World Tribune.com

Beijing boosts military diplomacy in America's backyard

By Willy Lam, East-Asia-Intel.com
SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM
Friday, May 11, 2007

China's president and commander-in-chief Hu Jintao has made “military diplomacy” a feature of his governance, with an intriguing focus on Latin America.

Chinese Defense Minister Cao Gangchuan raises a toast at a reception to mark the 77th anniversary of the founding of the People's Liberation Army in Beijing on July 31, 2004. Washington Post
The official New China News Agency announced Tuesday [May 8] that CMC Vice-Chairman and Defense Minister Cao Gangchuan will visit Cuba, Argentina, Chile and Greece. Cao leads a large entourage that includes the vice-commanders from the PLA navy and air force.

In the past few years, generals with membership in the policy-setting Central Military Commission (CMC), which is headed by Hu, have traveled to all corners of the world. This accords with the fact that to consolidate his grip over the People’s Liberation Army, Hu has allowed the top brass an unprecedented large say in foreign policy.

Military diplomacy, along with the fast-expanding reach of Chinese missiles and blue-water fleet, has also become crucial parts of Beijing’s assertive global power projection.

Cao’s Latin American tour comes upon the heels of that of Gen. Jing Zhiyuan, commander of the missile forces, who visited Chile and Argentina late last year. Jing’s trip caused quite a stir in the Washington policy community given the fact that he had apparently spurned a Pentagon invitation to visit the U.S. at around the same time.

What is Cao doing in America’s backyard? And why are the generals so interested in Latin America?

The easiest explanation may be that Cao, 72, is set to retire from both the CMC and the Politburo during the upcoming 17th Communist Party Congress in October — and that his round-the-world trip is an elaborate swansong, part of the perks now deemed de rigueur for retiring top brass. More importantly, however, is the fact that the CMC has expressed a high interest in Latin America since the early 2000s. In 2004, for example, Cao visited Brazil and another CMC Vice Chairman, Gen. Xu Caihou, Cuba.

At the very least, the PLA leadership is sending a message to the U.S. that it has the wherewithal to build up solid military-to-military relationship with America’s neighbors, including rogue states such as Cuba.

Cao is scheduled to meet with the ailing Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, during which both countries are expected to emphasize their “brotherly, comradely and all-weather partnership.”

For the past few years, the Chinese have reportedly maintained a high-tech, intelligence-gathering “listening facility” on the island. And both Chinese civilian and military leaders have expressed a high degree of enthusiasm in selling military hardware to Latin American countries as well as training the latter’s pilots, captains and other personnel.

And under Hu’s doctrine of the “marriage of the functions of the civilian and military sectors,” the generals are playing a sizable role in waging Beijing’s aggressive energy diplomacy.

Latin America is a valuable and reliable source of oil, minerals and high-protein foodstuffs for the resource-hungry PRC. And in the wake of the leaps and bounds growth of Chinese economic and military power, the Hu leadership is not unduly concerned with Washington’s reactions to Beijing’s high-profile activities in America’s back yard.

China’s new supremo is well aware that with American forces bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Bush administration needs Chinese cooperation, or at least acquiescence, in global trouble spots ranging from North Korea to Iran.


Copyright © 2007 East West Services, Inc.

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