Rising dragon

China’s long march into the 21st century has begun. Its foreign and defence policy will be inextricably linked to the country’s ambitions for sustained economic growth. Paul Harris reports.

The high profile event of 2004 was the appointment of President and Party General Secretary Hu Jintao as Chairman of the Communist Party of China Central Military Commission (CMC). Although it might be observed that the appointment hardly came as a great surprise, it, nevertheless, effectively confirmed Hu Jintao as China’s all-powerful strong man for a long time to come.

So long as 78 year-old former Party General Secretary Jiang Zemin held on to the influential post at the head of the country’s armed forces, divisions within the ruling elite had remained a possibility. Jiang had headed the CMC for 15 years. But 61 year-old Hu Jintao’s leadership position, as the ‘three-in-one’ leader of China is now virtually unassailable.

On taking over, Hu immediately stressed that the most important issue for the building and development of the Chinese army was to adhere to the Party’s absolute leadership over the armed forces. Work on the much-needed modernisation of China’s armed forces will continue under Hu Jintao with emphasis on improved training. Hu Jintao also affirmed the historical role of the army, “I hope the military will always preserve the political nature of the Red Army… to carry on our army’s glorious tradition and fine style of work one generation after another.”

However, to a great extent, historic traditions continue to inhibit current performance in an essentially old-fashioned military establishment still little reduced below the 2.5 million mark. The introduction of modern battlefield technology and weaponry, while downsizing the present cumbersome machine, remains a daunting challenge.

Behind the scenes, the fight against terrorism has been accorded the highest priority by the Chinese leadership. China may not have been subject to the sort of high profile terrorist attacks which have scarred the international body politic since 9/11. However, Chinese leaders have chosen, in stark contrast to pre-9/11 western policy, to take a pre-emptive position by promoting public awareness of incipient threats, the training of special forces and armed police, and active co-operation with other states.

Current terror threats mostly emanate from the fractious north western province of Xinjiang. Public acknowledgement came for the first time in December 2003 when the Counter-Terrorism Bureau of the Ministry of Public Security named four Eastern Turkistan groups as being responsible for terrorism: the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM), the Eastern Turkistan Liberation Organisation (ETLO), the World Uygur Youth Congress (WUYC) and the East Turkistan Information Centre (ETIC).

All four organisations are said to have plotted, organised and executed bombings, arson, assassinations and other violent activities, mainly in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. The full extent of the threat posed to public order in Xinjiang is difficult to assess as little information percolates out of the region, generally off limits to the international media. However, it is probably more serious than is generally appreciated. ETIM and its affiliates have carried out more than 260 known attacks inside the Xinjiang region in the last ten years, killing 162 people and wounding 440.

China expressed concern in December 2003 that leaders of several of these organisations operated in other countries: ETIC leader Abdujelil Karikax in Germany and the ETLO out of Istanbul. ETLO activities are now believed to have spread beyond Xinjiang: in 2003 a cell was uncovered in China’s northern Hebei province. ETIC has sought to distribute leaflets promoting jihad as far afield as Beijing, Anhui and Shanxi provinces.

Both ETIM and the ETLO are widely acknowledged to be linked with al-Qaida and Taliban remnants, from which they derive funds and training. Personnel travel to Afghanistan for training and the terror activities cross over into Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. In 2001, WUYC cadres were arrested in Nepal after establishing a training camp there.

China protested to the German authorities over a meeting in Munich attended by representatives of the WUYC and ETIC in April. Several persons on China’s most-wanted list of terrorists were said to be in attendance for the purpose of establishing a unified, separatist organisation.

China is placing increasing emphasis on the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation (SCO) as the instrument with which to deal with regional instability in the Central Asian region. The SCO, which grew out of the so-called Shanghai Five, was formed in 2001 and comprises China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Mongolia is seeking to join and currently enjoys observer status.

The Secretariat of the SCO was established in Beijing in January and the Regional Anti-Terrorism Structure in Tashkent (a combination of information centre and think tank) was inaugurated as the body held its June summit in the Uzbek capital. At the annual meeting in Bishkek in September strategies for defeating East Turkistan terrorism were again high on the agenda.

China’s active co-operation with Kyrgyzstan was highlighted in September by meetings in Bishkek, on the sidelines of the SCO meeting there, between Premier Wen Jiabao and PM Nikolai Tanayev. In May, President Hu Jintao met with the Kazakh President in Bejing. They vowed to fight terrorism together and also inked an agreement for the construction of a 3,000 kilometre oil pipeline to bring Caspian Sea crude to western China.

Early in 2004, it was an open secret in diplomatic circles in Beijing that US special forces were operating in Xinjiang in association with Chinese security forces. Unsubstantiated speculation suggested that Osama bin Laden had taken refuge in the far north west of the region around the Afghan and Pakistani borders. There has been extensive co-operation between Chinese and Pakistani security forces.

In December 2003 it was belatedly announced that, in October, a joint operation had resulted in the death of Hasan Mahsum, head of ETIM, near the Pakistani border. Other ETIM/ETLO fighters were killed in South Waziristan by the Pakistanis in June. In August 2004, Pakistan and China held their first major anti-terrorism exercise west of the city of Kashgar, in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.

Following the US intervention in Afghanistan it became apparent that the US was holding in custody Uygur activists affiliated with ETIM at Camp X-Ray in Guantanamo Bay. China requested their extradition but this was refused in August 2004. US Secretary of State Colin Powell announced that he would not authorise the return of 22 Uygurs to China but said the US would find ‘another destination’ for them.

The decision was sharply criticised in the Chinese press. Opined the official mouthpiece, China Daily, “Undoubtedly, it is China, not other countries, that should bring justice to the Chinese ‘East Turkistan’ forces, which make up part of the international terrorist network”.

Within Xinjiang, the government is seeking to head off separatist tendencies with investment and trade. In 2003, the region recorded $4.77 billion of imports and exports, up 77 per cent on the previous year. There is an intensive road and railway programme of construction as communications are improved.

In terms of the Chinese mindset Taiwan and Hong Kong firmly remain internal matters. However, the problems raised have international dimensions which occasion foreign policy decisions by other states. Taiwan will never be seen by the CPC as anything other than an integral part of Chinese territory and tensions have been stoked during 2004 by Taiwan leader Chen Shui-bian and his efforts to impose a formal independence timetable.

Taiwan’s 19 June Han Kuang 20 military drill, assisted by a 60-member panel from the Pentagon, inevitably raised hackles in mainland China. There is deep resentment over US policy supportive of Taiwan with logistics, weaponry and training which includes Patriot anti-missile systems, P-3C Orion anti-submarine aircraft and diesel-engined submarines. Similarly, joint US-Japanese military manoeuvres near the Ryukyu Islands, not far from Taiwan, have occasioned suspicion that the drill was aimed at dealing with the imaginary emergency of the Chinese mainland attacking Taiwan.

A US Defence Department report has been widely quoted by commentators in China; it is alleged that the US has proposed the supply of missiles which could hit civilian targets in China. This has occasioned dismay, especially as analysts have compiled a list of alleged proposed targets including the new Three Gorges Dam and the landmark Oriental Pearl TV Tower in Shanghai.

The vicious rhetoric often seems to suggest that conflict between Taiwan and China is inevitable. However, Beijing fully recognises the potentially devastating economic effect of war on future development prospects. Reunification, peaceful or otherwise, does not seem to be a likely scenario and the present uneasy state of affairs looks set to continue for many years.

Pressures from the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong have focused world attention on the political development of the former British colony. Beijing has chosen to interpret the Basic Law applying to the Special Administrative Region in an uncompromising manner. It backed its stance up dramatically during the week-long May holiday when the Chinese navy sent a flotilla of eight ships and submarines into Victoria Harbour.

The PLA in a statement said the visit was “to help Hong Kong residents have a better understanding of the Navy, as well as the modernisation of the motherland’s infrastructure.” However, the visit was clearly meant to calm political tensions with a show of force and to reinforce in the minds of the population the indivisible linkage with Beijing.

Relations with neighbouring Japan remain enigmatic, dominated as they are by the conflicting elements of historic enmity and the requirement to do business at the beginning of the 21st century. According to Professor Niu Jun at the School of International Studies, Peking University, “It was Japan that brought unforgettable suffering and disaster to this region during World War II, and the country’s steadfast refusal to honestly face up to that history is the main reason it has never won the trust of its Asian neighbours.”

In August, the city government of Shanghai held air defence exercises “to remind local citizens of the Japanese invasion of Shanghai in 1937” (The Shanghai Daily). Simultaneously, there was a mourning ceremony at the Shanghai Songhu Anti-Japanese War Memorial Hall. News coverage of Japan within China is dominated by items harking back to the Japanese invasion and as such is reflective of the official, CP view: Chinese forced labourers win suit in Japan; Prime Minister Koizumi’s visits to the Yasukuni Shrine war memorial (“Koizumi should understand how his irresponsible actions can fray diplomatic relations with Japan’s neighbours” China Daily); WWII comfort stations in Nanjing should be protected as showcases of the atrocities of Japanese soldiers; the arrest of Chinese activists by Japan in the contested Diaoyu Islands; and the periodic discovery of hidden chemical weapons dating from the 1930s. Any Japanese bid to obtain a permanent Security Council seat would be resolutely opposed by China, such a move being suggested by Prime Minister Koizumi in his UN General Assembly speech in September.

Relations with Vietnam were marred during April by a dispute over the reportedly oil and gas-rich Nansha Islands in the South China Sea, regarded as Chinese territory but also coveted by Vietnam. Vietnam has announced that it intends to offer tourist visits to the islands to visit Vietnamese military outposts. China denounces the proposals as provocative.

Chinese commentators often regret the fact that there is no East Asian security system; no Asian equivalent of NATO. The June deployment of ten F-117 Nighthawk fighters to South Korea on an unspecified mission alarmed Chinese military analysts fearful of US regional intervention. The Korean Peninsula nuclear issue has prompted China to take on the difficult role of ‘honest broker’ in the six party talks. However, the continued intransigence of North Korea gives little promise of an early resolution to the issue. If the talks should bear fruit at some time in the future, their multilateral arrangement might provide the basis for some sort of regional security mechanism.

Meantime, Chinese foreign and defence policy will be inextricably linked to the country’s ambitions for sustained economic growth. Here a prime consideration will be the need to preserve future supplies of resources like oil and steel from world trading partners: Chinese oil consumption rose a most significant 37 per cent year-on-year in 2003.