Be
careful Australia
China
muscles US in Pacific
WITHIN
two decades the United States will be forced out of the western
Pacific, says a senior Chinese military officer, amid concerns that
increasingly militarised great-power rivalry could lead to war.
16
February, 2013
Senior
Colonel Liu Mingfu, at the People's Liberation Army's National
Defence University, told Fairfax Media this week that American
strategic influence would be confined ''east of the Pacific midline''
as it is displaced by Chinese power throughout east Asia, including
Australia.
Colonel
Liu's interpretation of one facet of what the new Chinese leader, Xi
Jinping, calls ''a new type of great-power relationship'' adds to the
uncertainty and anxiety surrounding China's strategic ambitions.
It
clashes with comments days earlier by his university colleague,
General Zhu Chenghu, who told a conference in the US: ''We have no
intention of driving the US out of east Asia or the western
Pacific.''
Concern
about China's strategic ambitions has grown since last year's Chinese
occupation of islands administered by the Philippines in the South
China Sea and, particularly, China's continuing brinkmanship with
Japan and its security guarantor, the US, in the East China Sea.
Japanese
leaders have accused China of locking weapons-guiding radars on
Japanese targets - which China denies - while Western military
sources say Chinese planes, ships and submarines have challenged
Japanese-controlled waters and airspace around the Senkaku Islands.
Some
security analysts say Australian political leaders are in public
denial about the stakes involved and invidious choices the nation may
have to face.
''It's
the most dangerous strategic crisis that the US has faced - that the
world has faced - since the end of the Cold War,'' said Hugh White,
former deputy secretary of the Department of Defence.
China
and Japan, he said, were drifting closer to a war that could draw in
the US. ''This makes rather a nonsense of the mantra we hear both
from Gillard and Abbott that 'we don't have to choose between the US
and China','' he said.
An
assertive, rising China has also triggered the formation of a
regional latticework of new security linkages, partly pioneered by
Australia and now championed by the new Japanese Prime Minister,
Shinzo Abe, who proposes a ''democratic security diamond'' involving
India, the US and Australia.
Ely
Ratner, a fellow at the Centre for a New American Security, said
Australia should speak louder in favour of international laws, norms
and institutions given its dependence on rules and institutions that
enable the free flow of goods in east Asia.
As
much as 57 per cent of Australian exports pass through sea lanes in
the South China Sea, according to Australian government estimates.
''The
overriding question is whether China is interested in a region based
on rules and institutions that seek co-operative, non-coercive ways
to deal with disagreements,'' said Mr Ratner, who previously worked
at the China desk of the US State Department.
''Or
is it going to deal with disagreements by using military,
non-military and economic coercion, as we saw against the Philippines
and Japan, and diplomatic coercion as we saw at the East Asia
Summit,'' he said, referring to China's intervention at the summit to
block discussion of maritime security issues.
Last
month, James Fanell, intelligence chief for the US Pacific Fleet -
which commands six aircraft carrier groups - told a San Diego
conference that China's ''expansion into blue waters is largely about
countering the Pacific Fleet''.
Even
China's civilian maritime surveillance agency ''has no other mission
but to harass other nations into submitting to China's expansive
claims,''
he said. Colonel Liu, who previously warned Australia not to support
the Japanese ''wolf'' or American ''tiger'' in any military showdown,
does not hold the rank of general or act as an official spokesman.
But
his views have been taken more seriously since his fiercely
nationalistic book The China Dream was allowed back onto the shelves
after Mr Xi's elevation in November, when Mr Xi began talking about
his own nationalistic ''China Dream''.
And
they reflect a common assertion in some quarters of Beijing, and
particularly the People's Liberation Army, that the Obama
administration's ''pivot'' to Asia is an aberration in a story that
will see the US Pacific Fleet eventually give up on its allies in the
region.
But,
said Robert Rubel, Dean of the US Naval War College's Centre for
Naval Warfare Studies, China's military ambitions will face natural
internal and external constraints as aggressive behaviour will cause
its neighbours to rally together.
''Some
guys here say they're xenophobic, they're hostile, and they're
probably right, but if they're halfway rational there are limits to
how much trouble they can cause without bringing their own house
down,'' said Professor Rubel, who helped design the US National
Maritime Strategy.
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