China Walks the Middle Path Around Obama

American President Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao

by Collin A. Spears

In the aftermath of Barack Obama’s first presidential trip to Asia, many of his more ardent critics and fervent supporters are left to ponder the same question – what did he accomplish?  This is especially the case in regard to his much anticipated visit to China.  Maybe it is more appropriate to ask why Obama’s foreign policy objectives were met with a lukewarm response from Beijing.  Further, were there any other possible outcomes considering the divergent interests of America and China?  So, what were the issues that Obama felt were most important to address on his tour?

Southeast Asia

One of Obama’s stops was at the APEC Summit in Singapore; the main purpose was which was to shore up relations with the Association of Southeast Asia (ASEAN) member states.  After a decade of neglect by the Bush Administration, China’s power in the region has grown immensely to the point where it has gained control of large sectors of the Laotian, Cambodian, and Myanmar economies.  It has also made significant political and economic gains with traditional U.S. allies, such as the Philippines and Thailand.  On the other hand, it has also engendered some level of fear and suspicion with many in the region, especially Philippines, Vietnam, and Malaysia.   This fear is not just due to China’s growing economic might, but also its military strength and territorial claims in the South China Sea.

Book Review: Fighting in the Shadow of the Dragon

Dragon Fighter

The People’s Republic of China has 56 recognized ethnicities; still, the Han majority makes up 92 percent of the population.  Most of the remaining 55 groups are relatively unknown to the West.  Some are even little known in China, as they are small and live on the margins of China-proper.  Groups such as the ethnic Koreans and Manchu are highly integrated into the Chinese mainstream; however, the best known internationally, the Tibetans, are recognized mainly due to their protracted struggle for greater autonomy from the oppressive Han dominated national government.

In fact, the level of international awareness Tibetans receive is astonishing, considering Tibetans make up less than half of one percent of China’s population.  This makes them only the ninth largest minority group.  The “Tibetan Issue” is well known due to a superior global marketing campaign, which includes the venerable Dalai Lama and a host of celebrity Western activists.  However, the 10 million Uighurs (also Uyghur) in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region are more numerous, have struggled just as long against the Han Chinese, and their homeland is larger.  Still, they have never enjoyed the same international regard.  Perhaps, Turkic Muslims are not as appealing to the hearts and minds of the West as bald monks in flowing robes.  Cultural biases aside, the Uighurs have failed at marketing, largely because they have no central leadership, no figurehead – until now.

Guantanamo and the Uighurs: The Story of China’s Other Minority – Part II

by Collin Spears – Visiting Fellow, Center for New Politics and Policy

The first installment of this two part series explored the situation of Uighur detainees in Guantanamo Bay and China’s response to the U.S. decision to release the Uighurs to third-countries as political refugees.  This installment will look at the current situation in Xinjiang.  Then, the history of the Han Chinese – Uighur relationship will be surveyed to deduce what motivated the Guantanamo Uighurs to journey to Afghanistan and Pakistan as political and economic refugees, some of whom trained in the hope of returning to Xinjiang to commit terrorist acts against the Chinese government.  Further, the implications to U.S. foreign policy, as it relate to the situation in Xinjiang, will be examined.

Guantanamo and the Uighurs: The Story of China’s Other Minority – Part I.

by Collin Spears – Visiting Fellow, Center for New Politics and Policy

Officially, the People’s Republic of China has 55 distinct ethnic minority groups, which total to about 100 million in number or 8.5 percent of the country’s population.  Most of these minorities live on the margins of China-proper, and do not have greater issues with the national government than the Han majority who live in similar situations.  Some groups, such as the ethnic Koreans (Chaoxian) and Manchu (Mǎnzú), are highly integrated into the Chinese mainstream.  However, the best known Chinese minority internationally, especially in the West, are the Tibetans (XīZàng).  They are widely understood to be an oppressed culturally distinct minority who wants independent or, at the very least, greater autonomy from Beijing.

This level of international awareness is astonishing; considering, the Tibet Autonomous Region (Xīzàng Zìzhìqū) is roughly 12% of China’s total land area, but Tibetans make up less than half of one percent of China’s population.  This makes them only the ninth largest minority group.  The Tibetan Issue is well known, primarily due to a superior global marketing campaign, which includes the venerable Dalai Lama and a host of celebrity Western activists, such as Richard Gere and Sting.  However, the Uighurs (also Uyghurs, Wéiwú’ěr) are a more numerous minority who have struggled just as long against the Han Chinese, whose homeland also makes up a larger territory, have never enjoyed the same international regard.  Perhaps, Turkic Muslims are not as appealing to the hearts and minds of the West as monks in flowing robes, despite the latter’s harsh feudalistic history.  Besides cultural bias, the Uighurs have likely failed at marketing, because unlike the Tibetans, they have no central leadership that is universally recognized by all the disparate factions.

Calling North Korea’s Bluff Will Force China to Crackdown

by Collin Spears – Visiting Fellow, Center for New Politics and Policy

If the United States and its allies want to denuclearize the Korean peninsula, and not just temporarily allay tensions, they must call Kim Jong-Il’s bluff by escalating the situation.  As North Korea’s primary benefactor, China is the only nation that can force the North to dismantle its nuclear arsenal and return to 6-Party Talks.  However, China will not exert such pressure, until the threat of instability on its border forces it to recalculate the utility of supporting the Kim regime. When the liability of North Korea becomes a greater threat to China’s internal security than the potential presence of American troops at its border, China will cooperate with the American alliance.  Contrary to common media depiction, Kim is a rational actor.  In fact, when scrutinizing North Korea’s conduct with the supposition that every action it has taken is for the preservation of Kim’s personal power, it is apparent that even the most provocative actions have been deliberate.  America must use a realist approach to exploit these aims, if it wants to end the last great impasses of the Cold War.

China + ASEAN + FTA = East Asian Unification? Not Quite (Part II)

by Collin Spears – Visiting Fellow, Center for New Politics and Policy

As discussed in Part I of this series, the ASEAN-China Free Trade Agreement (ACFTA) will be a win-win for the signatories. The agreement will produce greater economies of scales, as it expands trade between members, which will result in an aggregate increase in competitive export products from China and ASEAN. However, it will not foreshadow European-style regional integration, at least not in the near future. The centrifugal force generated by the agreement will not only draw ASEAN closer to China, the regions manufacturing hub, but it will push those states outside the bloc to liberalize their own trade in order to stay competitive. While the United States is generally supportive of ASEAN, it is not in the strategic interest of the U.S. for it to be outside of an Asian economic bloc, especially one that will aid in cementing a strong Chinese leadership position in Southeast Asia. Implementation of this agreement has increased concerns among some analysts that the economic and perhaps, the political center of gravity of the region are shifting away from the United States and toward China.

SINO + ASEAN = East Asian Unification? Not Quite (Part I)

by Collin Spears — Visiting Fellow, Center for New Politics and Policy –

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), founded 42 years ago, was created to provide a framework to advance regional stability in Southeast Asia at a time when the withdrawal of colonial powers had created a vacuum. This placed the newly independent states of the region in danger of succumbing to ethnic strife and communist insurgencies. Since the conclusion of the Cold War, ASEAN has embarked on a series of free trade initiatives, linking it to some of the Asian-Pacific regions most dynamic economies.

Over the last decade, ASEAN has negotiated free trade agreements (FTA) at breakneck speeds, signing deals with Japan, Australia, and New Zealand. It is also in the process of negotiating FTAs with India, South Korea, and China. The deal with China has garnered much attention, because it will create the third largest common market by trade volume, with a population of 1.8 billion and a US$2 trillion Gross Domestic Product (GDP). This will not only be the world’s largest FTA, but it will also possess a growth potential that is unparalleled.

Leering Bear, Rising Dragon: Life Along the Sino-Russian Border

by Collin Spears, BFPR Chief Foreign Policy Correspondent Washington, D.C.

Background

The Chinese government declared 2006, The “Year of Russia”; and in turn, Russia celebrated 2007 as “The Year of China.” These mutual pronouncements were part of a decade long rapprochement between the two states. After many years of mutual acrimony and suspicion the barriers that divide the two nations have abated, replaced by a bridge of pragmatism. This new relationship, based on mutual resentment of global Western dominance and a shared interest in Central Asian security; has an unintended consequence: both nations are seeing increased economic interaction on their border. Conversely, this contact has fed lingering paranoia and insecurity in Russia, a former great power that is seeing itself eclipsed economically and politically by China, a state it once considered a “little brother.” Less then a decade ago, this was reflected in an ominous warning given by Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, ”If we don’t make concrete efforts…the future local population will speak Japanese, Chinese or Korean” (Wines 2001). Currently, the Russian political elite are not publicly expressing fear of territorial encroachment and potential colonization, but these attitudes are increasing in the general population. This xenophobic sentiment is an outgrowth of reawakened Russian nationalism, which has served as a swathe for the disillusionment that came from loss of empire. However, to have a truly constructive engagement with China, Russia must move beyond its historic tendency to loath any nation along its periphery it cannot dominate.

Eastward Russian expansion at the expense of China began hundreds of years of suspicion and animosity between the two nations. In August of 1689, Imperial Russia and the Chinese Qing Dynasty signed their first treaty over land disputes in the modern Russian Far East, which was formerly part of China. Almost three-hundred years later, under the new political incarnations of the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China, conflict along the 4,300km (2,700 mile) border renewed due to ideological clashes between the two communist states. At the height of tensions, the Soviet Union had as many as 700,000 troops on the border, adjacent to a million Chinese soldiers (Blagov 2005). A few years before, during the reign of Joseph Stalin, the Soviets repatriated many Chinese still living in the border area or deported them to Central Asia Republics. Chinese leaders, including Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping, openly bemoaned the amount of territory China had lost to Russia historically; land the Chinese believe was unfairly stolen. Nonetheless, in 1989 the Soviet Union and China normalized relations and reduced the militarization on the border by 1991.

The Chinese – African Relationship: Can Sub-Saharan Africans Think

by Collin Spears, BFPR Chief Foreign Policy Correspondent Washington, D.C.

In 2001, Former Singaporean Ambassador to the United Nations, Kishore Mahbubani asked a simple question, which was also the title of his book, “Can Asians Think?” Mr. Mahbubani sought to challenge, what he perceived as, Western paternalism. He believes that Asians do not need indefinite guidance by the Western world, because Asians are capable of independent thought, and just because these thoughts may differ from the West does not mean they are the result of defective thinking. A befitting question for the coming decade is, “Can Sub-Saharan Africans think?” For many Westerners it would seem the answer is, “No”, at least as far as Africa’s relationship with China.

In 2005, the Western media began to express “concern” with the increasing Chinese presence in Sub-Sahara Africa (Africa). During this period, many foreign policy observers began to promote the idea that China is plotting to take over Africa in some neo-colonialist attempt to gain unlimited access to natural resources. For example, Karin Kortmann, a German parliamentary state secretary stated in November of 2006, “our African partners really have to watch out that they will not be facing a new process of colonization” (Cheng 2007). The same year, Lord Chancellor of Great Britain, Jack Straw, made similar allegations “Most of what China has been doing in Africa today is what we did in Africa 150 years ago” (Stevenson 2006). This Sinophobic boilerplate is hyperbole, but the narrative suggests that the average African is impotent and their leaders are all iniquitous or ineffectual.

Taiwan: Identity Politics and Economic Free Fall in the Other China

by Collin Spears, BFPR Chief Foreign Policy Correspondent

The Other China, The Republic of China (Taiwan) does not have the myriad ethnic diversity of the People’s Republic of China (China). The latter has 56 ethnicities, minorities making up 8% of its 1.3 billion citizens. Taiwan has 23 million people, ethnic Han Chinese making up 98% of the population. The remaining 2% is composed of various aboriginal tribes. Unlike China, Taiwan is a young democracy and its politics have historically been affected by group affiliation, but these ethnic factions are all within the Han majority. Taiwan’s identity politics has and will continue to affect, not only its internal politics during the current economic crisis, but also Cross-Straits relations.

The Taiwanese Han population is divided into Mainlanders (waisheng ren) and “Native Taiwanese” (bensheng ren). The Mainlanders are primarily Chinese National Party (Guomindong, KMT) loyalists who retreated from China with the military at the conclusion of the Chinese Civil War in 1949. This group, from various provinces, used Mandarin as a lingua franca. Although, currently 13% of the population, they have historically held disproportionate political power until the early 1990’s. The Native Taiwanese can be further divided into Fujianese (Fujian ren), the vast majority of Taiwan’s population, and Hakka (Kejia ren). Although linguistically distinct groups, both have resided on the island for at least 4 centuries; combined they are roughly 85% of Taiwan’s population. The Natives were culturally and politically oppressed by the military dictatorship that ruled Taiwan during a period of marshal law known as the “White Terror”, which lasted from 1949 to 1987. During this period, for many Natives, the Mainlanders were seen as oppressors and the KMT was viewed as their instrument. The reality is more complicated, as neither group has been completely endogenous.