US must bring Japan, China, South Korea to round table

The world’s top three economic powers—the United States (US), China and Japan in that order—last week crawled very close to a serious confrontation when Washington and Tokyo flew military and civilian planes in an area around a chain of uninhabited islands in the East China Sea where Beijing has imposed a so-called new air defence zone stipulating that no one should cruise within the restricted perimeter without its knowledge. Of course, a few days later, the US cruised right through the zone—unchallenged.

Some analysts say with the asserted defense zone, China may have overplayed its hand and misjudged the type of response the US and Japan could and did unleash.

Going by the recoiled response from China, it also looks like Beijing may not have prepared itself for an aggressive Washington answers either.

Indeed, after telegraphing weakness and vacillation on Syria as well as other Middle East foreign policy challenges and having deferred to China for years on a number of diplomatic stand-offs with the ‘frenemy’, US president Barack Obama surprised many, including winning rare praise from some conservative foreign policy establishments, when a few days ago he authorised the Pentagon to send two B-52 bombers to boldly voyage for over two hours around the very Chinese-imposed defence zone without informing Beijing, a move that is a middle finger from the US to China on the zone.

Even Japanese civilian planes followed suit, flying around the area without filing flight plans with the Chinese authorities.

All these tours went unchallenged by Beijing, blinking away its recent assertive stance in the face of a confrontational US military might whose full force China may not want bearing on its territorial interests, at least for now anyway.

Remember that China’s annual defense budget, at around $110 billion, is just roughly 17 percent of US’s $600 billion, guaranteeing Washington super power status at least for the next two decades.

It has to be said, however, that thanks to a robust economy, China’s defence budget has been jumping by more than 10 percent annually over the past couple of years whereas that of the US and other Western allies has either stagnated or slightly dropped as the economy has teetered.

Back to the defilement of China’s imposed zone, all that a humiliated Beijing could do was to whimper away a recoiling statement when asked about China’s lack of enforcement against the American planes.

“We will make corresponding responses according to different situations and how big the threat is,” said Qin Gang, spokesperson at China’s Foreign Ministry.

Beijing had all but blinked, raising nationalistic questions and warnings from some voices inside the Chinese Government that by failing to enforce the zone, foes would think that the world’s second largest economy was pursuing “armchair strategy,” a tag that could embody its diplomatic duelling partners.

What must have thrown China further off balance is the fact that the US has been very reluctant to get involved or take sides in the territorial row and has for years pursued a neutrality policy in the island saga, only to send a strong and clear message to Beijing that if it comes down to the wire, America will side with Japan.

The uninhabited islands—known as Diaoyu in China and the Senkaku in Japan—have been the subject of long-running territorial dispute largely between China and Japan as well as South Korea to a certain extent owing to their strategic and symbolic value to all the three primary players.

The US’s involvement comes in through a deal between Tokyo and Washington in which the former has pledged to underwrite the latter’s security, including that of the disputed islands.

But now that the Obama administration has demonstrated its spine and muscularity when it counts to deter an increasingly assertive China that is enjoying burgeoning economic and military might as well as global geopolitical influence, Washington must now move quickly to defrost the icy atmosphere among China, Japan and South Korea.

This must be done not just to ensure continued stability in the region, but also to keep the global economy away from shocks that can come as a result of any major conflict, no matter how remote at this stage, among the top three economies.

The Middle East problem has for a long time derailed world economic progressing in one way or the other, but a Far East crisis involving China, Japan and South Korea—with the US thrown into the mix willingly or unwillingly—could be catastrophic both to the global economy and world peace.

That is why it is of utmost importance that the US leverages its international position to bring the trio to a round table and deal with the matter instead of playing cat and mouse with and around each other as has been the case for years.