China dances, US worries

I just finished reading Charm Offensive: How China’s Soft Power Is Transforming the World by Joshua Kurlantzick, a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace - a think-tank closely associated with the United States State Department.

The book was an instant hit last year, and inevitably stirred up some heated debate within the Chinese intelligentsia.

Kurlantzick - being a well-read, observant and globetrotting writer - certainly gathered substantive as well as substantial information for the book. For instance, he gives a comprehensive account of how Beijing cashed in on Washington’s failure to intervene in the 1997 Asian financial crisis and the catastrophic consequences of the Iraq War in 2003 to shore up support for China across Southeast Asia.

He also argues forcefully that the Chinese leadership could ride on the anti-American sentiments in the Middle East and win over the authoritarian regimes in the region, who might one day decide they could no longer ignore the groundswell of antagonism towards the US.

While the book does contain considerable primary and secondary sources of information, it is far from being neutral and objective.

Quite the contrary, it was written with a view to advising Washington on the immeasurable value of soft power backed by military might. Throughout the book, one can feel nothing but the deep-seated anxieties of a ‘patriotic’ American over the sharp drop of confidence in the superpower worldwide, and his angst is aggravated by the seeming rise of China’s popularity the globe over.

The author leaves no doubt that he is deeply concerned over the diplomatic overtures made by Southeast Asian nations such as Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia towards China - and the only country in the region that he is at ease with is Singapore - as he cites several diplomats from the island state to emphasise his latent fear of an assertive Chinese leadership. I should not be surprised given that Singapore has long been one of the closest allies to the US, now looking even more faithful and reliable than Australia and New Zealand.

Interestingly enough, James Wong, a so-called political strategist at Strategic Analysis Malaysia - does it still exist? - is quoted by Kurlantzick as saying that “the Chinese angered many Asians by so openly confronting Japan at the East Asia Summit”.

Paper circulation

But there are also some false assumptions in Kurlantzick’s bestseller too. To drive home the message that China has become a hot topic in Southeast Asia, the author states that Sin Chew Daily, the Chinese daily with the largest circulation in Malaysia, increased it readership from 845,000 in 1999 to 1.1 million in 2004, and believes it is because more Malaysians have “become interested in news about China."

Although I do not dismiss many are fascinated by the fast-expanding Chinese economy, it is only a negligible factor behind the rise in Sin Chew’s readership over the years.

Rather, it was the symbiotic relationship with the MCA and the controversial takeover of the rival newspapers, ie. Nanyang Siang Pau and the China Press, in 2001 that has secured Sin Chew’s anchor position in Malaysia’s Chinese press industry.

In fact, Chinese Malaysians had been reading Sin Chew long before China became anything, and Sin Chew’s coverage is still dominated by domestic news today. With the advent of the Internet, why bother reading a parochial Chinese newspaper when one can easily access the extensive (albeit propagandistic) Xinhua Net if one wants to know about China?

Kurlantzick’s lack of scholarship can be seen from some of the dodgy allegations that he makes in the book. For example, he suggests Admiral Cheng Ho’s voyages six centuries ago might have included “violent encounters with locals” and “facilitated a kind of Chinese economic colonialism of other regions in the world.”

However he gives no sources of information other than some vague scholarly references to buttress it. Perhaps some in the Southeast Asian countries were enthusiastic about the book merely because the author is American and affiliated with the US government.

Be so as it may, there are signs that Washington has started its counter-offensive in regaining its influence in the region, as desired by Kurlantzick.

In the wake of the closest Russo-China cooperation since the 1960s, and the increasing influence in the Pacific region, the White House has been seeking to strengthen its military presence there also.

Building on the trust of the Indonesian authorities in US military capabilities in humanitarian operation following the 2004 tsunami – a fact acknowledged by Kurlantzick - Washington has made available 10 radar systems to be installed from Sabang in Aceh Province. (It was not a top secret, but I was surprised when a friend of mine working closely with Mukhriz Mahathir actually contacted me for more information!)

Meanwhile, American research centers are working at a new agreement, which, if materialised, would widen NATO membership to Asia-Pacific countries. The new plan has its eyes on several important economies in the region, including Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand.

Reliable Singapore

Whether or not Singapore would be considered is beyond me, but I suppose any extension of that scale would have severe implications for Asean as a whole. But how would the selected countries’ agreement to be included in an vastly expanded NATO be “complementary” to the Bali Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia, which Japan, South Korea, New Zealand and Australia are part of, would be intriguing to watch.

A move as such would also enable the US to have a stake in the oil and gas fields in the region, precisely what Kurlantzick has in mind. It would also set off a heightened energy competition not too dissimilar from The Great Game in the past.

What is Kurlantzick’s position on the Iraq War? He prefers not to talk about it. But it is indeed interesting to see he ends his book with an encounter with a Burmese journalist Khin Maung Thwin in Rangoon, and the latter expressed his hope for invasion by the Bush administration so that the country would be lifted out of its bottomless misery.

Would Kurlantzick have put the poor Burmese guy in danger given the current climate in Burma? I don’t know. But regret the human disaster in Iraq the author certainly did not, which gives us a fair view of where the author is coming from.