Washington’s diplomatic campaign in Asia in the recent weeks has amounted, in the words of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, to “a full court press” against China.
President Obama’s visits to India, Indonesia, South Korea and Japan, and Clinton’s trips to Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, New Zealand and Australia, have sought to either strengthen existing alliances or create new partnerships for a US-led strategic encirclement of China.
While in Delhi, on the first leg of his Asian sojourn, Obama fervently courted India, urging it to become a “world power” and supporting its bid to join the ranks of P5 at the UN Security Council. Clinton twice reiterated that Washington could invoke the US-Japan Security Treaty to militarily support Japan against China in the conflict over the Diaoyu/Senkaku islands in the East China Sea. Vietnam announced it was ready to hire out its strategic Cam Ranh Bay port in the South China Sea “to naval ships from all countries”—with Washington the most likely client. Canberra agreed to provide greater US access to its military facilities, especially those in northern Australia.
The American offensive aims to prevent China from controlling the South China Sea, the Indian Ocean and key connecting waterways, such as the Strait of Malacca and the Sunda/Lombok straits of Indonesia. Since China depends on ships to transport one third of its oil consumption and 70 percent of its foreign trade, these sea lanes have become its “lifelines”. Some 60 percent of the ships passing through the Strait of Malacca every day are Chinese.
In an interview with an Australian newspaper on Monday, Clinton recalled that when Chinese officials first told Washington, earlier this year, that Beijing viewed the South China Sea as a core Chinese interest, “I immediately responded and said, ‘We don’t agree with that’.” And in July, at the ASEAN meeting, she added Washington would intervene into disputes over the Spratly and Paracel Islands in the South China Sea. China angrily responded by warning that “outsiders” should keep out of South China Sea affairs.
US Secretary of State has since stated that Washington has a “national interest” in “freedom of navigation” in the South China Sea. More than 40,000 ships pass through the sea each year. Commentators like John Chan, consider the Clinton Speak as provocative and as calls for the freedom of American surveillance vessels and warships to sail the waters near the Chinese coast.
They have a point but that in no way obscure the fact that by establishing or strengthening military ties with Vietnam, India, Australia and Indonesia, the US is seeking to counter China’s “string of pearls” strategy. The aim of Chinese strategy is to build port facilities in Burma, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka for the deployment of Chinese warships into the Indian Ocean in order to protect the shipping lanes that bring their oil and raw materials from the West Asia and Africa.
Herein is the importance of Indonesia, which was the second stop on Obama’s trip. According to Stratfor, Indonesia straddles the Strait of Malacca, a global shipping choke point, as well as the Sunda and Lombok straits, making it critical for sea-lanes between the Indian Ocean, the South China Sea and the Pacific, and Australia and China. These sea lanes supply China with critical raw materials; any power controlling this area accordingly has ‘enormous’ leverage over Beijing.
These considerations also apply to East Timor, Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands, which sit astride other vital sea lanes. There is concern in Washington that over the past decade, China has established economic and even military ties with Pacific island states, and the Obama administration is determined to reassert US “leadership” in the region.
Thus Hillary Clinton visited Papua New Guinea and discussed the Asia-Pacific region in her meetings with key officials in Australia and New Zealand.
Says Robert Kaplan, the Washington Post columnist ‘The geographical heart of America’s hard-power competition with China will be the South China Sea, through which passes a third of all commercial maritime traffic worldwide and half of the hydrocarbons destined for Japan, the Korean Peninsula and northeastern China. That sea grants Beijing access to the Indian Ocean via the Strait of Malacca, and thus to the entire arc of Islam, from East Africa to Southeast Asia.”
It goes without saying that Beijing will not like what is Washington is upto and will go the extra mile to cement its gains of the recent past. The result could be two-fold: one will be immediate gains to SEA nations which will be showered by Chinese largesse; two will be ushering in of a new cold war era though limited to Asia and South Asia and parts of Africa, where both the US and China are pittiedagainst each other not only for strategic interest but also for economic gains.
