Tim Shorrock

China denounces US trade policy as protectionist one day after the Bush administration threatens to take Beijing to the World Trade Organisation for coddling its semiconductor industry.

A top World Health Organisation official praises China for coming clean on recent outbreaks of avian bird flu and contrasts the response to Beijing’s reticence last year to report the spread of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS). The Chinese Foreign Ministry wraps up the latest six-way talks on ending the Korean nuclear crisis by urging all parties to make “concerted efforts” to reach an agreement.

All of these incidents, taken from news reports over the past few days, underscore the emergence of China as the dominant force in Asia and “despite the enormous US military presence in Japan and Korea,” the diminishing ability of US leaders to shape events and drive

the political and economic agenda in the region.

These trends, according to a senior Asian diplomat and a former Pentagon official, reflect the dramatic shift in US diplomatic priorities to the Middle East in response to the events of Sep. 11, the growth of trade and cultural exchange within Asia, and a conscious decision by China’s leaders to engage the world community at all levels.

“They’re now prepared to do things they never did before,” said Kishore Mahbubani, Singapore’s permanent representative to the United Nations, pointing to China’s proposal for a free trade agreement with South-east Asia and its unusual admission that had botched its handling of the SARS outbreak last year.

“Clearly the great power in Asia is not the US,” added Kurt Campbell, the senior vice president of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies and the deputy assistant director of defence during the Clinton administration. The “structural flaw”, continued Mahbubani, has been replicated in the International Monetary Fund, which is often used to press US economic demands on developing countries. As a result, Asia has experienced a “renaissance” in which Asian journalists are challenging the “culturally bound” perspective of Cable News Network (CNN) and other Western media outfits, and once-formidable barriers between rival nations are being erased.

One of the most dramatic signs of this change can be seen on the border between Vietnam and China, which was heavily militarised just a few years ago, Mahbubani said. “But now the armies are gone, the landmines are gone, and there is a flourishing trade.” This growing integration in Asia, coupled with the economic strength of South Korea, China and other countries, make the region a far more realistic model for the Middle East than the vague plans for a liberal, democratic society put forward by the US in Iraq, suggested Mahbubani.

Campbell, who managed the Pentagon’s relations with East Asia during much of the 1990s, agreed there is a “very deep and growing ambivalence to the US” in Asia. But he disagreed with politicians who say that a ‘regime change’ in Washington will reverse this trend. “That’s not the case. . . this is structural and continuing,” he said. Ironically, said Campbell, Asia was seen as the rising power in the world in the years after the end of the Cold War. — IPS