The simmering difficulties in the
US
strategic relationship with the People’s Republic of
China
(PRC) were, by the beginning of 2010, ready to emerge despite the attempts of
the US Administration of Pres. Barack Obama to show a pattern of deference to
Beijing.
But the internal US economic policies, leading to the de facto devaluation of the US dollar, seemed, if anything, a deliberate move to devalue the worth of the PRC's massive investments in US dollar instruments.
All that was needed to cause
Beijing
to vent its frustrations with the
US
— quite apart from major differences over the demand for
Beijing
to make economic and social investments in redressing alleged “climate change”
— were additional seeming insults to the PRC’s sovereignty and pride. US allegations
that the PRC Government was censoring the Google online search engine in China
— which evidence indicates was the case — highlighted the sensitivity of
Beijing which collectively recognizes (a) the potential of the electronic media
to cause social unrest, and (b) the delicacy of the PRC to any social and
economic unrest occurring in the near future.
The most significant pretext, however, was the US decision
to move ahead with its $6.4-billion defence equipment sales package to the
Republic of China (ROC: Taiwan), which was announced by the US Defence
Department on January 29, 2010. Given historical precedent, Beijing had no
option but to react negatively to the sale, and hoped its early threats of
damage to US-PRC relations would sway the now left-leaning US Congress to
refuse sanction for the sale, an unlikely occurrence, but one which had a
30-day window of opportunity, the time during which Congress can veto an
Administration foreign military sale after it has been proposed.
Perhaps most importantly, however, the incident gave Beijing
the long-awaited opportunity to break completely with the US-led packages of
measures on trade, economic approaches, and “climate change” accords, which
were perceived as being highly detrimental to the PRC’s need to control its
domestic agenda and the foreign resources acquisitions needed to support it.
Thus, competition between the PRC and the West in Africa, the Middle East, and
Central Asia (not to mention
East Asia) will
intensify with less regard for niceties.
This will, Defense
& Foreign Affairs analysts believe, lead to the more rapid coalescing
of new strategic blocs, some of which will be expedient and temporary,
including the Russo-Chinese alliance using the Shanghai Cooperation
Organization (SCO) as a basis. Within this framework, the PRC will pursue its
fundamental and long-term alliance relationships with
Pakistan
and
Myanmar, and in both these
countries the development of communications infrastructure linking the PRC with
the
Indian Ocean can be expected to take
precedence. Indeed, the PRC will need to move quickly to ensure that it
continues to exert strong influence over the Myanmar Government after the
late-2010 elections which could see the military leadership out of the national
leadership.
The PRC will attempt to further demonstrate that its
strategic relationship with the Iranian Government is separate and equal to the
Russo-Iranian relationship, but more friendly to
Tehran
than
Moscow. But
there is no escaping
Beijing’s need to remain
close with
Moscow in order to access all of the
pipelines linking it through Central Asia to
Iran,
and then on through
Turkey to
Europe.
US media speculation that the PRC would support, or not
interfere with, a new US-led sanctions regime against Iran — over Iran’s
continued pursuit of an indigenous nuclear weapons program — are, according to Defense & Foreign Affairs analysts,
naïve. Firstly, the PRC is, with
Russia,
the major facilitator of trade access to and from
Iran
and neither will jeopardize its influence with
Tehran
and the benefits derived there from. That would be akin to suggesting that the
Great Game for control of Central Asia and Persia had not just been won by
Russia and its allies (in this case, the PRC).
This leads inevitably to the reality that Iran will — with
US sensibilities now less of an issue in Beijing or Moscow — be invited to
become a full member of the SCO, with the implied military protection of Iran
from external attack (“an attack on one is an attack on all”), either formally
or de facto.
Most significantly, the changing trends mean that the PRC
will no longer have to mask its growing interest in the Indian Ocean and its
intention to compete there with the US as well as India. The PRC in January
2010 made it clear that it needed what could be called “temporary home porting”
in Gwadar, the Pakistani port being developed by the PRC, of its PLA Navy
vessels in the Indian Ocean so that crews could get their necessary shore-time
and ships could be revictualed.
The ROC, meanwhile, has a brief respite to build relations
with
Washington,
now that the strenuously leftist Administration of Barack Obama has been
rebuffed by the state it felt was a natural ally, the PRC. But within this taut
web of competition and dependencies, the
US
and the PRC will remain careful not to push each other too far.
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