Competition stokes nationalism on both sides of the ocean
He began as a president who put his first visit to China ahead of meeting the Dalai Lama, who delayed military sales to Taiwan, and who soft-pedalled on human rights. This week a sea change occurred in Barack’s Obama’s rhetoric on China. Each stopover on a nine-day tour through the Pacific ended with a fresh dig at China. In Honolulu, Mr Obama demanded that China “play by the rules” in international trade and “act like a grownup”. In Canberra, he said the US was “here to stay as a Pacific power”, a day after announcing he would send military aircraft and 2,500 marines to train at Darwin, in Australia’s Northern Territory. While each statement was tempered with caveats – he praised China’s role in reining in North Korea and preventing proliferation – the message was clear: don’t write us off after Iraq and Afghanistan; the US is pushing back as a Pacific power.
This is not so much a sea change as a South China Sea change. This is a maritime region, rich in energy and fisheries resources, which China claims as its own. In recent years Chinese vessels have locked horns with Japanese coastguards, and Vietnamese and Philippine trawlers. These are not casual encounters. China says it has a right to secure its sea lanes. Japanese analysts say the strategic aim of these probes, territorial disputes over uninhabited islands, and China’s decision to build up to four aircraft carrier battle groups, is to gain the power of interdiction up to the “second island chain” of the Pacific (which includes the US territory of Guam). These are busy waters. Half the world’s tonnage flows through these navigation lanes. They are also potential sources of major energy reserves.
Before Mr Obama’s salvo this week, China was considering resuming talks with Japan on a treaty which would see a joint gas drilling project in the East China Sea. The talks had stalled after Japanese coastguards arrested a Chinese trawler captain near the disputed Senkaku islands. China is hoping to stabilise relations with Japan ahead of a leadership change in next year’s Chinese Communist party congress but, like Mr Obama, they are vulnerable to hawks in the runup to an election year.
The US’s plans for a Trans-Pacific Partnership will do nothing to calm Chinese nerves. This is a free trade pact of 12 Pacific nations from which China is de facto excluded over the very issues – the value of its currency, protection of foreign property rights and subsidies to state-owned companies – which have become bones of bilateral contention. Hillary Clinton wrote this week that a thriving China and a thriving America were good for each other. It is harder to see how that will be achieved, as competition stokes nationalism on both sides of the ocean.
