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ShareHONK KONG: In March, US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice went on a tour of duty to Australia and other countries in the Asia-Pacific region; in Sydney, she held security talks with Australian and Japanese leaders.
Before she left the US, Rice had emphasised that one of the critical issues confronting the region, which would come up in her talks in Sydney, was the rise of China.
Countries in the region, and particularly Australia and Japan, had an "obligation", she said, to ensure that China's rise would be a positive force, not a negative one.
In particular, Rice focussed on the "lack of transparency" in respect ofChina's military build-up, and said that the three countries should monitor it to ensure that it was in line with China's aspirations in the region.
But barely a day into her talks in Sydney, it became apparent that there was an element of dissonance between Australia and the US on their respective perspective on the rise of China.
Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer disassociated himself from some of Rice's hawkish pronouncements on China. Australia, he said, had its own China policy. "Our relationship has its own dynamics."
And media reports quoted him as saying that "a policy of containment of China would be a very big mistake."
Whatever had happened to cause Australia, which was once one of the US' staunchest allies, to break ranks?
Blame it on China's 'soft power'. In 2005, China displaced the US as Australia's second biggest trading partner. Australia has profited immensely from China's ravenous appetite for minerals,like uranium, grains.
And given that India too is keen to source uranium and other mineral reserves from Australia, the latter's economy is increasingly being driven by Asian countries. With the shift in economic interests, Australia's strategic interest too has acquired an Asian -- more particularly, Chinese -- sensibility.
Today, many more Australian business entities favour a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with China, which is under discussion, than with the US. More strikingly, Rice was distinctly given the impression that in the event of a Sino-Taiwanese military conflict, the US could not count on unquestioning Australian support for US policy that will to defend Taiwan against China. Nor is Australia the only country to have been won over by China's 'soft power'.
China is also gaining the support of countries that look to it as the only power with the potential clout -- economic and political -- to counterbalance the US, particularly in the wake of the latter's post-911 military actions.
French President Jacques Chirac's October 2004 visit to China and Vietnam is illustrative. During this visit, Chirac gave voice to his vision of a new multipolar world order in which Europe and China would be aligned; strikingly, the US had no place in his worldview.
Citing "reasons of international balance", he called for links between Europe and China, and perhaps even Russia. He also called upon China to play a more active role on the United Nations Security Council. Likewise, addressing Vietnamese students in Hanoi, he criticised the US for "trying to impose a generalised underculture on the world", and likened American culture to an "ecological disaster". Unsurprisingly, French firms bagged orders worth $4 billion on that trip.
As trade relations between Europe and China grow -- as they did by 25 per cent in 2003 and over 40 per cent in 2004 -- China is almost certain to win many more friends with its 'soft power'.
(To be continued...)
