China Redux

Sometimes you become so consumed by your enemies, that you forget about your friends. That’s the message I took from Singaporeean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s interview with the Wall Street Journal here (subscription may be required). The unbalanced concentration of diplomatic and military resources on Iraq and Iran has led the US to neglect Southeast Asia. According to Lee, America risks losing its regional influence to a rising China which has gone to great lengths to strengthen its reputation with Singapore, Thailand, and other key area actors.

It would be easy to take a cynical view of Lee’s sudden concern for US power in Southeast Asia; the Journal interview comes just weeks before scheduled talks with President Bush early next month. Is Lee setting the table in hopes of winning greater security support, trade concessions, or the like from the Bush Administration, a staunch Singaporean ally already wary of China’s growing economic and political heft? Yes, probably. Does that mean his comments need not be taken seriously by the president and his team? Absolutely not. They should serve as a wake-up call.

Singapore is Washington’s closest security partner in Southeast Asia. In addition to hosting various American military operations, including a naval logistics comand center, Singapore has been and will continue to be a key ally in the fight against terrorism, a serious concern in parts of Southeast Asia. On the economic front, in 2003, the United States and Singapore succesfully negotiated a landmark free trade agreement.

In short, the US needs Singapore nearly as much as Singapore needs the US. But one would be excused for not knowing it. Take the example of the Bush Administration’s rough handling of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice snubbed the forum in 2005 when she decided not to attend its regional meeting — the premier gathering of ASEAN foreign ministers — marking the first time an American Secretary of State sent her deputy to the meeting since it was first held in 1994. No matter that it was only one meeting in just one year (or that the deputy sent by Rice, Robert Zoellick, was both well-respected and powerful); it’s the message that’s still being talked about today. In this case as in others, America’s absence of leadership is China’s gain. For example, just this year, China signed an important new trade agreement on services with the ASEAN countries.

Singapore shares the Bush Administration’s preoccupation with fighting terrorism and with hedging against China. Singapore would prefer that China not become the region’s hegemonic force, which is why it is aligned with the United States. But Singapore — like some other ASEAN nations — is slowly losing confidence in the ability of the US to lead economically and politically in the region. This void will gladly be filled by China unless the US can redirect critical resources — political, economic, and military — towards building stronger relationships in Southeast Asia.

In recent years, China’s policies towards Africa have generated major trade and resource gains on that continent. China’s love affair with Africa has, at the same time, earned the scorn of the international community and MSM (see here). But what about the Middle East? Roughly 55 percent of all of China’s oil comes from the Middle East, yet China’s interest in the Middle East is far less widely reported.

Jon Alterman, Director of the Middle East Program at CSIS, has published a fascinating note on “China’s unease” with the Middle East that provides a window into China’s current and future role in the region. In Alterman’s view, the Middle East “is a place where China can really get hurt.” Beijing views the Middle East as “the graveyard of great powers” — a phrase once reserved for Afghanistan. More importantly, China lacks any real capability to project power in the region; no Chinese naval vessel has ever made a call in a Middle Eastern port (which I still find more than a little surprising).

Thus, China must rely on the United States to ensure safe passage for its oil imports. Alterman believes this situation is likely to persist for a very long time — decades, at the least. In the event of a confrontation, the US could easily cut off Chinese energy imports from the region. But China also benefits from the very vulnerability it concedes: China “is happy to piggyback on the security the United States provides them for free,” Alterman writes. Chinese businesses have made significant inroads in the Middle East without parallel investments (in security and diplomacy, for example) from the Chinese government.

As Alterman explains, it is this confluence of factors that has led China to generally support US policies in the region, including economic sanctions on Iran. It turns out China does not have much of a choice in the Middle East.

For the full note, Middle East Notes and Comment: China’s Unease, click here.