by China as her "core interest" -- other nations see it as an international waterway. About a third of commercial maritime traffic passes through it. China's control over the waterway will, at a minimum, have leverage which, if exercised, could disrupt the flow of goods around the world.

China believes that over 200 billion barrels of oil lie beneath the China Sea floor, providing the largest oil reserves outside the Middle East. Consequently, the current status quo under which Taiwan, China, Brunei, Vietnam, the Philippines and Malaysia each occupy some territory in the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea, becomes a source of contention for China.

The 1994 U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, or UNCLOS, considers a country's territorial waters -- a belt of coastal waters extending 12 nautical miles from the baseline or low-water mark -- as its sovereign territory. Innocent passage by foreign ships is allowed. Article 56 gives a coastal state sovereign rights in the 200-mile Exclusive Economic Zone for "exploring and exploiting, conserving and managing the natural resources" -- but not state ownership.

Since 1995, China's flag has flown above a Chinese-built structure on Philippine-claimed Panganiban (Mischief Reef), about 135 miles from the Philippine coast of Palawan, but some 800 miles away from China's southernmost Hainan Island. The disputed Spratly group is located about 650 nautical miles south of China and 300 miles east of Vietnam.

Last year, the Center for a New American Security senior fellow Robert D. Kaplan wrote, "While we're bogged down in Afghanistan, look what's happening in the South China Sea." He warned of China's ability to "redirect its naval energies" beyond the first island chain from Japan to Australia, to the second island chain (Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands) and to the Indian Ocean.

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Anne Applebaum wrote: "We still haven't realized that the scariest thing about China is not the size of its navy or the arrogance of its diplomats. The scariest thing is the power China has already accumulated without ever deploying its military or its diplomats at all."

Last month, the anti-secrecy organization Wikileaks released online 777 diplomatic cables from the U.S. Embassy in Phnom Penh about U.S concerns over China's rising influence in Cambodia. Cambodians' preoccupation with the Vietnamization of Cambodia has actually overshadowed the "Sinocization" of the country -- to the detriment of Cambodian democrats' struggle for freedom.

In April 2006, the U.S. Embassy was stirred by Premier Hun Sen's praise for the $600 million unconditional Chinese aid package during Chinese leader Wen Jiabao's visit. A U.S. cable described the aid as "a slap" in the face of other aid donors who demanded accountability, reform and transparency.

Time Magazine's Douglas Gallison described China's "new apogee" in relations with Cambodia as not just "Cambodia's 'Year of China'" but a "'Century of China.'" A Chinese pledge of $256 million in aid -- "the highest single-donor-country contribution to Cambodia ever," said U.S. Ambassador Carol Rodley -- accompanied an announcement of "$55 million in aid and $1 billion in pledged commercial investment" on the occasion of the 50th anniversary celebrations of Cambodia's diplomatic relations with China in 2008.

Though Chinese aid came as loans for infrastructure projects -- roads, bridges, hydropower dams -- invested in or built by Chinese companies, Gallison reported America's view that China provided Cambodia with a "blank check."

Gallison said that in 2009 it became clear that China's aid "without strings" cultivated a relationship that finds Cambodia has capitulated to "heavy pressure from Beijing" as the authorities "flagrantly violated international law by wresting 20 ethnic Uihgur asylum seekers out of the U.N.'s hands and bundling them off to China, where they faced execution for deadly riots in China's Xinjiang region."

"Within 48 hours," Gallison wrote, "China had pledged $1.2 billion in assistance to Phnom Penh as an apparent reward."

Perhaps Phnom Penh Post's Thomas Miller summed up U.S. anxiety over China's rising influence in Cambodia best: China's rising influence "would fuel corruption, inhibit progress on human rights and challenge the ability of other donors to sway the government on difficult issues."

China's overreach in the South China Sea is discomforting for the region's future. China's activities in Cambodia appear to impede Cambodian democrats' struggle against autocracy.

A. Gaffar Peang-Meth, Ph.D., is retired from the University of Guam. Write him at peangmeth@yahoo.com.