China’s mixed motives in its belated and underwhelming response to diaster

Special to WorldTribune.com

By Donald Kirk, East-Asia-Intel.com

TACLOBAN, Philippines — The great game for power and influence in Asia laps up on the storm-ravaged shores of this devastated city in the form of a Chinese vessel known as the Peace Ark, with 100 doctors and nurses on board and 300 beds for patients in need of more than whatever’s left in local clinics.

No doubt about it, the Peace Ark made an impression that went far beyond its limited use in a struggle in which the vast majority of the people have no access to medical aid at all.

China's Peace Ark
China’s Peace Ark

While the staff and crew of the Ark do what they can to make up for China’s sluggishness in coming to the rescue, China’s lone aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, is on a training mission out in the South China Sea between the Philippines and Vietnam.

The startling contrast in the missions of these Chinese ships exemplifies China’s desire to expand its military influence while appearing as a friendly big brother to lesser powers that China sees as within its orbit.

The old “Middle Kingdom” complex puts China as the center of a world in which inferiors rely on it for mercy and favors while paying homage and obeisance.

The Korean peninsula was no exception. In the centuries of Joseon Kingdom rule, Korean kings journeyed to Beijing with elaborate retinues on lengthy missions that showed Korea’s subservience to the Chinese emperors.

These days China exerts its power over the peninsula as North Korea’s lone ally, source of most of its fuel and half its food and as South Korea’s biggest trading partner. In that role, China also offers a guarantee, of sorts, against the North actually following through on any of its bellicose threats against the South.

Here in the Philippines, the Chinese send their message of superiority in the form of their claim to the entire South China Sea. The Liaoning was not exactly gearing for war, but its mission in disputed waters is another sign of China’s determination to cling to island groupings claimed by both those countries.

The Liaoning, in its original form a Soviet ship that China acquired and refitted as its only aircraft carrier, hove into view after China had withdrawn several ships in early November to avoid the fury of Typhoon Haiyan, known as Yolanda in the Philippines.

Around the same time, the Peace Ark arrived in a much publicized bid to show Chinese goodwill after much criticism of its slowness to respond — as had a score of other countries, as well as NGOs and United Nations organizations.

The U.S. clearly had already won the goodwill sweepstakes by sending the aircraft carrier George Washington along with a marine expeditionary force in a much publicized display of humanitarian zeal.

The arrival of China’s Peace Ark, however, provided its own special moment in the drama considering all the bad publicity the Chinese were getting. The mayor of Tacloban, Alfred Romualdez, in his City Hall office atop a rise overlooking the harbor, extended an effusive welcome to the Chinese ambassador and assorted Chinese officials as the Ark came to the rescue.

You might have thought the Philippines and China were the warmest of friends as the ambassador came and left in a caravan of huge black limousines led by Mayor Romualdez’ cousin, Ferdinand Martin Romualdez, representing the island of Leyte, including Tacloban, the capital, in the Philippines Congress.

The timing of the typhoon’s assault on Tacloban, a city of 250,000 that bore the brunt of both the record-high winds and the subsequent tsunami-like waves, could not have been better from the viewpoint of China’s rising power stakes.

Shortly after the typhoon had forced thousands to flee out of the city, China declared its air defense identification zone covering most of the East Sea, notably that island cluster known as the Senkaku in Japanese and the Diaoyu Dao to the Chinese. Was this gesture a prelude to a regional war, and was China ready to flex its muscles in all the waters around its periphery?

Maybe so, considering that China’s busy building ports and bases that an American general once called a “string of pearls” around the rim of Asia. The Chinese in the Spratly islands off the Philippines southwest coast might have visions of turning their small base on one of those islands into another shining pearl.

Makes you wonder — is that medical vessel the precursor to a Chinese base in Tacloban? Not for now, it would seem, but the hospital ship could be a beginning. Was Typhoon Yolanda the perfect storm for China to get around to conveying an image of goodwill for a suffering people?

The Philippines, with a tiny military establishment shot through with corruption, would be no match for a Chinese power drive. After the Peace Ark’s departure, the Chinese would be sending warships to show who’s really the dominant power.

Columnist Donald Kirk is the author of “Looted: The Philippines After the Bases” and hundreds of articles about the Philippines. He’s at kirkdon@yahoo.com.

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