Soft power?

In China’s maritime territorial disputes with its neighbors, South Korea has largely stayed out of the fray.
Part of the reason is economic: South Korean companies have sizeable investments in China and bilateral trade is robust.

Another reason is historical: China is feuding with a country South Koreans are not enamored with – former colonizer Japan.

Yet another reason is the fact that security-wise, China generally stayed out of South Korea’s hair… until recently, when Beijing declared an Air Defense Identification Zone or ADIZ over the East China Sea.
The Chinese ADIZ covers its claimed exclusive economic zone, but overlaps with Japan’s ADIZ – extended 22 kilometers westward by Tokyo last June to cover the Senkaku/Diaoyu group of islands. The Chinese ADIZ also overlaps with Taiwan’s and covers South Korea’s resort island, Jeju, the scenic setting for many romantic Korean telenovelas.

The Koreans aren’t amused. Reliable sources have told me that Beijing’s declaration has soured relations between the two countries, and Seoul is rethinking its defense posture vis-à-vis China.

Japan, for its part, appears to be adopting two major strategies. One is to ramp up its defense spending, upgrading its military capability over five years. This includes the development of an amphibious force and the acquisition of Ospreys, those winged aircraft capable of vertical takeoff that were sent by the US Pacific Command to the Yolanda-devastated areas.

Even with an increase to an annual $12 billion, Japan’s defense spending will still be much lower than China’s. But the Japanese are still ahead in technology. And Beijing will lose out on the other Japanese strategy, which is the projection of soft power, or winning friends and influencing the region.

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Judging from official pronouncements, Beijing is counting on history to present the Japanese military upgrade as a provocative move in the region.

But Japan is not laying claim to nearly the entire South China Sea, and flexing its muscles to stake the claim. Also, Japan circa World War II has been eclipsed by modern Japan, home of Sony and Toyota, video games and manga. Memories of an aggressive Japan have also been overshadowed by bombed-out Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

During one visit to Hiroshima, I was hosted for dinner at the home of a family of atomic bomb survivors. The father, a member of the Japanese Imperial Army, told me he was deployed during the war in the same Philippine province where my grandfather, as a member of the US armed forces, fought the Japanese. The father returned to Hiroshima and was there with his family when the bomb was dropped.

Any visitor to Hiroshima will find it hard to believe that Japanese wartime aggression can be revived.
More recently, the tsunami in northeastern Japan added to the country’s image of tragedy.

This year, Japan marks 40 years as a dialogue partner of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Japan has combined its new national security strategy with a regional charm offensive – not a forte of the Chinese.

At the recent Japanese summit in Tokyo with ASEAN, which President Aquino attended, Japan committed $19.2 billion in aid to the region for the next five years.

A statement at the end of the summit announced enhanced cooperation between Japan and ASEAN “in ensuring freedom of overflight and civil aviation safety” as well as “freedom of navigation.”

“Together with ASEAN, I want to build the future of Asia where laws, rather than power, rule and people who worked hard will be rewarded – which would lead to a prosperous society with mutual respect,” Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said.

The wording of the statement sounds a lot like the Philippines’ stand during other ASEAN gatherings. It calls for a rules-based, peaceful resolution of maritime territorial disputes, in accordance with international law.
Japan is providing patrol boats to the Philippines and Vietnam, which is also locked in a long-running territorial dispute with China.

More recently, Pinoys remember Japan for its prompt and substantial response in the areas destroyed by Super Typhoon Yolanda, the powerful earthquake in Cebu and Bohol, and the siege of Zamboanga City. Private Japanese companies have also pitched in.

Japan’s Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera visited Tacloban on Dec. 8, at the same time that Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop also visited.

I went with the Aussies on that day. From their tent hospital set up in Tacloban I could see the camp pitched by the Japanese forces. I don’t think any Pinoy expressed unease over the return of so many Japanese soldiers to Philippine soil.

Many members of the wartime Japanese Imperial Army were in fact Korean conscripts. But today Korea has a benign image in the Philippines, with its K-Pop, telenovelas and the presence of its manufacturing giants. The Koreans have also often expressed their appreciation for the Philippines’ deployment of a contingent to their country as a modest support force during the Korean War.

In an unprecedented gesture, the South Koreans are deploying over 500 soldiers overseas for the first time for purely post-disaster reconstruction work – in the Visayas. They will be posted here for a year.

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Pinoy reaction might have been different if Chinese soldiers had been sent to the typhoon areas. Beijing probably considered the reaction as well, and finally decided to send instead medical professionals on a hospital ship.

Since the help arrived much later than those of other countries, however, the gesture looked mainly like a reaction to criticism (from non-Filipino commentators) of Beijing’s initial aid of $100,000 for emergency relief. A common comment was that Beijing failed its test of projecting soft power in the region.

I missed several chances in recent weeks to meet with Chinese Ambassador Ma Keqing, who will be leaving Manila this month. The soft-spoken envoy has had a rough time here. At the start of her stint she told me she was “not very popular” in the Philippines, and that every time she opened her mouth in public she tended to end up in deeper trouble.

From her statement at her farewell reception last week, which I also missed, it looks like she hasn’t changed her opinion of her posting in Manila.

Unless there’s a change in Beijing’s actions in the region, it’s unlikely that her successor will have an easier time.

And the Philippines, together with some other countries in the region, will inevitably move closer to friends such as Japan.



Dec 07 2013 

China is not the only Asian country that has declared an Air Defense Identification Zone, or ADIZ.

Japan declared its ADIZ way back in 1969, extending its boundaries several times, most recently in June this year to include contested islands. South Korea, Vietnam and Taiwan also have their ADIZ. Like common waters, the ADIZ of several countries can overlap.

Unlike other states, however, Beijing’s unilateral declaration of an ADIZ is ratcheting up tension in the region. This is because Beijing is claiming nearly all the waters around it as its own. If it could get away with it, Beijing would probably draw up a 20-dash line and claim all waters all the way to Palau for China’s shark’s fin and turtle soups.

If Beijing declares an ADIZ over the East China Sea, it may not be long before it declares an ADIZ in the airspace over its so-called nine-dash line in the South China Sea. We may soon see Chinese military jets flying over Palawan’s airspace, protecting Chinese fishing boats, oil explorers, and gatherers of scaly anteaters, birds’ nests and corals.

An airspace, in international terms, means the sky over land territory plus waters up to 22 kilometers from the coast. The ADIZ is supposedly a more defined, restricted airspace where a country monitors and identifies approaching aircraft.

Defining territorial airspace while up in the sky can of course be tricky. Miscalculations and accidents can lead to confrontation and escalate into armed conflict, especially between countries with a long history of rivalry.

*   *   *

This is the concern expressed by the United States in China’s unilateral declaration. But Chinese President Xi Jinping, meeting with US Vice President Joe Biden this week, reportedly stood firm. We can guess that Xi has his people’s support in this, since China’s ADIZ covers airspace claimed by Japan, South Korea and Taiwan – not exactly Beijing’s best friends. Xi will lose face if he backs down on this issue.
Closer to Earth, China has also finally deployed its first aircraft carrier – a refurbished one pre-owned by Ukraine.

Photos showed the Soviet-era Varyag, now renamed Liaoning, with no aircraft on board.

An American naval official reportedly described the Liaoning as a “museum.” US navy officials have also told me that it will take years before the Chinese can have the trained crew for a fully operational aircraft carrier.
But the Liaoning’s deployment was an expression of Chinese annoyance after the US flew two unarmed B-52 bombers over the Senkaku/Diaoyu island chain claimed by both Japan and China. The bombers were deployed after Beijing declared its ADIZ.

Chinese officials in Manila and Beijing have told me that they are fully aware of the limitations in their defense capability and are not competing with the world’s lone superpower. The Chinese, incidentally, consider the superpower concept a relic of the cold war.

They prefer to project “soft power,” the Chinese say. But even in this aspect they stumbled when it came to timely assistance for the areas devastated by Super Typhoon Yolanda. Because China’s initial aid commitment was a pittance compared to what much of the world sent ASAP, its deployment of a hospital ship, although much appreciated by the typhoon victims, was seen here largely as (in Pinoy slang) a “forced to good” gesture.

China insists it has no hegemonic ambitions in the region. But its ADIZ declaration fuels concerns about what US officials see as an “emerging pattern of behavior” for the Asian giant.

That behavior is prompting several countries in the region, the Philippines included, to strengthen security cooperation with the US and its other close allies Japan and South Korea.

A concern for Filipinos is that the Liaoning will show up one day soon off Zambales in the West Philippine Sea.

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David Carden, America’s first resident ambassador to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, wishes that US ties with the region could go beyond the China issue.

Carden was in Manila earlier this week for the ASEAN Youth Summit. Meeting with a small group of journalists, he expressed his government’s concern over China’s ADIZ declaration and reiterated support for Manila’s arbitration case filed with the United Nations.

But he also emphasized that China must be a partner in regional growth. He pointed out that China has been a partner of ASEAN in many aspects apart from trade, including education, connectivity and infrastructure development.

“We applaud China’s engagement in the region,” Carden said. “I think that there are clear opportunities that exist in our interactions with one another.”

He lamented that whenever people discuss the US pivot to Asia or rebalancing of forces, “they always talk about the military aspect.”

US interests in the region, Carden emphasized, go beyond security issues. “The most immediate focus is an ASEAN economic community by 2015,” he said as he prodded the Philippines to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).

“It’s our hope and our expectation that our Filipino friends will see it in their best interest to be part of the TPP,” he said.

The TPP will be a platform not only for economic integration but also for empowering the Asia-Pacific to address four major challenges, Carden said: education, corruption, environmental issues and inequitable growth.

America, which Carden says bears “some of the responsibility” for the challenges, is also promoting the “four freedoms” – of expression and religion, and from fear and want.

Carden pointed out that everything is interconnected – environmental problems affect public health and food security, for example – and the world has gotten to the size “where we’re all neighbors now… we’re all in this together now.”

“It matters not only that you grow but also how you grow,” he said.

He could tell that to the Chinese, now the world’s second largest economy and still growing, but he’ll probably be told to mind his own business.

source:  Philippines Star Column of  Ana Marie Pamintuan