A broader Asia without China?
Yan Wei

SHAPING a “strategic and global partnership” with India. Creating a new two-plus-two security dialogue involving top foreign affairs and defense officials with Australia modeled on the one with the United States. Conducting joint military drills with the United States, India and Australia. Japan, under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (who offered his resignation on September 12 at a press conference held at his office), is doing all these and more to form a strategic alliance with these three major countries, while purposefully excluding China, Chinese international affairs experts said.
“Abe’s attempts to promote ‘value-oriented diplomacy’ and construct a ‘four-nation alliance’ are apparently directed at China,” wrote Li Yan, a scholar at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR), in World Affairs magazine. Japan is concerned that its status in East Asia would decline in the wake of China’s development. Abe’s vision of a “quadrilateral grouping” comprising Japan, the United States, India and Australia aims to expand Japan’s diplomatic frontiers and to marginalize China by citing “common democratic values” and besiege the country geopolitically, he wrote.
But this vision is unlikely to materialize, because it runs counter to the “historical trend” and is unwelcome by the other three countries, experts said. An unpopular initiative During his recent visit to India, Abe called for a “broader Asia” partnership. He made the comments in an address to a joint session of India’s parliament on August 22.
“This partnership is an association in which we share fundamental values as well as strategic interests,” Abe said. “By Japan and India coming together in this way, this ‘broader Asia’ will evolve into an immense network spanning the entirety of the Pacific Ocean, incorporating the United States of America and Australia.”
Abe has proposed a four-way “strategic dialogue” between Japan, the United States, Australia and India. The quadrilateral dialogue kicked off on May 25 when the four countries’ senior officials met for the first time on the sidelines of an Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Regional Forum meeting in Manila. During the forum’s 14th annual meeting in Manila on August 3, Japan actively lobbied for its “quadrilateral initiative.” Japan’s initiative encountered a setback at the very beginning, CICIR’s Li said. The United States takes a prudent attitude toward it, he said. One of the reasons is that Washington is worried that its strategic interests in East Asia may be jeopardized if Japan takes this opportunity to get rid of its control and dominate the future of the Asia-Pacific region.
The U.S. Congress has decided to keep the ban on the export of its latest F-22 fighters. It also has adopted a resolution calling on Japan to formally acknowledge, apologize for and take responsibility for forcing women from countries it occupied into sexual slavery during World War II. These moves exemplified Washington’s concern over Japan, Li said. Moreover, Li pointed out that the United States is concerned that Japan’s quadrilateral initiative may provoke China into fierce reactions, which could harm Asia-Pacific security and stability. The United States needs to cooperate with China on a series of issues such as the North Korean nuclear issue, the Iranian nuclear issue and antiterrorism, he said. Provoking China is not in the interest of the United States, he added.
Liu Jiangyong, professor at the Institute of International Studies of Tsinghua University, agreed. The United States has no intention to shape a strategic alliance against China today, although it made such futile attempts during the Cold War, he said. Since the September 11 terrorist attacks in 2001, the United States has put antiterrorism at the top of its national security agenda. With the Iraq War being prolonged and international terrorism rapidly spreading, the United States is confronted with an invisible enemy - the global terrorist network. The risk of nuclear proliferation is just as severe. Given these, the United States now faces even graver threats than in the Cold War, Liu said.
American national interests demand that the United States collaborate with China instead of running into conflicts with the country, Liu said. As neoconservative forces disappeared from the second administration of George W. Bush, the United States has more clearly defined China as a “stakeholder.” At the same time, it showed increasing dissatisfaction over Japan’s right-wing forces. While putting the U.S.-Japan alliance at the center of its Asia-Pacific strategy, the Americans are unwilling to align with Japan against China or do anything to hurt China-U.S. relations because of Japan, he said. Varying perspectives
During Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to Japan in December last year, the two countries decided to establish a “strategic and global partnership.” Japan and Australia signed a security agreement during Australian Prime Minister John Howard’s visit to Japan in March. They agreed to enhance their joint foreign and defense ministry discussions and to have ministerial talks on a regular basis. The first two-plus-two dialogue was held in Tokyo on June 6, making Australian the second country in the world to hold such a discussion with Japan.
Japan, the United States and Australia conducted their first trilateral military drill in Japanese seas in April. In early September, the three countries together with India and Singapore staged a large-scale military exercise in the Bay of Bengal. However, India and Australia have different agendas, experts said. Despite stronger political and security cooperation between Australia and Japan in recent years, Australia’s main goal is to encourage Japan to play a greater role in maintaining security in the Pacific region, Li said. With its national power swelling, Australia hopes to exert its influence in the Asia-Pacific region, he said. Neighboring Solomon Islands, Fiji and Timor-Leste are all torn by wars and conflicts. However, Australia does not have adequate troops, a problem that is aggravated by its sending of troops to Iraq and Afghanistan. It therefore needs Japan’s help in peacekeeping missions, Li said.
Initially, Australia did not respond positively to Japan’s “four-nation alliance” for fear of angering China, its second largest trading partner, Li said. It insists that the Australia-Japan security agreement signed in March has no anti-China focus, he said.
India, a country that cherishes its tradition of independent diplomacy, has not show much interest in the initiative, either, Li said. It has been prudent about U.S.-Japan security cooperation, especially with attempts to curb China’s influence through this cooperation, Sharing common interests on a number of major issues, China and India have seen their relations progress smoothly in recent years. Given its diplomatic tradition and practical needs, India will not tilt itself in favor of Japan and the United States, Li said.
Li added that India is strengthening its ties with the two countries in part to attract investment from them and raise its own international standing, thereby upgrading its cooperation with China and Russia. Sincerity counts More importantly, Li said Japan’s “quadrilateral initiative” contradicts the historical trend at a time when security cooperation and common development are becoming the consensus in the Asia-Pacific region. The ASEAN Regional Forum, the ASEAN plus China, Japan and South Korea mechanism and the East Asia Summit constitute the major security structure in the region. China, the United States, Russia, Japan, ASEAN, India, Australia and South Korea are all participants in and builders of the structure. No Asia-Pacific security structure can be established exclusive of any of these parties, Li said.
Li pointed out that Japan is attempting to dominate the security order in East Asia with a “four-nation alliance” by is giving short shrift to the roles of China, Russia and ASEAN. Its exclusiveness is likely to deepen other countries’ suspicions and eventually make the proposed alliance the biggest instable factor in the region, he said.
Since he took office in September last year, Abe has introduced some changes to Japan’s foreign policy, Li said. On the one hand, Japan is trying to repair its frayed political relations with China by making a compromise on the hotly contested issues concerning its perception of the wartime past. On the other hand, it is cautiously competing with China for geopolitical dominance. To that end, it seeks to raise its profile as it advocates a “value-oriented alliance” and an “arc of freedom and prosperity” in its diplomatic activities with major countries, Li said.
By proposing the “broader Asia” concept, Japan is taking a step toward implementing its “value-oriented diplomacy,” Liu of Tsinghua University said. It is obviously not a geographic concept but a political one, because Japan does not put its relations with China on a par with its relations with the other three countries, he added. In Japan’s view, Sino-Japanese relations are built only on “common interests,” while its relations with the United States, India and Australia are based on “common interest” and “shared values,” he said.
However, fostering an “Asian NATO” within the framework of the Japan-U.S. military alliance will be extremely difficult given the other three countries’ reluctance, he said.
Abe’s policies have taken a toll on Sino-Japanese relations, Liu said. Chinese statistics show that in the first half of this year, two-way trade between China and Japan grew 14.5 percent over the same period last year, compared to 50.3 percent growth in China-India trade. In terms of human links with China, South Korea is way ahead of Japan, Liu said. He predicted that China-South Korea relations would grow more prosperous than Sino-Japanese relations in the near future. “Japan should sincerely improve its relations with China in the spirit of creating win-win results for all countries in the region,” he said. “Attempts to build blocs mean nothing but a waste of diplomatic resources and are bound to fail.”

(The Daily Mail-Beijing Review  Articles Exchange Item)
 

Afghanistan: A war won & lost
Gwynne Dyer

THIS week is the sixth anniversary of the start of US airstrikes against Al-Qaeda and its Taleban hosts in Afghanistan. It was a very clever politico-military operation, and by December of 2001 all of Afghanistan was under the control of the United States and its local allies for a total cost of 12 American dead. Then, for no good reason, it fell apart, and now the war is lost.
In the days just after 9/11 George Tenet, the Central Intelligence Agency’s chief, came up with a bold proposal. Why invade Afghanistan with a large American Army, deploying massive firepower that kills large numbers of locals and alienates the population? Why give Osama Bin Laden the long anti-American guerrilla war that he was undoubtedly counting on?
Instead, Tenet proposed sending teams of CIA agents and Special Forces into the country to win the support of the various militias, loosely linked as the Northern Alliance, that still dominated the northern regions of the country. Although the Taleban had controlled most of the country since 1996, they had never decisively won the civil war. So why not intervene in that war, shower their opponents with money and weapons, and tip the balance against the Taleban?
By mid-December 2001 the United States effectively controlled Afghanistan through its local allies, all drawn from the northern minority groups: Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazara. There had not been the mass killing of innocent bystanders that would inevitably have accompanied a conventional US invasion, so there was no guerrilla war. The traditional ruling group and biggest minority, the Pashtun, who had put their money on the Taleban and lost, would have to be brought back into the game somehow, but the usual Afghan deal making would suffice.
Washington had the wit to make Mahmoud Karzai, a Pashtun from a clan that never had much to do with the Taleban, its puppet president in Kabut, but it didn’t carry through. It froze out all the prominent Pashtun political and religious leaders who had had dealings with the Taleban — almost all of them.
The Taleban had been the government of Afghanistan for almost five years, and were at the time the political vehicle of the Pashtun ascendancy in the country. If you were a traditional Pashtun leader, how could you not have had dealings with them? An amnesty that turned a blind eye to the past, plus pressure by the United States on its recent allies to grant the Pashtuns a fair share of the national pie, would have created a regime in Kabul to which Pashtuns could give their loyalty, even if they were less dominant at the center than usual. But that never happened.
The United States had so closely identified the Taleban with Al-Qaeda that it would not talk to Pashtun leaders who had been linked to the Taleban. The Pashtuns are still largely frozen out. That is why the Taleban are coming back.
Afghanistan has usually been run by regional and tribal warlords with little central control: Nothing new there. But now it is also a country where the biggest minority has been largely excluded from power by foreign invaders who sided with the smaller minorities, and then blocked the process of accommodation by which the various Afghan ethnic groups normally make power-sharing deals.
The Taleban are still the main political vehicle of the Pashtuns, because there has been no time to build another. It doesn’t mean that all Pashtuns are fanatics or terrorists. Indeed, not all the Taleban are fanatics (though many of them are), and hardly any of them nurse the desire to carry out terrorist acts in other countries. That was the specialty of their (rather ungrateful) Arab guests, who fled across the border into the tribal areas of Pakistan almost six years ago.
The current fighting in the south, the Pashtun heartland, which is causing a steady dribble of American, British and Canadian casualties, will continue until the Western countries pull out. (Most other NATO members sent their troops to various parts of northern Afghanistan, where non-Pashtun warlords rule non-Pashtun populations and nobody dares attack the foreigners.) Then, after the foreigners are gone, the Afghans will make the traditional inter-ethnic deals and something like peace will return.
Will Karzai still be the president after that? Yes, if he can convince the Pashtuns that he is open to such a deal once the foreigners leave. Will the Taleban come back to power? No, only to a share of power, and only to the extent that they can still command the loyalty of the Pashtuns once it is no longer a question of resistance to foreigners. Will Osama Bin Laden return and recreate a “nest of terrorists” in Afghanistan. Very unlikely. The Afghans paid too high a price for their hospitality the first time round.

—Arab News



Derailing a deal
Noam Chomsky

NUCLEAR-armed states are criminal states. They have a legal obligation, confirmed by the World Court, to live up to Article 6 of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which calls on them to carry out good-faith negotiations to eliminate nuclear weapons entirely. None of the nuclear states has lived up to it.
The United States is a leading violator, especially the Bush administration, which even has stated that it isn’t subject to Article 6. On July 27, Washington entered into an agreement with India that guts the central part of the NPT, though there remains substantial opposition in both countries. India, like Israel and Pakistan (but unlike Iran), is not an NPT signatory, and has developed nuclear weapons outside the treaty. With this new agreement, the Bush administration effectively endorses and facilitates this outlaw behaviour. The agreement violates US law, and bypasses the Nuclear Suppliers Group, the 45 nations that have established strict rules to lessen the danger of proliferation of nuclear weapons.
Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, observes that the agreement doesn’t bar further Indian nuclear testing and, “incredibly, ... commits Washington to help New Delhi secure fuel supplies from other countries even if India resumes testing.” It also permits India to “free up its limited domestic supplies for bomb production.” All these steps are in direct violation of international nonproliferation agreements.
The Indo-US agreement is likely to prompt others to break the rules as well. Pakistan is reported to be building a plutonium production reactor for nuclear weapons, apparently beginning a more advanced phase of weapons design. Israel, the regional Derailing a deal has been lobbying Congress for privileges similar to India’s, and has approached the Nuclear Suppliers Group with requests for exemption from its rules. Now France, Russia and Australia have moved to pursue nuclear deals with India, as China has with Pakistan hardly a surprise, once the global superpower has opened the door.
The Indo-US deal mixes military and commercial motives. Nuclear weapons specialist Gary Milhollin noted Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s testimony to Congress that the agreement was “crafted with the private sector firmly in mind,” particularly aircraft and reactors and, Milhollin stresses, military aircraft. By undermining the barriers against nuclear war, he adds, the agreement not only increases regional tensions but also “may hasten the day when a nuclear explosion destroys an American city.” Washington’s message is that “export controls are less important to the United States than money” that is, profits for US corporations whatever the potential threat. Kimball points out that the United States is granting India “terms of nuclear trade more favourable than those for states that have assumed all the obligations and responsibilities” of the NPT. In most of the world, few can fail to see the cynicism. Washington rewards allies and clients that ignore the NPT rules entirely, while threatening war against Iran, which is not known to have violated the NPT, despite extreme provocation: The United States has occupied two of Iran’s neighbours and openly sought to overthrow the Iranian regime since it broke free of US control in 1979.
Over the past few years, India and Pakistan have made strides towards easing the tensions between the two countries. People-to-people contacts have increased and the governments are in discussion over the many outstanding issues that divide the two states. Those promising developments may well be reversed by the Indo-US nuclear deal.

—Khaleej Times