Airstrip One

Wooing the West - 25th November 2002, 22.38

Over the last year, China has seen American forces encroach on its attempts to develop a 'sphere of influence' in Central Asia through the Shanghai five.

The low-key dialogue between China and NATO, mentioned in an earlier post, has been started due to two developments: the shift of Russia towards the United States that China now perceives as permanent; and the realisation that they have been a strategic loser from the 'war on terror'. As Western forces support existing regimes and build bases in Central Asia and South East Asia, regions which China views as 'areas of influence', the Communist leadership has had to swallow its pride and develop a relationship with the West's military alliance, NATO.

However, the hold of Western forces in Central Asia, Afghanistan and Pakistan is very fragile and depends upon the continued goodwill and neutrality of this mercurial giant. It is only four months ago that Chinese naval ships made the first circumnavigation of the globe for their country. China is expanding its role in international diplomacy: as an arbiter in regional disputes throughout Asia and as an intermediary between the developing world and the rich North. The reasons are as follows:

It was not until the mid-1990s that China, under the stewardship of Jiang Zemin, emerged as a regional power with global ambitions capable of becoming a major player in crisis situations around the world.

China's Communist Party, which is reshaping itself into a party of technocrats, businessmen and globe-trotting diplomats, is keen to foster the new image of Beijing as a global heavyweight and intermediary.

The People's Daily, the party's flagship newspaper, in an editorial last week, defined China's diplomacy as a "new security concept" of "working to safeguard world peace and promote common prosperity." Zhou Fuyuan, a senior official from east China's Jiangsu Province, was quoted as saying by the official Xinhua News Agency last week, "We must make the most of strategic opportunities facing us in the first two decades of the new century and open wider to and increase exchanges with the outside world,"

But analysts say China's ambitions are also aimed at countering what it perceives as America's growing "hegemony" throughout the world, which has brought U.S. troops stationed along its western borders.

"China is wary of the U.S.-led global security system of bilateral military alliances, which it fears will lead to a monopoly of power," said Ming Wei, a professor of international relations at Shanghai University.

Even as American hegemony drives forward with the 'war on terror', other nations adapt by engaging with the existing system of diplomacy and acting as regional counterweights with global pretensions. Thirty years from now, historians will look back and write that America's reaction to the 11th September bombings in turn deepened the drive towards a European superstate, westernised Russia and forced China to engage in global diplomacy.

As yet, the long-term trends are opaque for India or the Middle East.