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A SENSE OF ASIA

Sino-American ambivalence


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By Sol Sanders
SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM

Sol W. Sanders

July 22, 2002

Despite cooing noises from the State Dept., the Washington-Beijing relationship is as ambiguous as ever ø and apparently bound to get more so. Neither at the China end nor in the U.S. do events offer hope that strategies would come into focus soon.

Reports from Beijing now confirm what has been suspected for months: President Jiang Ze-min hasnÕt the slightest intention of doffing his multiple hats that make him ChinaÕs supremo. That was supposed to have happened with a meeting this fall of the Communist Party since he is well over the 70 year retirement age. Giving up the presidency, the party leadership, were programed. This was supposed to be signify transfer of power from the CommunistsÕ third generation to the fourth, a chance to instill new energy and perhaps transformation of the system.

There had always been speculation that Jiang intended to hold on to his chairmanship of the PartyÕs military committee, from MaoÕs time the cockpit of power. Old Deng Hsiao-ping, the maximum leader before Jiang, had held on into his 90s, continuing to impact national decisions to the bitter end. But there is a difference: Deng was from the PeopleÕs Liberation Army , the mainstream of Communist power before their accession to power in 1949 and after they rescued the country from chaos after MaoÕs Cultural Revolution in 1966-76.

WhatÕs clear is that JiangÕs career as a outsider civilian apparatchik means that he must strike a bargain with the military. And thereby hangs the increased ambiguity. The recent murmurings from military soruces that Jiang ought not to retire have had to be bought. No one knows that price, probably not even the Chinese inner circle. But the issues are well known: more expensive hi-tech toys. [They got $2.8 billion in military imports last year.] They do not want to give up the vast military-industrial complex, including large chunks of civilian production. Nor do they want to give up lucrative corruption, like control of customs in some areas. Even the process of reducing the bloated manpower by ousting older, poorly equipped, poorly trained, largely manual labor is opposed.

Not only will the next few weeks, perhaps months, see this game of musical chairs played out ø mostly behind closed doors ø but there are growing implications for ChinaÕs external policies. China has, for example, been buying heavily from Russia Ñ airplanes and submarines. Keeping those armaments coming becomes a high priority for Jiang to continue his game of patsy with the military. There has been some criticism from the Russian military that arming their old adversary, especially in East Asia where MoscowÕs mandate faces even grimmer problems than in Europe and Central Asia. But Moscow needs money. More important, perhaps, from the standpoint of WashingtonÕs strategists, it may give Putin leverage with Jiang sorely missing in the past few years as China has tried to move in on the vacuum created by the fall of the Soviet Union in Central Asia and Siberia.

ChinaÕs new hardware, according to a recent report from the U.S. Department of Defense, has gone up along the Fukien coast opposite Taiwan. If Beijing does not, indeed, plan to force a military takeover against the other China, it is making a good show of it. The fact that the paper was finally issued ø inviting screams of invective from Beijing ø after what was a bloodbath inside the U.S. bureaucracy is part of the vacillation of American policy.

Almost simultaneously hawks in the Congress released a detailed paper linking U.S. trade and transfer of technology to China to the military buildup. With the trade imbalance growing ø the Chinese sold the U.S. $8.1 billion more than they bought in May, the highest since October 2001 ø it could be argued that American consumers are paying for that weapons buildup, from Russia and other suppliers. Some in Congress are clambering for a clampdown on this trade, at least on dual use exports, which boost the Chinese military program.

Taiwanese President Chen enters the fray at this point with a speech to his Democratic PeopleÕs Party, now holding a plurality in the legislature as well as the executive because of the split in the old Kuomintang of President Chiang Kai-shek. On the one hand, Chen told the Mainland leaders that he favored reunification China on democratic principles, but he warned that if they did not accept this formulation, Taiwan would go its own way as his DPP has always insisted was its program. Chen may have had the best of both worlds since it seems unlikely with the succession battle in Beijing, there could be serious negotiating with Taiwan ø or, for that matter, hopefully, any military adventure.

Sol W. Sanders, (solsanders@comcast.net), is an Asian specialist with more than 25 years in the region, and a former correspondent for Business Week, U.S. News & World Report and United Press International. He writes weekly for World Tribune.com.

July 22, 2002

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