China Straining U.S.-U.K. Relations; South China Sea At Center?
OCT 21, 2015 , Forbes
In the art of statecraft, as in much else, Britain has never ceased being the master, and America the more often than not easily distracted, generally poor student.
Disparate policy stances and strategies toward China are now providing vivid and highly edifying example of this.
“US takes stern line on UK’s shirt to China,” declares a headline in the October 20
Financial Times.
Notes the FT, while Chinese president Xi Jinping received the expected honors in Washington during his state visit last month, and will enjoy the comparable treatment in London, “China experts in Washington say…the two Atlantic allies have diverged in the way they treat the rising Pacific power.”
Let me state my position clearly: In my view, the British approach to China is the correct one.
The Duchess of Cambridge and Chinese President Xi Jinping listen as Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II speaks at a state banquet in the Ballroom at Buckingham Palace, London, on the first day of the state visit to the Britain, Tuesday Oct. 20, 2015. (Dominic Lipinski/Pool Photo via AP)
Prime Minister David Cameron and his chancellor George Osborne have concluded that Britain’s national interests are served by “positively engaging” (my term) China. This means actively promoting activities, most obviously and materially commerce, that are “win-win.”
It also means–and here we can appreciate the depth of British diplomatic sophistication–not picking fights and pushing agendas that have little or no relevance to national interests, which are essentially
cultural and historical in origin.
The Brits–based on several centuries of experience–appreciate that, as Kipling wrote: “East is East and West is West.” That China’s 5000 year old political culture contains attitudes and mores that offend some Western sensibilities–particularly in more “progressive” countries like the United States–is accepted in Britain as a given, a fact of life, rather than as a challenge.
British Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne, left, shakes hands with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang before their meeting at the Zhongnanhai Leadership Compound Monday, Sept. 21, 2015 in Beijing, China. (Lintao Zhang/Pool Photo via AP)
From their own history and experience, the Brits would see little or no positive purpose or outcome in lecturing others–least of all China–on the proper conduct of its internal politics and law. True to their traditions, what the Brits want from China is “trade”–a term that nowadays includes reciprocal investment, project development, technology transfer, and like.
It was such clear-headed thinking by which Cameron’s government decided in March to break ranks with a would-be U.S. boycott and to join the China-promoted Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) as a founding member.
Such sobriety seems to elicit mainly incomprehension and derision from Washington, where bureaucratic self-interest seems to have placed every matter involving China in a “zero-sum” paradigm.
The FT article quotes Evan Medeiros, now at Eurasia Group after having been head of the China desk of the National Security Council: “If there is one truism in relations with a rising China, it is that if you give in to Chinese pressure, it will inevitably lead to more Chinese pressure. London is playing a dangerous game of tactical accommodation in the hopes of economic benefits, which could lead to more problems down the line.”
A clearer expression of the gap between U.S. and U.K. mindsets would be hard to find.
Australia’s Treasurer Joe Hockey (C) holds up his pen as he becomes the first to sign an articles of association to help set up the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) during a ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on June 29, 2015. The 57 founding member countries of the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) began signing articles of association setting up the new institution on June 29. The AIIB, which will have billions of dollars to lend, is expected to go into operation later this year. AFP PHOTO / WANG ZHAO (Photo credit should read WANG ZHAO/AFP/Getty Images)
Except that the Brits have calculated that “problems down the line”–if any–will be manageable, and are no reason
a priori to insert essentially gratuitous conflict into the relationship.
The American national security establishment is incapable of this kind of calculus. And the self-serving obsession with chimerical “problems down the road” is roiling relations with China now, particularly in the South China Sea (SCS).
An authoritative commentator on SCS issues is Dr. Sam Bateman who retired from the Royal Australian Navy as a Commodore and is now a professional research fellow at the Australian National Centre for Ocean Resources and Security (ANCORS). Bateman was awarded his PhD from the University of New South Wales in 2001 for a dissertation on “The Strategic and Political Aspects of the Law of the Sea in East Asian Seas.”
Writing in The Strategist
blog of the
Australian Strategic Policy Institute in May Bateman asks: “Does the US know what it’s doing in the South China Seas?”
He continues:
“The idea that the US may send military aircraft and ships to assert freedom of navigation around Chinese claimed islands in the South China Sea is seriously bad. It’s bad because it would involve an unreasonably assertive interpretation of the international law of the sea, and because it shows such little regard for the impact of such action on regional stability.”
My guess is that the Brits–who know something about naval affairs–would agree.
Particularly, as Bateman writes:
“The second issue [the first was debatable validity of claims] is the oft-stated line from Washington that China threatens the freedom of navigation in the South China Sea. But what freedoms are being threatened?
“China has always said that with freedoms of navigation and overflight, it only disputes the right of the US to conduct military activities, particularly certain types of intelligence collection and military data gathering (so-called ‘military surveys’) in its exclusive economic zone (EEZ).
“The last law of the sea issue arises from reports that the options being considered in Washington include sending aircraft and ships
within 12 nautical miles of the reefs and islands occupied by China….
China’s Defense Minister Chang Wanquan addresses the Xiangshan Forum, a gathering of the region’s security officials in Beijing, China, Friday, Nov. 21, 2014. Chang said Friday he wants to enhance dialogue to manage disputes with his country’s neighbors, sounding a conciliatory note after years of sharpened confrontations over territorial claims on land and sea.(AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)
“Even though the features may not be full ‘islands’ under UNCLOS, they have a territorial sea. Sending ships and aircraft into such waters specifically for demonstrating a right wouldn’t be a legitimate exercise of innocent passage. UNCLOS makes clear that innocent passage should be ‘continuous and expeditious,’ and shouldn’t involve ‘any threat or use of force against the sovereignty, territorial integrity or political independence of the coastal State.”
Concludes Bateman: “For all these reasons, the action contemplated by the US looks like a dangerously unilateral assertion of rights by Washington…Provoking China in such an aggressive and unnecessary many can only make the current situation worse. One wonders whether the US know what it’s doing in the South China Sea…”
And finally: “What does all this mean for Australia? Basically, it means we should keep well clear of what the US is contemplating, including joining Washington in these protests against China.”
Could David Cameron and George Osborne be heeding Bateman’s advice?
My guess is yes, and for very good reasons. Britain is showing that it will break ranks when American “leadership” is heading in the wrong direction.
That relations with China have become possibly the most serious conflict in U.S.-U.K. relations is of historic importance.