By Nayan Chanda
Times of India
Times of India
US President Barack Obama shakes hands with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Rancho Mirage, California, on June 7, 2013 (AFP, Jewel Samad)
As China’s Xi Jinping and Barack Obama wrap up their first presidential summit in California, some ancient Greek wisdom is in the news. It is about a long war bet-ween Sparta and Athens that resulted in ruin for both some 2,500 years ago. In his History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides explained, “What made war inevitable was the growth of Athenian power and the fear which this caused in Sparta.” The striking parallel with American anxiety about a rising China has prompted commentators to call on the two leaders to avoid the “Thucydides trap” by engaging in dialogue.
What exactly transpired at the Obama-Xi meeting may not be known for some time, but the tensions between Beijing and Washington are already shaping diplomacy. Not unlike the Greek adversaries before the Peloponnesian war, the US and China are engaged in diplomatic manoeuvres to secure better footing in the event of a conflict. These manoeuvrings offer middle powers like India and South Korea some leverage, but also come at the risk of costly entanglement.
Despite its budget woes, the US says it is determined not to draw down its military presence in Asia, committing two-thirds of its naval and air power to the region. A new class of littoral combat ships has been deployed in Southeast Asia. South Korea`s new president Park Geun-hye was invited to Washington, followed closely by Burma’s general-turned-prime minister Thein Sein. Taking advantage of the North Korea-provoked crisis in March, the US demonstrated the long arm of its military’s reach by flying nuclear-capable stealth bombers non-stop from the American mainland to the Korean Peninsula and back. For the first time, it has invited Southeast Asian nations to an annual defence confabulation in Hawaii. The US is also leading an effort to build a Pacific trade alliance that excludes China.
With its economy projected to surpass America`s by the end of the decade and its defence capability rising steadily, China is a great power in a hurry. In the past several months China has moved beyond cartographical claims on South China Sea, launching a concerted attempt to establish its claims on islands and reefs. In a most audacious manoeuvre in a disputed shoal near the Philippines, China has, in the words of its own general, wrapped the area like a “cabbage” with warships, denying Filipino fishermen right to fish. It has similarly challenged Japanese administration over disputed islands that it calls Diaoyu. After years of protesting the presence of American surveillance ships within its 200-mile exclusive economic zone, China last week admitted that it has been “reciprocating” by sending vessels near US territories in the Pacific.
Against the backdrop of its muscle-flexing, which included testing Indian resolve in the mountains of Ladakh, China has mounted a diplomatic offensive to win if not the support then at least the neutrality of countries that might otherwise be inclined to side with the Americans. After promising improved ties with India, Chinese premier Li Keqiang has travelled to Europe to shower praise on those who have distanced themselves from the Dalai Lama and warn those who challenge China’s state-subsidised export drive. After Xi returns from the US, he will welcome with great pomp president Park Geun-hye. As tensions with Japan have grown, China has courted the US ally South Korea with an increasing ardour. Not only is South Korean trade with China greater than the total of its trade with Japan and the US, with Japanese investment in and trade with China declining, South Korea`s importance as supplier of speciality steel and other key components to China has grown. Recently China`s seemingly tough posture on North Korea has also won Seoul`s plaudits. On the other hand, Japan`s dispute with South Korea over a rocky outcrop called Dokdo and the bitter history of 2,00,000 or so South Korean women used in Japan`s wartime military brothels remain dark stains on ties between the two democracies. While Chinese wooing pleases South Korea, Park will be mindful not to weaken in any way Seoul`s bedrock military alliance with the US and its expanding economic ties.
India, the other major Asian nation receiving Chinese attention as it jousts with the US, too needs to take advantage of the favourable climate to resolve the border issue and improve trade balance while maintaining close strategic cooperation with the US and Japan. The “Thucydides trap” has wide applicability.
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