President Obama’s West Point speech in 2014 reflected
a qualified fatigue with internationalist causes. The
recent Chinese comment on North Korean threats about
an impending test had an interesting term in cautioning
its difficult but important neighbour: that there is no
justification for a new nuclear test and that North Korea
should not do it. It implies some kind of acceptance of
the status quo. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Ye
during his Seoul visit continued to press for all in the six
party talks to persevere peacefully towards a
denuclearised peninsula. Visits and parleys among key
members of the six nations, with a focus on North
Korea, including Japan and North Korea, indicate
chances of a reactivation of the process. Meanwhile,
Russian anger against US and the G7 is being cited as
reason for Moscow’s new look at expanding relations
with Pyongyang. Russian support has expanded over
the past one year and particularly since the onset of the
crisis in Ukraine.
Russia has waved huge loans (US$10 billion) owed by
North Korea since the Soviet times and has offered US
$1 billion for a trans-Siberian railway project through
North to South Korea, received North Korean president
at the Sochi winter Olympics and sent a ministerial
delegation on a visit to Pyongyang to sign up on
important economic and trade cooperation. This
refashioning of ties between the Cold War allies might
add heft to Pyongyang’s hard stance for resumption of
the six party talks without preconditions. The G7
brandishing to Putin more sanctions for Russian actions
in Ukraine may have the effect of diminishing Russian
interest in tighter sanctions on North Korea. As for
Japan, a distinct possibility of Prime Minister Abe
making a visit to North Korea is being seen in the
announcement in the Diet by his foreign minister about
an upcoming official visit. Some headway has been
made in a meeting in Sweden in the direction of the
return of the Japanese kidnapped in North Korea and
Japan’s provision in turn for food supplies. This may
also be helpful to resume the six party talks.
The growing tensions in Southeast and East Asia
between China on one side and Japan, Vietnam and the
Philippines on the other are giving rise to new ways to
deal with China, but possibly without disturbing the
existing non-weapon status of the highly developed
Japanese and South Korean nuclear enterprises. The so
called break out fears, much talked about in the context
of Iran, do not come to fore because of the impeccable
record of Seoul and Tokyo with the IAEA. However,
China has begun to raise questions about the high
plutonium holdings of Japan. The reason advanced by
Japan, namely, plutonium to meet fuel requirements for
its breeder programme, may be less credible in the wake
of Fukushima-induced anti-nuclear sentiment. As for
Seoul, it appears inclined to try non-nuclear options like
building its own ground-based mid-course missile
defence to cope with nuclear threats from the North,
instead of contemplating any deterrent route.
Within US too there are the long-held views being
reinforced by profound thinking that foresees far more
problems for strategic stability in case new allies
develop their own deterrent. Hence the reinforcing of US
rebalancing and commitment to the Asia-Pacific allies
as witnessed in the annual Shangri-La dialogue in
Singapore in end-May 2014. US Defense Secretary Hagel
was so candid in voicing concern about China’s
threatening actions in the South China Sea that the
Chinese reacted equally forcefully and virtually told
Hagel to lay off.
These are the facets of diverse approaches for the
management of the second nuclear age in the Asia-
Pacific and do not provide much reassurance. The latest
Pentagon reports show that China is underreporting its
defence expenditure by 20 per cent and suggest that the
correct annual figure should be US$145 billion, almost
four times that of India and ahead of Japan. China’s air
force is said to be growing at an alarming rate,
including with development of advanced drones and
testing of hypersonic missiles, which when combined
with earlier stories about its SSBNs and improvements
in its strategic forces, send unmistakable messages
about where China is headed. The recent US Justice
Department’s charges against Chinese generals about
cyber attacks against US businesses and China’s strong
reaction and counter-charges against the US
demonstrate an escalation of the Cold War-like rhetoric
in Asia.
Putin’s closeness to China as reflected in the conclusion
of a US$400 billion, thirty year, gas deal and a host of
others including about defence procurements as well as
Russian-Chinese joint veto in the UN Security Council
are indications of emerging new configurations in
geopolitics. These will call in to question what was
suggested even as recently as 2012 by the Yale
Professor Paul Bracken about an abiding common
interest of the existing great powers in managing the
second nuclear age (ie the age when new proliferating
States emerge). If anything, China and Russia appear to
be set to devising ways to mount a concerted challenge
to what the Chinese openly call US hegemony.
This is the short take from the dynamic that is evolving
in Asia. The news story about Russian arms to Pakistan
in this setting should raise Delhi’s heckles – the new
fangled diplomacy of Kerry and Hagel to woo Pakistan
(propensity of US think-tanks to reward Pakistan with a
nuclear deal), Russia’s indulgence, and China’s all-
weather friendship firmly backing its trusted ally
compounds the strategic scenario for India. A perceptive
remark by a former Indian Ambassador to Russia is
poignant to the US-India situation: “The US has been
looking to cooperate with an India that is strong enough
to be a balancer of China but (should not be strong)
enough to cause concern to Pakistan.” Talking of
paradoxes, the US is not alone. China’s position for
continued peaceful engagement and diplomacy about
North Korea, and its consistent reluctance to put
Pakistan or its terror outfits on the spot is in contrast
with the increasing severity with which it reacts to
Japan and bristles over outsiders counsel on maritime
disputes with Japan and in the South China Sea.
China has generally refused dialogue with India as a
nuclear weapon state invoking what it called the
international mainstream (eg NPT) whereas on Japan
and South China Sea it rejects anything that differs from
its own national hard line regardless of the weight of
international mainstream, eg, UN Convention on the Law
of the Seas, freedom of navigation and security of the
sea lanes.
In short, rules are less and less likely to govern the
evolving uncertainties in Asia except the inherent
strength and might of nations, or a concert thereof,
backing whoever takes a stand. This is the setting for
the first high level Sino-Indian diplomatic engagement
which begins over this weekend. As a special envoy of
Chinese president Xi, Foreign Minister Wang Ye is set to
meet the new government in Delhi with a message
comprising all the right and reassuring points.
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