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Caution is essential in cross-strait
relations
By Lin Cheng-yi 林正義
Not long ago, we were hearing a lot about China’s peaceful rise. Lately,
however, China’s leaders have apparently started to worry that people in other
countries might associate the word “rise” with the ascent of a hegemonic power,
so instead they have started to talk about “peaceful development.”
However, what other countries are really concerned about is whether China’s rise
will be as peaceful and harmonious as promised. In recent years, Beijing has
stressed the idea of soft power. Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) even said China would
not become a hegemonic power as it grew stronger.
Many things Beijing has done, however, show that there is a big difference
between what it says and what it does. China is a great power, but a fragile
one, characterized by both a sense of self-importance and a lingering
inferiority complex.
Relatively stable relations across the Taiwan Strait have allowed China to take
a tougher stand in the South China, East China and Yellow seas than before.
While avoiding arguments with Taiwan, Beijing wants to prevent Vietnam from
taking advantage of its turn at the head of ASEAN to advance its territorial
claims in the South China Sea. China has also denied the US the right to voice
any opinion about the disputed Spratly Islands (南沙島礁). It set a deadline for
Japan to release Zhan Qixiong (詹其雄), a trawler captain arrested near the
disputed Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台) and responded to US-South Korean naval
maneuvers in the Yellow Sea by firing off rocket salvos in its own war games.
Beijing dealt with the latest Diaoyutai incident by making threats against
Japan. It suspended exchanges between officials, stopped sending tour groups,
halted exports of rare metals to Japan and detained four Japanese nationals for
making video recordings in a military zone. Although there have been
anti-Chinese demonstrations in Japan, they hardly compare to the nationalistic
protests in China, with Japanese shops smashed up in Chengdu and Xian.
Although China and Japan say they want to maintain “mutually beneficial
strategic relations” and hold summit meetings every year, trust between the two
countries remains fragile.
At the same time, China and the US say they want a “positive, cooperative and
comprehensive relationship,” and have started to hold “strategic economic
dialogue” meetings at least once a year. Yet political trust is lacking and
military exchanges take place in fits and starts.
Discord is not confined to China’s relations with the US and Japan. Following
the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo (劉曉波),
China struck back at Norway by canceling meetings in Beijing with its minister
of fisheries, even though the Norwegian government has no say in who gets the
prize.
China’s hard-line diplomatic treatment of the US, Japan and Norway shows that it
is still not a responsible power. It also shows that Beijing lacks
self-confidence and tends to imagine that other countries are trying to contain
it.
Even though relations across the Taiwan Strait are quite stable right now, we in
Taiwan have a close-up view of China’s hard-line behavior in the South China and
East China Seas. Beijing has thrown Taiwan some economic treats, but not without
expecting reciprocation in the political sphere. If China’s rise were really as
peaceful as it claims, its neighbors would not feel the need to be so cautious.
Beijing’s handling of various issues has made it clear to the US and Japan that
China’s rise will not be peaceful. Taiwan, too, should remain vigilant, because
the present stability in the Taiwan Strait is unlikely to last forever.
Lin Cheng-yi is director of the Institute of European and
American Studies at Academia Sinica.
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