Policy Alert #54 | June 28, 2013
One year after the United States officially unveiled its strategic pivot to the Pacific, the 12th annual IISS Asia Security Summit, otherwise known as the Shangri-La Dialogue, convened defense leaders from nearly 30 Asia-Pacific states to exchange views on pressing national security challenges. Named after the Shangri-La Hotel in Singapore where the forum has been held since 2002, the May 31-June 2 gathering was attended by defense ministers, heads of ministries, and military chiefs. In this Policy Alert, we examine commentary from China, Japan, South Korea, and India on the Summit.
CHINA
At the forum, China’s delegation pursued a “charm offensive” aimed at expressing “a new sense of openness at a time when Beijing is making strident claims to territory across Asia’s seas.”
- Lt. Gen. Qi Jianguo, deputy chief of general staff of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and head of the Chinese delegation, underscored China’s security concept in a China Daily editorial: China has “legitimate rights and interests in maritime territorial disputes in the South and East China seas,” but Beijing wants to seek a “win-win development and cooperation in the region and the world at large.”
- Lt. Gen Qi added that concerns about Chinese cyber-attacks raised by U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel at the Summit and other venues were “unwarranted accusations” that “neither help solve the issue, nor help build strategic mutual trust between the two countries.” After the Summit, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hong Lei, announced Beijing was willing to hold “constructive discussions” on these issues under the framework of the China-U.S. Strategic Security Dialogue.
The U.S. pivot was the focus of several Chinese media editorials.
- In commentary for Xinhua – the online wing of the government’s official Xinhua News Agency – writer Chen Jipeng argued that the U.S. pivot gives “misperceptions to other countries in the region that they should either side with the United States or China.” This is a false choice because “interdependency between them far outweighs the competition.” An editorial in The Global Times– a leftist state-owned paper with a strong international presence – argued that the U.S. strategic rebalance will not hinder China’s rise, which “stems from economic growth, a trend that cannot be impeded by the relocation of American warships.”
Soon after the Shangri-La Dialogue, Chinese President Xi Jinping will travel to the United States to attend a summit with President Barack Obama on June 7-8. Several op-ed pieces in the Chinese media have previewed the summit, which aims to cover a wide range of pressing bilateral issues and other international challenges.
- Yang Yi, a rear admiral and former director of the Institute for Strategic Studies at the PLA National Defense University, wrote in China Daily – one of China’s more left leaning and most widely circulated English-language newspapers – that the meeting “will help find a way for Beijing and Washington to work with each other, not against each other” on “regional geopolitics, and global peace, stability and development.” He added that major differences on Taiwan’s independence, China’s military budget, the U.S. pivot, and other issues do not lock both powers into a zero-sum game and doom their efforts to build a “harmonious world.”
- Shen Dingli, a professor at Fudan University, echoed these sentiments in the China Daily. He argued the upcoming summit could “pave the way for constructing a new type of relationship,” ease U.S. concerns about China’s “emerging challenge” in space, maritime, and cyberspace, and assuage China’s suspicions of the U.S. pivot to the Pacific.
JAPAN
Japan used the Summit as an opportunity to dispel concerns that Tokyo is tilting toward the right under the Abe administration.
- Japanese Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera made an unusual attempt to address the issue in his remarks to other defense officials, stating, “We sometimes hear criticism that Japan is abandoning its identity as a ‘peace-loving nation’ and is attempting to challenge the existing international order. However, these views are a total misperception.” Onodera added that “such tasks are aimed at a more active and creative Japanese contribution to stability of the region”
However, Onodera’s remarks were met with skepticism both at home and overseas:
- “Abe should realize that action speaks louder than words,” ran the headline of an Asahi Shimbun editorial. “If it claims that international criticisms about its policy stance are based on “a misperception,” the Abe administration must prove its assertion with actions. In particular, the government should take effective steps to bring about a thaw in Japan’s chilly relations with China and South Korea so that there will be constructive dialogue between the neighbors.”
- More noticeably, South Korea agreed to a trilateral meeting of defense chiefs of Japan and the United States on the sidelines of the summit, but not to a bilateral meeting with Onodera, despite an earlier request from Japan.
SOUTH KOREA
In several bilateral and trilateral dialogues that took place on the sidelines of the Summit, South Korean officials highlighted the need for coordination on North Korea policy.
- In a meeting with Chinese Lt. Gen. Qi Janguo, South Korean Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin praised China’s support for additional U.N. sanctions for Pyongyang’s third nuclear test in February.
News outlets across the spectrum noted that the proposal for a new joint command structure for US and ROK forces was not included for the meeting between Defense Minister Kim and U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel at the Shangri-La Dialogue. If the proposal is accepted, the United States military will be under command by another country’s military for the first time.
- In the Hankyoreh, Choe Jong-geon, a professor of international security at Yonsei University said, “If things turn out as the South Korean government announced, this would be the first time that the U.S. has granted command of its forces to another country. I am curious whether the US will really do this.”
- “Some within the U.S. government and Congress thus have negative views on this. Though an unprecedented attempt, it still makes sense considering that South Korea should play the leading role in defending the Korean Peninsula,” wrote the Dong-A Ilbo.
INDIA
Commentary on the Summit noted how various countries in the region signaled their attitudes towards China’s increasing assertiveness in territorial disputes and the U.S. pivot toward the Pacific. In a column for The Indian Express – an independently owned, slightly nationalist newspaper contributing editor C. Raja Mohan noted that “inviting the Vietnamese premier [Nguyen Tan Dung] to deliver the key-note address” highlighted “the growing strategic importance of Hanoi in Asian geopolitics.”
- On the U.S. pivot, Mohan contrasted Beijing’s characterization of Washington as an “interloper in Asia” with Dung’s label of the United States as a “Pacific power.” During his keynote, Dung stated, “no regional country would oppose the strategic engagement of extra-regional powers if such engagement aims to enhance cooperation for peace, stability and development.”
- Mohan concluded that while India “struggles to make sense of the recent military tensions on the border with China,” Vietnam’s alignment with the United States demonstrates a “selfassured pursuit of a complex balance of power strategy” that “could be a model for other medium powers in Asia who are deeply concerned about the rise of China, want Washington to balance Beijing, but are reluctant to become formal military allies of the United States.”
