China's Neighbors React to Its Expanding Influence (Agenda)
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Editor’s Note: Transcripts are generated using speech-recognition technology. Therefore, Stratfor cannot guarantee their complete accuracy.
Video Transcript:
Colin Chapman: Australia, the world's sixth-largest country by landmass, with its economy dependent on exports to Asia for its high living standards, has just published a detailed national security strategy. Prime Minister Julia Gillard said that the post-9/11 era was over and that the priorities for one of America's closest allies would be dominated by the threat of great power conflict, the rise of China, and malicious cyber espionage and attack.
Welcome to Agenda. I'm Colin Chapman, and with me is Rodger Baker, Stratfor's Vice President of East and South Asia Analysis. Rodger, is that characterization right?
Rodger Baker: Well, I think that there's a lot of difference of opinion, certainly in the United States, over what the next major focus of the U.S. military will be or should be. In some sense, what we've seen from al Qaeda is that al Qaeda has shifted from a strategic threat to a more localized or tactical threat in different areas, so in that sense I think that that her read may be fairly accurate. When we look at state-to-state conflict, obviously I think what she's looking at and what many people in the United States are looking at is the question of whether or not there's going to be competition with China, or competition either between China and Japan or China and the United States. But certainly looking at China as the next big major state power.
Colin: The China-Japan dispute over islands in the East China Sea is the pressing issue. To what extent is there a war of words and some flag-waving, or is there a feeling that this could really turn into something nasty?
Rodger: Well both sides are playing it, in some sense, for domestic audiences. Both are trying to exploit the sense of tension for their own political intents at home. The Chinese are using this in some ways as a way to keep a unified focus of the population. The Japanese are using this as a way to help to justify the continued normalization of Japan, Japan moving away from its post-World War II structure to Japan becoming a more active player internationally using all of its tools of power.
But there is a reality as well to what we're seeing between Japan and China. The Chinese are changing their economic structure. The Chinese have become much more integrated into a global economic system that puts them dependent upon imports and exports. They have a strong security interest to be able to expand what they see not only as their sphere of influence but really the ability of their military to protect their supply lines.
The Japanese, as an island nation, are always concerned about a rising continental power in Asia. The Japanese see the expansion of the Chinese navy as potentially a direct challenge to Japanese interests, as well as really the expansion of Chinese economic interests that start to challenge Japan -- the Chinese are consuming a lot of raw materials and commodities and grabbing as many as they can, and Japan has a very minimal amount of these within its home islands and is very heavily dependent upon imports. So we do see what has been historically and what appears to be rising back up the traditional geopolitical struggle between China and between Japan.
Colin: If you look at each side in terms of power, Japan is currently more military muscle, but China can seriously damage Japan's trade.
Rodger: I think that both have the ability to hurt each other economically in a trade war. As we've already seen though, that since this spat kicked up that the Japanese trade with China has shrunk, Japanese investment in China has started to shrink. I think the Chinese feel that they can absorb that more than the Japanese can. But it's not clear that that has really started to fundamentally hurt Japan or put Japan in a position where Japan feels it must suddenly become conciliatory to the Chinese.
China certainly has a very large military, it's been expanding what its navy is capable of doing. The Japanese maritime power is in many ways stronger than what we see from China; it's more advanced, they've done a lot more training and a lot more development of their tactics and their strategy for their use than the Chinese have really had the opportunity to do.
On the other hand, China obviously has a much larger population. If this ever got to a land war, which I'm not certain that it's going to, then again Chinese population suddenly starts to play very strong role in dealing with a potential Japanese small population, small expanding military. So, right now what we're looking at is if we see conflict -- and there's no guarantee that we will -- right now that looks like that's primarily in the naval sphere, it's in trying to secure sea lanes, it's in trying to position themselves in regards to certain islands that they hope will ultimately give them a little bit of strategic security over their neighbor.
Colin: It seems the United States is nervous about getting involved in this dispute. Washington says it supports Japanese administration of the disputed islands, but that doesn't really go far enough for Prime Minister Abe's supporters, who begin to doubt U.S. commitment to their cause.
Rodger: The United States is somewhat cautious in how it deals with this. It does admit Japanese administration but it doesn't take an official stance on sovereignty. So to the United States there is a question of sovereignty, but they recognize Japanese administrative control and say that they will back Japan in regards to that administrative control and that because the islands are under administrative control they do fall under the defense agreements and security agreements with the United States.
In part, the United States doesn't want to stir a confrontation. If they take too strong stance on the Japanese side, the Chinese will raise it up as obvious international interference, but it also may make the Chinese feel like they have no choice but to take action. The Japanese may feel more secure in taking action and taking physical steps to build on the islands, which would further inflame the situation, so the United States takes a softer role.
In addition, there are other island disputes in the area that the United States wants to remain ambiguous on, in particular the question of Dokdo, which is under Korean administrative control and the Japanese claim it. And in that case you have two U.S. alliance partners who are both claiming the same islands, and the United States doesn't want to set a precedent necessarily with the question of the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands.
Colin: The Chinese, of course, see this as their area of influence and don't like the United States' so-called "pivot to Asia." In the coming months, can Washington and Beijing manage their differences?
Rodger: I think that there are certain ways to manage some of the competition, and in reality we haven't seen a huge amount of stress between the United States and the Chinese up to this point. But really as we talk about China -- again China is an emerging or an emerged regional power, it has an area that it considers to be in its strategic interest, that it needs to have a fairly strong amount of protection and security over -- the United States has both allies who feel threatened by what the Chinese are doing and a long-standing position that the United States needs to have free access around the world, to all of the world's oceans and seas, to be able to move its own fleets and forces wherever it feels it needs to and that the Chinese behavior and actions are starting to potentially impinge upon that U.S. access.
And so the Chinese have the raised the idea that, look, it's a new world, you need to trust us to be able to take care of this area and you take care of your areas and then we won't fight. But for the United States, that's a very difficult adjustment to make, and in many ways I think there's still some elements of U.S. Cold War structures, Cold War thinking and how the U.S. defines its security and strategic imperatives. We are seeing some shifts in the way in which the United States deals with smaller conflicts around the world, but the question in regards to China is it's probably not going to be one of those smaller conflicts.
Colin: Rodger, let's close where we began, with Julia Gillard's national security review. The Australians are worried about growing Chinese spending and influence in the South Pacific, and also Australia is setting up a cyber security center.
Rodger: When we look at Australia's relationship with China, it's very complex. On the one hand, China is a very important economic partner for Australia. On the other hand, as the emerging regional power that's trying to change the status quo in Asia in some ways, China is a potential threat to Australia. So when Australia looks at things like Chinese action in Fiji or in the other Melanesian states, it sees the potential for the Chinese, in a future conflict or confrontation, to be able to use those to cut off Australia from the United States or from Japan, from that strategic alliance. When we look at the question of cyber capability, China is seen as one of the leading countries in developing offensive cyber capabilities.
And so as Australia looks, there is the reality of the geopolitical situation with how China is changing its behavior and how China is acting, but there's also still that importance of China as an economic partner. And the Australians will constantly be trying to balance between those two key elements that in some ways are contradictory and really do complicate their foreign policy.
Colin: Rodger Baker, thank you. And that's Agenda for this week. Thanks for joining us, see you next time.
