China Redux

President Bush’s State of the Union made no mention of China’s anti-satellite test (prepared text).

In his only mention of China in the address, Bush recognized China for its efforts to reign in North Korea:

Together with our partners in China, Japan, Russia, and South Korea, we are pursuing intensive diplomacy to achieve a Korean Peninsula free of nuclear weapons. And we will continue to speak out for the cause of freedom in places like Cuba, Belarus, and Burma — and continue to awaken the conscience of the world to save the people of Darfur.

Chinese leaders appreciate this sort of recognition, and putting China first in line is a nice touch. Of course, the very next sentence makes reference to the “cause of freedom” in, among other places, Burma — the cause of more diplomatic wrangling with China last week.

At least it was a subtle juxtaposition.

Senator Joe Biden became the first Democratic presidential candidate to weigh in on China’s anti-satellite test, during an appearance on Fox News Sunday:

“I don’t think we should be overly worried about this at this point,” Biden said. “We have ways to deal with that ability.”

Being worried and having ways to cope are two very different things. But Biden, the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, is probably right on both matters.

Biden seemed to suggest that the test pointed to the need for greater cooperation from the US towards the negotiation of a new space treaty.

“One of the things we have to talk about is whether or not the, sort of, ideological base notion about how we deal with space and weapons in space and the use of weapons from space is something that is a path we should continue to follow,” he said.

The phrase “ideological base notion” likely refers to the defining theme of the Bush Administration’s international affairs policy: the extreme distrust and disregard for international law and security measures. In theory, this type of anti-internationalism can produce real benefits for the US. But it can also come back to bite you. And it sure leaves you exposed.

Meanwhile, which of the other Democratic presidential candidates can compare to Biden’s wisdom and experience on foreign policy issues? I don’t think he’ll win the nomination, but you could see him in the role of Secretary of State.

First things first: Is this really possible? Well, sort of. According to the NYT’s David Sanger and Joseph Khan, Bush Adminstration officials are “uncertain whether China’s top leaders, including President Hu Jintao, were fully aware of the test or the reaction it would engender.” The authors go on to note that Hu could have approved the test in principle at an earlier date, but not been informed about its actual timing. Furthermore, administration officials believe that the Chinese foreign ministry was left in the dark about the test.

If Hu and the foreign ministry were aware of it, they surely miscalculated the reaction from the US and international community (Japan, Canada, and Australia are among the countries who filed protest). This is precisely the type of Cold War scenario hawks point to justify outsized rhetoric about the threat China poses to international security and US power.

“This is a wake-up call,” said Robert Joseph, the under secretary of state for arms control and international security. “A small number of states are pursuing capabilities to exploit our vulnerabilities.”

And it is exactly what is needed to pressure Congress into accelerating funding for US weapons systems aimed.

As a result, officials said, the Chinese test is likely to prompt an urgent new effort inside the Bush administration to find ways to counter China’s antisatellite technology. Among the options are efforts to “harden” vulnerable satellites, improve their maneuverability so that they can evade crude kinetic weapons like the one that destroyed the Chinese satellite and develop a backup system of replacement satellites that could be launched immediately if one in orbit is destroyed.

Are Chinese leaders speechless because they expected the test to fail and not turn the aging satellite into floating debris? If so, they aren’t saying. If it was indeed a miscalculation, China has every reason to come forward; doing so would allay the immediate concerns of the US, and China will have still gained critical knowledge of its technical capabilities.

China appears to be out of the loop in every way — no one does this sort of thing anymore. From the Times story:

American officials noted that the United States and Russia had not conducted such tests for two decades, and that the international norm had changed, in part because so many private satellites had been launched by many nations.

The anti-satellite test is certain to become a lynchpin for both sides in the argument about how to engage a rising China. Neoconservatives and China Threat wonks inside the administration will argue the test shows that China cannot be trusted to conform to international norms in the security arena. Here is a statement on MSNBC from an unidentified official at State:

Arms control is not a viable solution for space. For example, there is no agreement on how to define ’space weapon.’ Without a definition you are left with loopholes and meaningless limitations that endanger national security. No arms control is better than bad arms control.

On the other hand, advocates of engagement will argue that this test could have been avoided by earlier efforts to sign a new, more expansive space treaty. In theory, an agreement would create the means to punish any country that went ahead with activities such as this.

It’s still China’s move.

Michael Glosny wrote a piece for the December 2006 issue of CSIS’s Freeman Report that speculates on the motivations behind China’s growing foreign aid expenditures.

In the end, there is still much that is left unanswered about Chinese foreign aid – and that is the central problem. On the one hand, it may be difficult to draw stark conclusions about the intentions behind China’s foreign aid. However, it is clear that China’s foreign aid policy has become more active, sophisticated, and is driven by a range of different objectives.

It is safe to say that reducing poverty and promoting human development are not chief among those objectives. Following the recent announcement of the creation of a $5 billion China-Africa development fund, the China Daily reported that the purpose of the fund is “to encourage Chinese companies to invest in Africa and provide support to them.” So, China’s big foreign assistance push in Africa is actually an investment vehicle to assist Chinese companies overseas, cultivate export markets, and support the procurement of natural resources. On the other hand, China did pledge to cancel the debt of the least developed African countries.

Meanwhile, the US has a bona fide slogan for its foreign assistance strategy: reducing poverty through economic growth (!). Sure, it doesn’t always turn out that way, but the US can point to demonstrable achievements supporting human development in Africa and elsewhere. The Bush Administration’s malaria and HIV/AIDS initiatives are prominent examples of this. The US also has an independent agency set up to help US companies overseas, OPIC, but its budget is a tiny fraction of total US foreign assistance.

Glosny also points out that China’s actual foreign aid expenditures are unknowable, since official Chinese figures fail to provide data on individual programs. Sound familiar? China has a similar problem with its military expenditures — an issue that has garnered far more attention from the Bush Administration. But foreign assistance should not be overlooked in the debate over transparency. The US foreign aid budget, for example, includes funding for various security assistance and training programs. Perhaps so too for China.

Whatever China’s actual foreign aid expenditures and motivations, it would be overly generous to suggest that China is using foreign aid to improve governance and reduce poverty. For now, that task is left to the MCC.

China signed a new trade agreement on services with the Associations of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) on Sunday. Here’s a disquieting comment from one of those nation’s leaders, which deserves a place in the annals of misbegotten phrasing:

“We are very happy to have China as our big brother in this region,” President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo of the Philippines said at the opening ceremony of the one-day meeting in Cebu, a central Philippine province.

According to the New York Times’ story on the agreement, two-way trade volume between China and the ASEAN countries last year amounted to more than $160 billion, up 23 percent from 2005. Two-way trade volume between the US and ASEAN nations constituted about $150 billion in 2005. So, the US and China are on roughly equal footing in terms of ASEAN trade volume. But US trade in the region is growing at a slower pace — US-ASEAN trade was up just 9 percent in 2005.

The recently inked US-ASEAN Trade and Investment Framework Agreement is a step forward, but a small one.

China and Russia teamed up on Friday to veto a US-sponsored resolution criticizing Burma’s human rights record. Now we know the Bush Administration’s sense of moral outrage, and willingness to proclaim it at all costs, has not yet been quashed. Even after it became clear the resolution would not pass, they decided to go ahead with it “on a matter of principle.” According to Undersecretary of State R. Nicholas Burns,

“We don’t consider this a defeat,” Burns said. “We did the right thing. We stood up for universal human values.”

Rhetorically, the failed resolution makes the point about the US position on human rights in Burma (which, it should be pointed out, has already been made countless times, in countless other forums). But considering that this failed resolution actually accomplishes nothing, while managing to earn the wrath of China and Russia, one has to wonder whether it is actually an effective tactic for creating change and improving human rights in Burma.

The administration’s acting U.N. ambassador, Alejandro Wolff, said the US voted to assure the Burmese people that “we won’t forget you.” The persecuted Burmese surely are jumping for joy in their prison cells. Democracy is on its way!

China and Russia do not consider Burma much of a security threat, which is a powerful statement considering the fact that Burma borders China on the south.  Here are comments from Chinese Ambassador Wang Guangya:

“No country is perfect. Similar problems exist in other countries as well.”

Indeed. In addition to China and Russia, the other countries to oppose the resolution: Sudan, Zimbabwe, Belarus, and South Africa.

This is only the fifth time that China has cast its veto since it joined the United Nations in 1971. In the past, China has tended to abstain rather than vote against resolutions it did not support. The last time China and Russia cast a double veto was in 1972.

This is a very assertive move by China. How does this tie back to last week’s anti-satellite missile test? And are the Burmese merely a pawn in the game?

It’s been said about US policy toward China since 1989: no one much likes it. There is good and there is bad, and no one seems to agree which is which. The incoherence of the foreign policy establishment on China poses great risks — perhaps as great as those posed by China herself.

In the meantime, China continues in its ascent. Destroys an aging satellite in space on January 11, 2007. Metaphor? Bald threat? Gentle expression of sovereignty? From the quiet out there, one suspects there is much more to come.