Chinese military officials have made very public "frank" statements
regarding U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel's visit to China. Vice
Chairman of the Chinese Military Commission Fan Changlong said in an
April 8 press conference with Hagel that he had carefully listened to
the secretary's comments abroad and that he was "dissatisfied" with
Hagel's remarks regarding Beijing's activities in East Asia. Chinese
Defense Minister Chang Wanquan emphasized China's sovereignty over disputed islands in the East and South China seas,
saying that China would not give up its claims or tolerate any
infringement on its territory. The message to Hagel was intended to
reflect China's confidence in its abilities and to reiterate that the
relative balance of military power in the region is changing. In other
words, the United States should stop trying to prevent China's emergence
as a regional power and adjust its posture and policies to the changing
reality of the region.
There is indeed a change underway in the relative balance of power in
East Asia. China's naval and air forces may not be able to truly rival
their U.S. counterparts, but in the East and South China seas their
capabilities are expanding, and this necessarily has begun to erode the
existing power structure. During his visits throughout the region prior
to his stop in China, Hagel highlighted Chinese actions as potentially
destabilizing and suggested that China's aggressive attempts to alter
the status quo are undermining stability and security in East Asia.
In
his speech to China's National Defense University, Hagel cautioned, "As
the [People's Liberation Army] modernizes its capabilities and expands
its presence in Asia and beyond, American and Chinese forces will be
drawn into proximity, increasing the risk of an incident, accident or
miscalculation." This is the risk that comes with a change in the status
quo. Changes in the number of ships and aircraft, as well as the
frequency of their missions and the scope of their activities, will
necessarily bring them into contact more frequently with the ships and
planes of surrounding nations and of the United States.Both the Chinese and Hagel presented a preferred solution to avoid
the risk of confrontation: greater engagement and cooperation.
The
United States has already invited China to attend the biennial RIMPAC
regional maritime exercises, and the Chinese gave Hagel a tour of the
Liaoning aircraft carrier. That the Chinese felt confident enough to
hold a dialogue with Hagel that they termed "frank" (a diplomatic term
for dropping the niceties and getting down to the more serious issues)
suggests that Beijing may be more serious than it has been in the past
about more regularly engaging with the U.S. military.
Previous attempts to create more frequent exchanges -- particularly
at the lower levels, where meetings are in many ways more important than
those at the highest level -- have often been undermined by Beijing
which, believing it important to make a political statement, would cut
off ties whenever the United States took actions China considered to be
hostile, such as selling military equipment to Taiwan.
Beijing is well aware that the United States will continue such sales,
and Washington is always cautious about just how much it chooses to sell
to Taiwan, so China's actions have done little to deter the United
States and have only served to weaken the two sides' abilities to reach a
common understanding of one another.
This understanding is important for both sides if they are to avoid
accidental conflict. As Hagel noted, the risk of an accident is growing
as the regional status quo is irrevocably altered. Without at least a
common understanding of the rules of engagement, standard procedures and
the ways the two militaries view their roles and one another, accidents
could have deadly consequences. In 2001, the United States and China
were locked in a tense standoff after a U.S. electronic intelligence
aircraft and a Chinese interceptor collided. More than a dozen years
later, the two sides still have not reached a common understanding on
just how close they may fly to one another, how close their ships and
submarines may shadow one another or how they perceive and react to a
deviation from the norms. These are the sorts of issues that are more
often resolved at lower levels of engagement.
The United States and the Soviet Union took years to come to these
understandings, but when they were reached they enabled Washington and
Moscow, even at the height of the Cold War, to prevent accidents from
escalating and in many cases avoided them entirely. Washington and
Beijing continue to emphasize that their relationship is not at all
comparable to that of the United States and the Soviet Union,
highlighting in particular the strong economic relationship between the
United States and China. Focusing on the differences between
U.S.-Chinese and U.S.-Soviet relations has perhaps left too much of the
military question out of the core of dialogue and in the hands of
pundits on either side.
The military status quo is shifting in Asia. China's regional
presence today is far different than it was two or three decades ago. By
default this means that there has been at least a relative decline in
Washington's power in the region. But the United States is not the only
other country active in Asia. Changes in the military capacity of Japan, a U.S. ally, also alter the relative balance of American power,
as do similar shifts in Indonesia, Vietnam and South Korea. That
adjustments will occur is not debatable. What is debatable is how
Washington and Beijing will adjust to these changes, and whether they
can move from a position of being largely informed by perception to one
informed by greater interaction, if not direct cooperation. Both sides
raised this possibility and desire on Hagel's most recent visit, but
they also remain cognizant of the differences in their views on
territoriality and "responsible" behavior -- differences that, at least
for now, remain unbridgeable
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