Why Asian-Americans should vote for Mitt Romney

China’s danger to the U.S. economy is real by its aggression toward America’s friends like India, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines and Vietnam.

Chinese ship ‘cuts’ Vietnamese maritime survey ship’s cables

Obama’s pivot to Asia’s strategy is a farce since China has been using both the carrot (China’s checkbook diplomacy) to sow disunity in Association of Southeast Nations (ASEAN) by buying out Cambodia and Laos with generous financial aid packages.

China’s one-on-one talks with Indonesia and Malaysia have resulted in getting these two countries to soften their stand against China in voicing their opposition against China’s illegal occupation of an island in the Paracel archipelago, which belongs to Vietnam, a member of ASEAN.

At the same time, China courts Thailand and Singapore to stay neutral in South China Sea’s disputes between China and the Philippines and Vietnam.

A Chinese marine surveillance vessel, foregound, cruises side by side with a Japan Coast Guard ship within Japan’s territorial waters near the Senkaku Islands on Sept. 24. (The Asahi Shimbun)

China today spent USD$250,000 to run ads on two major U.S. newspapers in an attempt to portray itself as the victim of Japan in the East China Sea dispute, concerning couple ‘rocks’ named Sensaku islands which belong to the Japan.

While China has been getting aggressive these past few years in both East and South China Sea areas against American’s friends, all Obama has offered these close friends and allies of ours is to neither mediate nor reason with China about its bullying role against its neighbors.

Obama also doesn’t take China to task for killing Tibetans, Uighurs, Falun Gongers, and other ethnic minorities in China.

Romney has promised he will get tough with China, and he also promises that he will protect America’s interests (our friends and allies as mentioned above) against China.

Asian-Americans are normally ‘quiet’ in America’s politics.

I urge all Asian-Americans to turn out en masse this upcoming Presidential – federal – state elections.

I urge all Asian-Americans to put aside their political affiliations, and vote for Romney as President of the United States.

I also urge all Asian-Americans to cast their vote for anybody who runs for public offices (federal and state levels) that has a proven record of championing for human rights and democracy causes, especially against Human rights violators like China, Cuba, N. Korea, and Vietnam.

A Tibetan in flames after self-immolating at a protest ahead of Chinese President Hu Jintao’s visit to India, in New Delhi, March 26, 2012, Manish Swarup/AP Photos

New poll suggests Romney is winning the China argument

In their effort to court undecided voters in industrial swing states like Ohio, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney have been going to great lengths to demonstrate their toughness on China, hurlingattack ad after attack ad at one another.

Romney has pledged to label China a currency manipulator on his first day in office and promisedto balance the budget by asking whether each federal program is so important that it’s worth borrowing money from China to finance it. Obama, availing himself of the power that comes with already being in office, announced a World Trade Organization complaint against China during a campaign stop in Ohio. Cracking down on China’s unfair trade practices is a loaded issue — encompassing jobs, the economy, U.S. foreign policy, and American power — and it may very well come up during tonight’s presidential debate.

So who’s making the better case? A new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, conducted between Sept. 26-30, indicates that the advantage goes to Romney. When asked who would do a better job “dealing with the economic challenges we face from China,” 45 percent of registered voters selected Romney while 37 percent selected Obama (the poll also shows Romney slashing Obama’s foreign-policy edge by more than half, from 47-32 in July to 46-40).

The NBC/WSJ survey hasn’t asked the China question before, but a Bloomberg poll of likely voters, conducted between Sept. 21-24, showed Obama and Romney tied at 43 percent when it came to who would do the best job of “dealing with China on trade” (50 percent of respondents in that survey were skeptical of Romney’s pledge to designate China as a currency manipulator). If Romney has indeed opened up a lead on Obama on China, that would be a significant development.

Still, there are some caveats to these numbers. Democratic pollster Fred Yang pointed out on MSNBC today that Republicans in past elections have enjoyed even greater advantages on China. And while Romney has narrowed the gap with Obama in swing states such as Florida and Virginia, he’s still far behind the president in Ohio — a state where the Republican candidate’s message on China should have particular resonance (indeed, a recent Zogby poll commissioned, fittingly, byDeath by China Productions found that likely voters in Ohio trust Romney more than Obama to crack down on unfair Chinese trade practices). If Romney is in fact winning the China argument, it’s not yet clear that the achievement will translate into electoral success.

Even so, Obama would probably like to have that eight-point lead on China. After all, all he got for his tough line on Beijing is a lousy (if legally shaky) lawsuit.

Uri Friedman

It’s not ‘China bashing’ if it’s true 

As the U.S. Presidential election campaign enters its final stages, both candidates are being criticized in the media for “bashing” China.

This is in response to Obama administration filings of anti-subsidy complaints against China with the World Trade Organization (WTO) and to Governor Romney’s strong criticism of Beijing’s currency manipulation that undervalues its yuan (or RMB) as a way of subsidizing exports and acting as a tariff on imports.

The best example is the Chicago Tribune. Recently, it flatly said that both candidates are “bashing” China and noted that “attacking China’s export-subsidy machine is guaranteed to win applause at campaign stops in Ohio and other Midwest industrial swing states, where resentment of Chinese competition in manufacturing runs deep.”

Now, from the tone of this, you’d expect that China is completely innocent of any trade rule violations and that the candidates are unreasonably and cynically beating on it as a scapegoat for the off-shoring, layoffs, and unemployment that have all skyrocketed in the mid-west over the past five years. Indeed, you might even think the candidates are in some measure motivated in their critique by racism.

 After all, the terms “bash” and “bashing” imply anger, rage, violent emotion, and unreasonable hatred. If someone is a critic, he is legitimate, but a “basher” is emotional and unreasonable. The terms are usually applied to characterize criticism of Japan or China but are rarely if ever used with regard to non-Asian nations. When was the last time you read about “Germany bashing”? So the implied charge in the case of one labeled a “China basher” is that he/she is a racist.

Thus, the continuation of the Tribune’s commentary was surprising. It acknowledged that “China’s efforts to promote its export sector with cash grants, below-market loans, preferential tax treatment and free use of government-controlled property make a worthy target. ” In other words, some of China’s policies are indeed problematic. In fact, the Tribune went on to note that the sense of a need to create a “level playing field” with China “has a basis in reality.” It added that subsidies and regulations in a number of areas along with the power of state owned enterprises has prevented U.S. and other foreign companies from taking the lead in a wide range of Chinese markets. It further noted that theft of intellectual property in China, and China’s policy of keeping the yuan weak are enormously problematic.

So the Tribune appears largely to agree that China is doing all the things of which the two candidates have complained and against which the administration has filed complaints with the WTO. But if it agrees with them, why is the Tribune effectively pasting the racist label on the candidates?

In justification of its position, the Tribune makes four points that constitute the orthodox free trade case. First, it argues that even though it might help workers, any restriction or sanction on the free flow of Chinese goods into the U.S. market would be harmful to U.S. consumers. Second, it holds that the activities of getting imports from China unloaded, shipped, displayed, advertised, and sold create new U.S. jobs in place of the jobs that might be lost as a result of the displacement of U.S. produced goods by imports from China. Third, it asserts that any kind of trade sanction could lead to a ruinous trade war that could damage everyone, and fourth, it emphasizes that rather than trying to crack down on China’s questionable policies and practices, the U.S. government should focus on persuading the Chinese fully to open their markets.

The difficulty with these points, often repeated by orthodox neo-classical economic commentators, is that they are superficial, internally inconsistent, and at odds with the realities of the trading world. Take the matter of possible harm to consumers arising from any increase in the prices of goods resulting from some restriction on imports. This ignores a couple of important facts. One is that most consumers are also workers. Cheap imports are of little consolation if they have lost their jobs and income. Lost jobs put downward pressure on all wages, not just those in the particular industries that suffer from import penetration. Of course, the exception to this is a situation of full employment which is assumed by the usual econometric models and writers like those of the Tribune. But full employment is not the normal circumstance for most economies. Certainly it is not now the circumstance of the U.S. economy and it is most certainly not true of the economy of the city where the Tribune resides — Chicago. In situations of high unemployment, the loss of jobs and general downward pressure on wages may far exceed the savings to consumers of slightly lower import prices.

The notion that imports create unloading, shipping, and marketing jobs is also misleading. Think about it this way. Toyota makes a car in Japan and ships it in a Japanese vessel to San Francisco where it is unloaded by American longshoremen and driven by American truckers to a showroom in an American city where it is advertised, marketed, sold, and serviced by Americans. So there certainly are a number of American jobs associated with this import from Japan.

But now suppose that Toyota makes a car in Tennessee with parts made in America and with the assembly done by Americans. Then the car is driven by an American trucker to an American showroom where it is marketed, serviced, sold, and advertised by Americans. In this second case, more U.S. jobs are created than in the first case. Why? Because the vast bulk of the selling, overland shipping, marketing, and servicing has to be done in the United States whether the product is made there or imported. So the truth is that imports do not create net new U.S. jobs or jobs in any country unless they are products that cannot be made or made competitively in that country.

As for the dangers of trade wars, they are much exaggerated. The whole point of the WTO is to have a set of rules and adjudication of the rules. It is inevitable that there will be trade disputes. A main mission of the WTO is to deal with them so that they don’t become trade wars. So far the record of the WTO is pretty good on this score.

With regard to prying open the Chinese market, the Tribune calls for that as an alternative to the trade actions called for by the two candidates. This is an old story and it seems to keep selling. I only wish that those who sell it would once in their lives have to serve as trade negotiators. One of the main reasons for complaining about and sanctioning violation of trade rules is to gain leverage precisely for the purposes of opening the market. These negotiations are not pit a pat. Important and powerful interests are involved and they don’t give up easily unless faced with consequences as well as opportunities. Countries don’t open their markets just because someone from Washington says that would be a good idea. A successful market opening negotiation requires sticks as well as carrots.

Neither Obama nor Romney is a “China basher”. The Tribune owes them both an apology.

Foreign Policy

The Secret to U.S. Growth in the 21st Century: More Asians

What makes a country prosperous and strong in the long run? Four things: land, people, institutions, and culture. Most discussions these days focus on patching up America creaky institutions (health care, the Senate filibuster, etc.), but we should also be thinking about our plan for the long term. Here’s a plan.

For most of its history, America was the “Alternative Europe.” Political and religious dissidents who were dissatisfied with the ruling regimes in their homelands, oppressed ethnic minorities, and poor people who couldn’t get a good job — all made their way to the United States. Here they found a place where their beliefs, their ethnicity, and their parents’ socioeconomic status mattered far less than in the Old Country. America itself benefited greatly from the inflow, gaining a huge labor force, a constant supply of entrepreneurs and creative free thinkers, and a diverse ethnic makeup that helped us avoid the kind of brutal ethnic violence and fragmentation that plagued the European subcontinent.

We also benefited from the strong relationships we built with European countries — first Britain and France, then Germany and others. Our shared heritage helped facilitate trade and investment, which made our East Coast a center of global commerce. And it helped the U.S. to play an essential stabilizing role in the World Wars and the Cold War, which saved Europe from endemic warfare and from domination by totalitarian regimes.

In other words, “Alternative Europe” was a winning strategy for us. But that strategy is mostly played out. Europe today is rich, peaceful, and liberal, with higher economic mobility and ultra-low fertility. The United States still needs people — to start new companies, to keep our pension systems funded, and to keep our domestic market large in order to attract investment. But we’re not going to get our new people from Europe.

For the last few decades, we’ve been importing our new population from Mexico, but that too looks to be at an end. Net immigration from Mexico has fallen to zero, thanks in large part to a healthy Mexican economy (good), lower Mexican fertility (good), the housing bust (bad), and nativist sentiment against “illegal” immigrants in states like Arizona (very, very bad).

America’s birth rate is not as low as Europe, but we still need immigrants to ensure a healthily expanding labor pool. Where are we going to get our new Americans? Asia and Africa. Asia is especially important, and encouraging large-scale immigration from Asia will have benefits far beyond the simple economics of immigration. The United States’ geopolitical strategy for the emerging Asian Century must be to position ourselves as the Alternative Asia, the way we were once the Alternative Europe.

ALT-ASIA

East Asia, South Asia, and Southeast Asia together have over half the world’s population, but Asians make up only 5% of the United States. If our ethnic makeup was a portfolio of stocks, we would be severely underweight Asia.

Asia is important not just because it is huge, but because it is growing rapidly. Trade with these countries will be incredibly important to the American economy this century. One way to facilitate trade and investment is ethnic ties — witness the way the Chinese diaspora has invested in China, or the way Indian-American entrepreneurs have forged links between Silicon Valley and India. We need much more of this.

Geopolitics, too, will be centered on Asia. Already, conflicts over the South China Sea, the East China Sea, and Central Asia fill the news. The United States could be involved in stabilizing these conflicts and making sure they don’t disrupt the global economy. In the 20th Century, we stabilized Asia through overwhelming military force, but this is no longer possible or desirable; instead, many believe, the U.S. should be an “offshore balancer,” helping to mediate disputes and organize coalitions of Asian nations to keep the peace. But in order to do this we need to build credibility and trust with the nations of Asia, and having large Asian populations in our own country seems like a good way to do this. Allowing young, disaffected Asians to migrate here should also reduce the domestic pressures that fuel unrest and conflict.

Furthermore, I believe that the cultural benefits of Asian immigration will be just as big as the economic and political benefits. Adding diversity to our melting pot will speed up America’s inevitable and necessary transition from a “nation of all European races” to a “nation of all races.” The sooner that happens — the sooner people realize that America’s multi-racialization is a done deal — the quicker our political debate can shed its current ethnic overtones and go back to being about the issues.

50 MILLION MORE, PLEASE

Asians want to come to America. According to the most recent Gallup survey, the United States is the desired destination for 22 million Chinese people, 10 million Indians, 8 million Bangladeshis, 5 million Filipinos, and 3 million people from Vietnam. These are the kind of numbers we need to keep our economy young and growing.

Surprisingly, 5 million Japanese people would also move here, given the chance. Having lived in Japan, I don’t find this surprising. Although Japan is in many ways a freer country than the U.S. — you can drink alcohol outside, for example, or shoot fireworks from your roof — many Japanese workers feel oppressed by their stifling corporate culture. America should be a home not just for people seeking a job, but a refuge for free thinkers and iconoclasts seeking to escape the invisible fetters of tradition. These people tend to be entrepreneurs, innovators, and agents of positive change here in America.

But we need to act now, because the window of opportunity for large-scale Asian immigration will not stay open for much longer. Asian nations are getting rich, which means better opportunities in their home countries. They are also aging rapidly. In China and much of East and Southeast Asia, fertility is at or below European levels. We probably have only two more decades in which to transplant large numbers of Asians to our shores. (This is in contrast to Africa, whose high fertility levels will make sure it remains a plentiful source of immigrants for at least another century.) Fortunately, we are on the right track; in 2010, America received an estimated 430,000 immigrants from Asia, outnumbering even Hispanics. But with 60 million Asians clamoring at our gates, we could stand to admit a lot more.

This, then, is the “Alternative Asia Plan.” America began as a nation of Europeans and Africans; it is now a nation of Europeans, Africans, and Latin Americans. It must become a nation of Asians as well. Failing to do this would mean shutting ourselves off from the master narrative of the 21st Century.

Noah Smith

China slams Japan PM’s ‘obstinate persistence’

In this Sept. 19, 2012 photo, a costumer picks copies of newly-published maps of disputed islands, called Diaoyu in China and Senkaku in Japan, at a state-owned book store in Beijing, China. China hastily published the map to help maintain public outrage over the Japanese government’s purchase of some of the islands from their private Japanese owners. Beijing also has engaged in another type of mapmaking that may end up escalating the conflict. (AP Photo) 

Beijing: China criticised Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda’s “obstinate persistence” on Thursday after he insisted there could be no compromise with Beijing on the ownership of disputed islands.

“China is extremely dissatisfied with and sternly opposes the Japanese leader’s obstinate persistence in his incorrect views regarding the Diaoyu islands,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said in a statement.

Noda said on Wednesday that a disputed archipelago in the East China Sea that China knows as the Diaoyu islands and Japan calls the Senkaku, is “an integral part” of Japanese territory “in the light of history and of international law.”

“It is very clear and there are no territorial issues as such. Therefore there cannot be any compromise that could mean any setback from this basic position. I have to make that very clear,” Noda told reporters at the UN General Assembly.

China has made much the same statements in defending its own claim to the islands.

China and Japan are locked in an escalating confrontation over the islands that triggered street protests across China and saw attacks on Japanese businesses doing business in China.

Relations between the countries plummeted to their lowest ebb in years after Tokyo announced on 11 September that it had completed a deal to buy three of the uninhabited outcrops from their private owner.

China said Wednesday that foreign minister Yang Jiechi told his counterpart Koichiro Gemba at the United Nations that Japan was guilty of “severely infringing” its sovereignty by purchasing the disputed islands.

AFP

China's lines around islands suggest more conflict

BEIJING—One of the hottest items in bookstores across China is a map for a place that is closed to visitors, home only to animals such as goats and crabs, and the reason China's relations with Japan are at their lowest point in years.

China calls them the Diaoyus; Japan, the Senkakus. The new map shows a satellite image of a kidney-shaped main island with splotches of green and a list of 70 affiliated "islands" that are really half-submerged rocks.

China hastily published the map to help maintain public outrage over the Japanese government's purchase of some of the islands from their private Japanese owners. Beijing also has engaged in another type of mapmaking that may end up escalating the conflict.

It has drawn new territorial markers, or baselines, around the islands and submitted them to the United Nations. That could lead to a more serious attempt to claim the islands, and broad swaths of valuable ocean around them.

"The status quo has been broken in the last month by Japan's purchase and China's publishing of the baselines," said Stephanie Kleine-Ahlbrandt of the International Crisis Group. She said friction is likely to reach its worst level since the 1980s when China and Japan tacitly agreed to set aside the dispute in pursuit of better overall relations.

Beijing has been firm rhetorically. On Saturday, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said the country must safeguard its territorial integrity at a reception celebrating the upcoming National Day.

State television on Saturday reported that the country's navy and air forces conducted joint military exercises with live fire targeting a small island in the East China Sea.

More than lines on paper are at stake. By submitting the baselines to the U.N., China is spelling out its claim to the waters, the fish in them and the oil, gas and other minerals beneath them. Up until now, China has sought to jointly exploit resources with Japan through negotiation.

Japan says it bought to islands to maintain stability, noting that the nationalist governor of Tokyo had been pushing a more radical plan to not only buy the islands but develop them. China, however, was outraged, and considered Japan's move a violation of their earlier agreements.

The dispute has brought nationalism and patriotism to the fore, and sparked sometimes-violent protests in China targeting Japanese businesses, restaurants and cars. A Chinese man driving a Toyota Corolla was beaten unconscious by a mob in the tourist city of Xi'an and left partially paralyzed, according to state media. Chinese and Japanese coast guard vessels have been facing off in the contested waters.

The dispute is testing perhaps the most important economic relationship in Asia, between the world's second- and third-largest economies.

Japan has claimed the islands since 1895. The U.S. took jurisdiction after World War II and turned them over to Japan in 1972. China says they have been part of its territory since ancient times, and that it opposed and never acknowledged the deal between Japan and the United States. Taiwan also claims them.

The islands make a strange setting for a potential conflict zone. The largest is less than 4 square kilometers (1.5 square miles). It is home to a growing population of goats—the offspring of a pair brought there by right-wing Japanese activists in 1977—as well as moles, crabs, Okinawan ants, albatross and lizards, and plants including azalea.

The islands themselves are remote, "intrinsically worthless features" that were largely forgotten for decades, said Clive Schofield of the Australian National Centre for Ocean Resources and Security at the University of Wollongong.

"The reason why there is uncertainty over the ownership, sovereignty is because they have essentially been ignored over a large period of time," Schofield said.

A U.N. survey in the 1970s that said oil and gas may lie beneath the surrounding waters changed that. Then, the Law of the Sea Convention introduced the idea of 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zones, or EEZs, which give coastal countries sole exploitation rights over all natural resources contained within.

China's new baselines are a prelude to defining that exclusive zone. It has drawn straight lines around the main group of islands and a separate set around isolated Chiwei Island, some 50 nautical miles to the east.

It also plans to submit a document outlining the outer limits of its sea bed—those that stretch beyond 200 nautical miles from land—in the East China Sea to a U.N. commission. The move is a way for China to underscore its claim, but has little real impact. The commission, which comprises geological experts, evaluates the markers on technical grounds but has no authority to resolve overlapping claims.

"That puts a line in the sand, but it doesn't have any legal impact," said Ian Townsend Gault, director of the Centre for Asian Legal Studies at the University of British Columbia in Canada.

He doubts whether the islands would be capable of generating a 200-nautical-mile EEZ because they are too insignificant—too small and without a population.

"They are not important in the economic sense, no matter how beautiful they look on postcards," he said.

Legal questions aside, China sees the waters within its baselines as its internal waters under Beijing's administration.

That raises the risk of a confrontation in the clear waters around the disputed islands between Japanese coast guard vessels and Chinese fishing boats and law enforcement vessels, and even Taiwanese vessels—all ostensibly with orders to patrol the area.

Already there has been sparring the past two weeks, with Chinese maritime surveillance vessels entering waters Japan claims, and the Japanese coast guard firing a water cannon at Taiwanese boats approaching the islands.

The parties could legally resolve their dispute if they submit it to the International Court of Justice in The Hague, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea in Hamburg, Germany, or their own court.

"Both would be equally terrified of losing on flimsy grounds," said Townsend Gault. "They have snookered each other legally and diplomatically speaking. They have driven each other into a corner. We need some third party to say can you put this to bed so we don't have this enormous disruption in your bilateral relations whereby people are smashing up Toyota dealerships."

Associated Press

Cooler Heads in the South China Sea

The United States is realizing that the escalating tensions in the Far East, especially between China and Japan, should no longer be viewed as an opportunity to contain China. Instead, our first priority should be to get everyone to calm down.

At issue are the territorial rights over some forty piles of rock, most uninhabited, some barely sticking out of the water. These conflicts already have led to large nationalist anti-Japanese demonstrations in China and similar anti-Chinese demonstrations in Japan; saber-rattling activists planting their nation’s flag on some of the islands; and clashes between vessels of several regional nations—all fueled by increasingly hot rhetoric by public leaders. These smaller clashes look increasingly like the type of incidents that can spin out of control and lead to more serious conflagrations.

The United States, which keeps veering between seeking to engage China and moves to “contain” it, had at first—at least indirectly—urged the nations of the area to band together and push back against Chinese claims to many of the islands at issue. However, most recently Secretary Panetta called on China and Japan “to move forward and not have this dispute get out of hand” and emphasized that all parties share a responsibility to resolve the conflicts peacefully. And—the ever industrious U.S. think tanks have taken off their shelves a whole host of proposals that could defuse the crisis.

Disputes over maritime territorial rights fall under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and should be settled in the International Court of Justice (ICJ). (The fact that the United States did not ratify the treaty involved seems immaterial because Washington typically operates as if it were committed to UNCLOS.) But such settlements take years.

In the short term, the think tankers are calling on China and Japan to establish a hotline so that their leaders will be better able to nip in the bud any unintended confrontations. Moreover, both nations are urged to declare unequivocally that “military force is not an option.” A more ambitious plan calls for a return to a derailed 2010 agreement for the joint development of gas fields in the South China Sea. The Economist suggests that the nations involved should do the environment a favor and turn the islands and surrounding seas into marine protected areas to combat overfishing, a problem that seriously threatens the economies and ecology of the region.

Douglas H. Paal of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace points out that to combat overfishing, China, Vietnam and Taiwan have already “initiated fishing seasons, periodic bans, and limits on sizes of catches to support sustainable harvesting, but these are not harmonized and often conflict.” Hence Paal calls “greater control of the fishing fleets, with effective sanctions on misbehavior under rules agreed upon in common, [an] achievable and responsible goal.”

One must acknowledge that islands are not fought over simply as real estate but because they serve as markers for determining maritime rights. According to a widely followed reading of international law, a nation’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) extends two hundred miles off its shores. Thus, if nations can populate and prove ownership over tiny islands in their near seas, they can expand their EEZ and gain access to the surrounding natural resources—not only fish but also coveted fuels and minerals that lie beneath the seabed. Hence, for nations such as China and Japan, whose economies are highly dependent on the secure access to and development of such resources, these islands are much more than “piles of rocks.”

In Sharing the Resources of the South China Sea, Mark Valencia, Jon Van Dyke and Noel Ludwig suggest establishing “regional sovereignty” over the islands in the South China Sea among the six claimants, allowing them to collectively manage the islands, territorial seas and airspace. Of course, this would require an agreement among the parties as how to share the spoils.

Another option, put forward by Peter Dutton of the Naval War College, would emulate the resolution of the dispute over Svalbard, an island located between Norway and Greenland. The Treaty of Spitsbergen, signed in 1920, awarded primary sovereignty over Svarlbard to Norway but assigned resource-related rights to all signatories. Applying this model to the South and East China Seas likely would entail giving sovereignty to China while permitting other countries to benefit from the resources. Though, at least in the near term, such a solution is unlikely to be accepted by the other claimants.

Still others have suggested declaring a moratorium on any exploration until the tensions are defused and conflicts are worked out. And a troika of foreign ministers in the region, including nations not directly involved such as Indonesia and Australia, has been urged to help work out an evenhanded solution.

Those who hold that all these suggestions are naive should note that such settlements do take place. One case will have to stand for several others. In 2009, five years after the decades-old dispute was brought to court, the ICJ settled a dispute between Ukraine and Romania over the Black Sea, whose seabed holds an estimated ten million tons of oil. One key issue was whether the Serpent Island would be considered a cliff or an island. The Romanians claimed it was “a cliff” (hence irrelevant to territorial demarcation) while Ukraine held it was “an island” and thus that Ukraine’s maritime boundaries extended beyond Serpent Island’s shores. The ICJ ruled it a cliff and delivered a judgment that granted Romania about 80 percent of the disputed area (though the oil was more concentrated on the Ukrainian side). Both sides accepted the decision.

If cooler heads prevail and Washington continues to throw its weight in support of tensions reduction and conflict resolution by negotiation, some of these proposals or others like them may carry the day. All sides surely realize—given the fragile state of the global economy, the political transition in China, the rise of nationalism that threatens to spin out of control—that this is a particularly poor time to escalate tensions.

Resource allocation is a contentious issue, but raw materials have a virtue: they can be divided. Disputes over such assets do not have to be settled in a winner-takes-all fashion, allowing all the nations involved to gain some of the spoils and save face. In contrast, if the clashes spin out of control, the disputants and the bystanders will all be losers.

Amitai Etzioni 

China Mends Fences in Sea Dispute

It appears to be showing flexibility in efforts to devise a code of conduct for South China Sea claimants.

RFA

China’s territorial claim to the South China Sea includes two disputed island chains.

As Beijing flexes its muscles over its territorial dispute with Japan in the East China Sea, it is mending fences with Southeast Asian nations after a spate of tensions in the contested South China Sea.

Following much prodding and diplomacy, China appears to be showing some flexibility in its approach towards drawing up a code of conduct with the Southeast Asian nations aimed at avoiding clashes over competing territorial claims in the vast sea, diplomats in the region told RFA.

Although they are skeptical of any early breakthrough for a legally binding document between China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to guide behavior in the sea, there is optimism that negotiations will occur on a sustained basis.

“We see some flexibility to discuss the COC with ASEAN,” one Southeast Asian diplomat said, referring to the elusive Code of Conduct or COC which ASEAN—comprising Brunei, Burma, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam—has been striving to devise with Beijing for a decade.

In an initial display of seriousness that it is prepared to come to the table, China sent its senior officials to Cambodia last week to informally discuss with their counterparts from ASEAN the prospects for drawing up a code, officials said.

This is the first meeting between the two sides specifically on the maritime dispute since ASEAN plunged into a crisis two months ago when foreign ministers of the 10-member bloc failed to issue their customary joint statement at the conclusion of their annual meeting hosted by Cambodia, China’s top ally in Southeast Asia.

Some ASEAN diplomats had charged that Cambodia had been influenced by China not to incorporate in the statement the views of ASEAN member states the Philippines and Vietnam, which had tiffs earlier this year with Beijing over islands and reefs in the South China Sea, causing an impasse at the meeting.

The ASEAN-China Senior Officials’ Informal Consultations on the Code of Conduct (COC) in the South China Sea, as last week’s meeting in Phnom Penh was officially called, was among a series of discussions in preparation for the ASEAN summit and the East Asia Summit in November.

“Compared to two months ago, when there was complete reluctance to come to the table, China appears willing to sit down and talk,” said one Southeast Asian official, who was briefed on the talks but spoke on condition of anonymity.

“Indirectly, they may be feeling the heat from the mounting criticism over what happened at the meeting in July which was a big blow to ASEAN,” the official said.

“But China has also asked the ASEAN states to do their part by reducing tensions and not conducting border incursions and creating a conducive environment for any future talks. They don’t want us to bring in third parties [the United States] over the conflict and want us to stick to the 2002 declaration,” the diplomat said.

Under a 2002 agreement for managing their overlapping territorial claims, ASEAN and China adopted a Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea, called DOC as a first step towards a binding code of conduct.

But in a reflection of the sensitivity over the issue, it was only last year—after 10 years—that they agreed on a set of guidelines to implement the declaration that was aimed at laying the groundwork for discussions on the regional code of conduct.

Ray of hope

The new ray of hope for achieving a COC comes after extensive diplomacy, including U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s trip to Southeast Asia and China, with a meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao.

Chinese leaders told Clinton—who has often emphasized that freedom of navigation in the South China Sea is a U.S. “national interest”—that they want to pursue the COC, U.S. Ambassador to China Gary Locke told a forum in Washington last week, saying the talks between the two sides were “very good.”

“I’ve also heard from many prominent Chinese academics that China would like somehow to return to the status quo, that they would like to lower the temperature,” Locke said.

Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Yechi had also visited Indonesia as well as Malaysia and Brunei, giving reassurances that diplomacy was still on track.

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, embarrassed by the failure by his country as 2012 ASEAN chairman to forge an agreement on the foreign ministers’ joint statement, also made a trip to China this month, meeting Prime Minister Wen Jiabao.

Hun Sen won assurances from Wen that Beijing will “closely work” to make the upcoming East Asia Summit which Cambodia will host a success,” Chinese media reported.

Southeast Asian diplomats said a key objective is to get an initial ASEAN-China accord on the COC before the November East Asia Summit, to be attended by leaders of ASEAN as well as China, Japan, South Korea, India, Australia, New Zealand, Russia and the United States.

Key elements of the COC have been agreed upon by ASEAN member states whose foreign ministers will meet to consider a full draft document on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York this coming week, the diplomats said.

“We are now in the process of spelling out the draft [of the code] and we hope to be able to share it with my ASEAN foreign minister colleagues when I meet them in New York,” Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa said, according to the Jakarta Globe newspaper.

“The development of the South China Sea [issues] reminds us how we desperately need the code of conduct, [so] I’m trying to use the momentum,” Marty said, as Indonesia asserts a leadership role in ASEAN to deal with the South China Sea issue, Asia’s biggest potential military flashpoint.

Cambodia or Thailand, which is the ASEAN coordinator for China issues, could host another round of informal talks between senior officials from ASEAN and China on the COC before the East Asia Summit.

“Both sides might also issue a joint statement to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the DOC at Summit,” an official involved in the planning of the summit told RFA, referring to the declaration adopted in 2002 in Cambodia to set the stage for the regional code of conduct.

Beijing has maintained all this while that it wants to resolve the South China Sea territorial conflicts on a bilateral basis with ASEAN members Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam, which have competing claims with China.

China claims sovereignty over nearly all of the resource-rich South China Sea, which is also home to important shipping lanes. It is also locked in a territorial tussle with Japan over disputed islands in the East China Sea.

Bloc

Southeast Asian officials say ASEAN would negotiate the COC with China as a bloc but not in the specific delineation or settlement of the claims between the claimant states.

ASEAN’s role “is not to deal with the claims themselves but in the broader setting up of the framework which would allow for a peaceful resolution of these claims,” Singapore Foreign Minister K. Shanmugam said, according to the island state’s media.

Beijing has stressed that ASEAN should have no role in negotiating on behalf of the four members who were claimant states.

“For China, the COC is only a tool to promote mutual trust over the South China Sea and not to resolve disputes. They stressed this again at the Phnom Penh meeting last week,” a Southeast Asian diplomat said.

Still, as the COC is being drafted, China has to grapple with various basic questions—which it has brushed off previously—over its claim to the South China Sea.

While officials have to first pin down the South China Sea area to be governed by the code, there is much uncertainty over the territory China claims—represented by the nine-dashed, U-shaped line encircling most of the sea on Chinese official maps.

The location of those dashes has never been pinpointed as China has not supplied the coordinates for them. The nature of the Chinese claim has also not been clearly defined.

In addition, there is the question of the Paracel islands’ inclusion in the code’s area of application. Vietnam still maintains its claim to the islands although China seized them from its fellow communist neighbor in 1974.

Uncertainty

Former ASEAN Secretary-General Rodolfo Severino said the uncertainty over where a “binding code of conduct” would apply was one of the factors cited for downgrading the 2002 ASEAN-China agreement from a legal code to a political declaration.

“Is the uncertainty of its area of application still a factor in and an obstacle to its adoption,” he asked.

“If these [outstanding] issues were fudged in the proposed document, as seems most likely to be the case at this time, how would the problem be overcome? What would the formulation be?”

Severino said one fundamental reason why the problems arising from the conflicting claims in the South China Sea are so difficult and intractable is not only the size and strategic location of that body of water but also that all the claimants feel that their footholds in the sea are essential to what they consider as their national interests.

“Therefore, the disputes in the South China Sea cannot be resolved any time soon, if at all. The most that can be done is to prevent those disputes from developing into armed conflict. This could be the overarching aim of any code of conduct that ASEAN and China might produce.”

Parameswaran Ponnudurai

War By Other Means: China’s Political Uses of Seapower

China’s development and use of naval and non-naval, non-military sea power has become a cause for concern – one that could alter the regional balance.

China’s recent assertiveness in the South China Seas is a harbinger of things to come.  Beijing’s seapower project and the enormous resources it has enjoyed have opened up new strategic vistas for Chinese leaders and military commanders.  With larger and more capable seagoing forces at its disposal, Beijing is well positioned to fashion sophisticated strategies that will be more effective and equally difficult to counter.  While such strategies do not—yet—portend the fundamental reordering of maritime Southeast Asia, they will likely yield incremental dividends that advance China’s larger aims at sea.

Comprehensive Chinese Seapower

China’s naval and maritime buildup is providing Beijing with the wherewithal to pursue its ambitions.  The rate and scale of the People’s Liberation Army Navy’s (PLAN) modernization process have defied many predictions in the West, reversing sanguine and even condescending conclusions about China’s aptitude at sea.  But, seapower is more than just the navy.  Rather, it is a continuum that gives Beijing a range of options.  Non-naval and non-military platforms and systems account for a significant portion of Chinese seapower.

Long-range, precision-strike weaponry deployed on the mainland can influence events, perhaps decisively, at sea.  The anti-ship ballistic missile—a maneuverable ballistic missile capable of hitting moving targets at sea—is just one member of a large family of missiles in China’s arsenal that could perform maritime-strike missions.  Indeed, the PLA boasts large numbers of shore-based fighters, bombers, and cruise missile units that can launch salvos of anti-ship missiles.

The growth of China’s maritime surveillance and law-enforcement services has been equally impressive.  The civilian arm of Chinese seapower has enabled Beijing to dispatch nonmilitary ships to confront the Philippines in the South China Sea and Japan in the East China Sea.  Even civilian vessels could form maritime militias to serve China’s nautical aims.  In short, Beijing possesses diverse elements of seapower to defend its prerogatives in the nautical domain.

Political Uses of Military and Non-Military Forces

Beijing’s burgeoning seapower has positioned it to employ strategies that involve the political uses of military and non-military implements of seapower against weaker opponents in the South China Sea.  These strategies deftly combine warfighting capabilities with calibrated shows of force.  They enhance China’s leverage in protracted politico-military struggles by chipping away at the will of the opponent.

In the event of peacetime maritime crises between China and relatively weak Southeast Asian powers, innovative combinations of PLA forces could be used to compel the will of Beijing’s southern neighbors.  Consider the aforementioned anti-ship ballistic missile.  If it performs as advertised, the missile would help compensate for current shortcomings in China’s maritime inventory.  The reach of such shore fire support over the entire South China Sea would ease the burdens on the Chinese fleet while applying constant pressure on challengers to Beijing’s interests in peacetime.

Under the protective umbrella of anti-ship ballistic missiles, even lesser warships would be ideal for intimating weaker parties.  For example, small flotillas of missile-armed fast-attack craft operating in the Spratlys under missile cover could hold most Southeast Asian surface fleets at bay.  Occasional sorties of such units would signal Chinese resolve, compelling opponents to back down or acquiesce to Beijing’s wishes.  This type of gunboat diplomacy with Chinese characteristics is conceivable in future crises.

China’s ability to exercise the non-military elements of its seapower was on full display at Scarborough Shoal this past spring.  The standoff with the Philippines involved coast-guard-like noncombat vessels under the control of China Marine Surveillance (CMS), an agency entrusted with protecting Beijing’s exclusive economic zones.  In an unprecedented demonstration of resolve, CMS vessels entered Japanese territorial waters near the Senkakus following Tokyo’s decision to nationalize the disputed islands in September 2012.

Employing non-navy assets in clashes over territory reveals a sophisticated, methodical strategy for securing China’s maritime claims.  The use of non-military means eschews escalation while ensuring that disputes remain localized.  Specifically, it deprives the United States and other outside powers the rationales to step in on behalf of embattled capitals in the region.

At the same time, noncombat ships empower Beijing to exert low-grade but unremitting pressure on rival claimants to South China Sea islands and waters. Constant patrols can probe weaknesses in coastal states’ maritime-surveillance capacity while testing their political resolve. Keeping disputes at a low simmer, moreover, grants China the diplomatic initiative to turn up or down the heat as strategic circumstances warrant.

And if all else fails, Beijing can still employ its navy and shore-based assets as a backstop to the civilian agencies. That China—unlike its weaker rivals—has the option of climbing the escalation ladder only amplifies the intimidation factor in places like Scarborough Shoal or the Spratly Islands. As noted above, the mere possibility of naval coercion may induce an opponent to back down in a crisis.  Indeed, the larger the naval balance tilts in China’s favor, the more likely it becomes that a long shadow casts over Southeast Asian capitals as they contemplate their options.

Innocuous in themselves, peacetime patrols carry significant weight when backed by real firepower.  The interplay between Chinese military and non-military forces thus augments Beijing’s strategic leverage.

A Strategy of Exhaustion at Sea?

Sporadic acts of coercion and intimidation may not produce outcomes as visible or decisive as a battlefield victory.  A series of showdowns may pass without an end in sight or any tangible gain for China.  But, the cumulative effects of a continuing stalemate could induce strategic fatigue that in turn advances China’s aims.  Short of a shooting war, Chinese provocations are too slight for the United States to intervene militarily.  Staying below the escalation threshold adds maneuver room to test U.S. steadfastness while solidifying its own claims.

As China pushes and probes, regional expectations that Washington should do something would inevitably mount even as weaker nations look for signs of wavering U.S. resolve.  The prospects of recurring confrontations with little hope of direct U.S. intervention could weigh heavily on Southeast Asian capitals.  Applied with patience and discipline, such a strategy of exhaustion could gradually erode regional confidence and undermine the political will to resist.

But this attritional approach is only a snapshot of Chinese seapower today.  It is possible that Beijing’s application of graduated pressure is merely a stopgap measure, buying China time to build up the capacity to dictate events at sea.  Recent trends suggest that both the military and non-military services will continue to bulk up on a steady diet of new hardware and manpower.

Twenty years of virtually uninterrupted double-digit hikes in the defense budget have afforded China the resources to develop options beyond those dedicated to a Taiwan contingency, an all-consuming preoccupation until recently.  Analysts have detected military buildups in staging areas assigned to the Southeast Asian theater of operations.  Beijing also appears to be pushing naval construction along multiple axes simultaneously, laying down hulls for warships of every type.

Similarly, the maritime-enforcement services are recruiting new manpower while taking delivery of decommissioned naval vessels. Furthermore, Chinese shipyards are turning out state-of-the-art cutters like sausages. Many are capable of sustained patrols in the farthest reaches of the China seas, assuring that Beijing can maintain a visible presence in waters where it asserts sovereign jurisdiction. Indeed, Haijian 84, one of China’s most modern law-enforcement vessels, occupied the epicenter of the Scarborough Shoal imbroglio.

To be sure, China still lacks adequate military means to make the South China Sea a Chinese lake. Sea control that more or less permanently excludes rival navies from these waters remains beyond its reach, if indeed that is the goal.

Nevertheless, even a modest increase in Chinese seapower could perceptibly tip the regional balance of power in Beijing’s favor in peacetime contingencies not involving the U.S. Navy.  Some local players, notably Vietnam, have embarked on naval modernization programs, but they are unlikely to keep pace with China.  Over time, left unopposed by powerful outsiders such as the United States, Japan, or Australia, even small-scale shows of Chinese maritime power over Southeast Asian fleets might start to win grudging acquiescence to Beijing’s foreign policy preferences.  Such consent, however reluctant, would deliver a severe blow to the foundations of regional order.

Implications for the U.S. “Rebalancing” to Asia

The foregoing analysis underscores the predicament of many Southeast Asian states if they faced China on their own.  Not surprisingly, many regional capitals look to the United States as a bulwark against Chinese advances.  They recognize that American primacy in maritime Asia will be the crucial arbiter of Chinese ambitions.  Washington, for its part, has delivered very public pronouncements about its own stake in Asian waters.  The Obama administration’s “pivot” or “rebalancing” to Asia sought to reassure audiences in the region that the United States will not abdicate the stabilizing role it has long played.

Fortunately, there is still time to maximize this convergence of interests and organize an effective response.  China is at least a decade away from amassing the type of preponderant seapower that can keep the United States out of the South China Sea while running roughshod over Southeast Asian states.  In the meantime, Washington can adopt measures to ensure that regional submission to China’s wishes is not a foregone conclusion.

First, Washington and its allies should actively help Southeast Asian states help themselves. Local actors must possess some indigenous capability to cope with Chinese encroachments at sea.  The U.S. transfer of 1960s’ vintage coast guard cutters to the Philippines is a modest step in the right direction.  The timing of the deliveries turned out to be fortuitous: the first Philippine vessel to respond off Scarborough Shoal was flagship BRP Gregorio del Pilar, the former USCGC Hamilton. But, hand-me-downs are not enough to meet Manila’s needs.  More modern and capable platforms are necessary to match China’s vessels.  Japan’s recent offer of twelve brand new patrol boats to the Philippines is another encouraging sign that outside powers are seeking to right the regional balance of power.

Second, the United States should encourage the development of a region-wide effort to keep track of China’s maritime forces.  Unmanned aerial systems, for instance, could furnish a common picture of the nautical domain on a more-or-less permanent basis to coastal states surrounding the South China Sea.  By tapping into such technologies, an information sharing arrangement that make Asian waters both figuratively and literally more transparent would go a long way to shore up regional confidence and deterrence.  It is worth noting that Tokyo has been doing a signal service on behalf of the region by publicly reporting detailed accounts of Chinese naval transits through international straits and other activities near Japanese waters.

Third, the United States should draw up plans that would enable the U.S. military to rapidly deploy units armed with maritime-strike capability, such as anti-ship cruise missile batteries, on friendly or allied soil.  Possessing the option to surge defensive forces onto allied territory at short notice would reassure U.S. allies in peacetime while substantially bolstering the U.S. capacity to act effectively in times of crisis. American reinforcements would steady nerves while stiffening the resolve of local defenders.  The United States should also encourage allies and friends to develop or strengthen their own maritime-strike options.

Finally, the U.S. Navy should revisit prevailing assumptions about its ability to command the global commons.  Years of post-Cold War permissiveness induced an airy confidence that made it seductively easy to take sea control for granted.  Arguably, the last time that the U.S. Navy fought a serious foe was at Leyte Gulf in 1944.  As China marches to the seas, a far more lethal nautical environment lies in store.  For a service long accustomed to uncontested waters, coming to terms with risk to the fleet will be an ever urgent priority.

Networking the Region

These steps would help construct a layered and inter-connected defense posture that begins with the local actors themselves.  As frontline states, they must be empowered to perform as first responders to Chinese moves at sea.  Information sharing among the coastal states would underscore the shared stakes in the maritime commons while promoting collective action.  A network of players alert to Beijing’s maneuvers stands a far better chance of deterring, and, failing that, reacting more quickly to Chinese actions.  The United States, for its part, would provide a strategic backstop to Southeast Asian partners with low-profile, small-footprint military assets that pack a punch and serve as potent symbols of American commitment to the region.

Raising the costs of—and risks to—Chinese assertiveness in the South China Sea would complicate Beijing’s calculus while inclining Chinese leaders to think twice before they act.  Inducing Chinese caution, moreover, would apply a brake to Beijing’s momentum at sea, brightening the prospects for restoring equilibrium to the region and for retaking the strategic initiative.

Toshi Yoshihara 

David or Goliath? China's battle to win the war of perception

To the outside world China is a rich, monolithic superpower – but inside troubles mount and confidence remains fragile


Xu Shunjian is a diplomat. Not the official, suave and suited, our-man-in-Kampala kind. But for three years he has been doing his bit to change perceptions of China.

He had never left Fujian province before he flew 6,000 miles to Uganda, where his team is turning a remote, dusty, rutted track into a smooth road winding 76 miles (122km) across the country.

"Before we came here, the locals had only seen Chinese people in movies. So they believed every Chinese man could do kung fu and was tough," the slim, bespectacled graduate said with a chuckle.

"I thought African people were wild. Now that I've come here, I see they are much more friendly."

Three decades ago, Xu and his compatriots had little opportunity to leave their country nor meet the few foreigners who visited. Now China is wide open to the world. But while its growing reach has forged new alliances and better understanding, it is also creating new tensions.

From its recent naval confrontation with the US in the South China Sea, to its anger at western pressure over Tibet, Beijing appears ever more confident as its reach extends around the globe – and its rivals appear more watchful.

For years, foreign policy was guided by Deng Xiaoping's cautious injunction, Tao guang yang hui ("hide brightness, cherish obscurity") – or, in the official translation, "nourish capabilities and bide our time".

But there is nothing obscure about China these days; it seems that its time has arrived. Just scan the recent headlines: Chinese workers strike in Romania; Chinese property hunters seek bargains in New York; Chinese peacekeepers patrol Darfur and Kosovo; the Chinese navy battle Somalian pirates. The premier, Wen Jiabao, publicly frets about the safety of its vast US treasury holdings, and President Hu Jintao took centre stage at the G20 meeting in London. Analysts begin to talk of the "G2"; Americans of "our most important bilateral relationship".

Vice-president and heir apparent, Xi Jinping, struck a very different note to Deng on an overseas trip this spring.

"There are some well-fed foreigners who have nothing better to do than point fingers at our affairs," he complained, in brusque remarks unreported by the state media but quickly noted on Chinese blogs and by foreign diplomats.

"China does not, first, export revolution; second, export poverty and hunger; third, cause troubles for you. What else is there to say?"

Western media bias
Xi's aggrieved tone might confuse the west, but it resonates with his public. This year's publishing sensation is China is Unhappy, a collection of angry essays railing at foreign bullies and domestic fascination with western ways. Grievances range from protests during the Olympic torch relay to high-consuming nations' calls for China to cut pollution; one author suggests China might have to break with the west one day.

Despite sniffy, sometimes despairing reviews from liberals, it topped the bestseller lists. Its lengthy list of gripes includes western media bias, but its ­publicity-savvy authors are happy to take their chances; they chose to meet the Guardian in a Starbucks in central Beijing.

Between sips of his cappuccino, co-author Wang Xiaodong explained why China should engage in the arms race; he deems this year's 14.9% rise in military spending insufficient. A slight man in his fifties, he has the air of a schoolmaster but a shock-jock's sense of mischief and flair for incendiary statements.

"China must have the power to wipe America from the earth. It's the only way to deter them," he said cheerfully.

"China is really willing to co-operate with the west, but is still refused by western nations.

"We have felt very comfortable over the years of free trade, because we have kept winning. But also, the west keeps losing. So we worry that at some point the west will use military or political power to fight China. The other thing is that, for a long time, China has needed more resources … That must create conflicts."

Though many Chinese dispute his conclusions, few disagree with his basic premise.

"People outside see China as much more powerful than China perceives itself to be. Our challenges and troubles have expanded as well as our interests," explained Professor Shi Yinhong, a highly respected foreign policy expert at Renmin university. He dismisses the idea of a bipolar world; China's current status is perhaps "a regional power, plus".

Historic humiliations
To outsiders, China is a giant: a huge, populous, monolithic state, with rapidly rising military spending, vast coffers for foreign investment and an increasing keenness to impose its views.

But where they see Goliath, China sees David: an over-populated, under-resourced developing country still recovering from historic humiliations at the hands of foreign powers – including the British – and still pushed around by the west.

"There's concern [among leaders] that if China's growing power becomes too conspicuous, other countries will view it as a threat, gang up on it and try to contain it," said Professor Susan Shirk, author of China: Fragile Superpower and a former US deputy assistant secretary of state.

"They have worked very hard to show they want to be more co-operative and that as they become more powerful they're not a threat. They're willing to compromise, negotiate; they're dealmakers."

China is willing to show its strength; last winter it postponed an entire EU summit because Nicolas Sarkozy had met the Dalai Lama. But it also wants the world to like it. Relations with Taiwan are at their best for decades, as Beijing engages with a more mainland-friendly president. It's pouring billions into "soft power" projects, setting up Confucius Institutes and expanding its foreign-language media.

Yet a recent poll for the BBC World Service found that while 92% of the Chinese surveyed believed China's global influence was mainly positive, only 39% of respondents in other nations agreed – a 6 point drop on the previous year. It was the largest perception gap in any of the 21 countries.

Ethnic Uighurs look on as Chinese security forces stand by the entrance to the Uighurs neighborhood in Urumqi in China's Xinjiang autonomous region, July 8, 2009

"The public hold a strong hatred against the Chinese," declared Wang.

"Sometimes people in government are actually more friendly – they are more practical. But American people have a stronger hatred against Chinese people aroused by the media. It's the same in Germany, France and Britain," he insisted.

Mutual suspicions erupted with last spring's fatal riots in Lhasa and the subsequent explosion of wrath from nationalists. They accused the western media, and wider public, of indifference to Chinese deaths, an exaggeration of Tibetan sufferings and deliberate distortions of the truth. China's fenqing ("angry youth") roared into action, bombarding journalists with death threats.

When a Tibetan activist tried to wrench the Olympic torch from a Paralympian during the Paris leg of the relay, passions went into overdrive. Thousands of flag-waving activists besieged Carrefour's Chinese stores; in Hunan, an American shopper fled as a crowd yelled "Kill the Frenchman".

Simmering rage
Years of "patriotic education" and media manipulation have helped to create this simmering rage. But nationalism is a longstanding force which China's leaders fear as well as foster. It bolsters support for an unelected government. It can also push them towards foreign policy positions they suspect are unwise and it has a history of toppling regimes which fail to meet patriotic expectations. The Carrefour protests were squashed before they could spread.

Wang is well-versed in western thinking, from classical philosophers to Jared Diamond and Francis Fukuyama. He has travelled abroad and reads and watches western media. But he says there is no paradox in the fact that increasing western influence is accompanied, in many cases, by increasing hostility. He sees it as a natural reaction to the idealisation of the west.

"When Chinese people go outside they realise the outside world is not as good as it was described and China is not as bad. That's why the more Chinese people travel, the more nationalistic they become.

"Our book is focused on these points because many Chinese think westerners are angels. [But] to be honest, I don't think there should be such huge resentment. We're business partners," he said.

Cheap Chinese labour has undercut western manufacturers, but also kept inflation down. Meanwhile, western shoppers have kept Chinese citizens in work. China has taken vast amounts of mineral wealth from Africa; but it has also provided infrastructure.

China and other nations will continue to clash on many fronts – from human rights to resources. But China's citizens are looking to a multipolar world, not to global supremacy.

When a recent internet survey asked whether China had the power to lead the world, 54.4% agreed it "should seize the best opportunity created by the financial crisis". Another 41.3% reached very different conclusions, judging that "this radical nationalism must be brought under control".

Thousands of miles away from home, Xu Shunjian is digging into rice and stir-fried vegetables with his chopsticks, as Chinese state television blares in the background. He came to Africa only to make money, and he misses his motherland.

But after supper he shows off photographs of dinner at a Ugandan colleague's home: "I learned to use fingers to take food like that … you see!" he exclaimed happily.

"I want to learn things from different countries and learn about their differences," he said. "Of course, when you go to another country, your patriotic feelings will rise. But I've also become more open-minded."

Guardian