酒吧股权转让协议:S China Sea Round 2: The Rest Versus The Rest...

来源：百度文库 编辑：九乡新闻网 时间：2024/07/14 12:49:29

S China Sea Round 2: The Rest Versus The Rest

Another interesting perspective from Philip Stephens, intepreting the international relations framework through South China Sea lens.


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Once in a while received wisdom is upturned by a fleeting headline. It happened the other day when the FT reported that “Vietnam seeks US support in China dispute”. The stylised view of the new global order frames it as a contest between the established west and the rising rest. The more interesting story is the one about the rest versus the rest.


The spat between Hanoi and Beijing is the latest in a series of disputes over control of the resource-rich South China Sea. In crude terms, China says all of it. But the dotted line that marks out this ambition on Chinese maps is hotly contested by just about everyone else. The Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei have their own territorial and maritime claims. Japan has a separate argument with China about a cluster of islands in the East China Sea.


These clashes, then, are not new. Nor is the animosity between Vietnam and China. The Americans had not been gone five years before the two countries fought a vicious border war during the late 1970s. What’s new is the marked heightening of tension as China has adopted a strikingly assertive neighbourhood policy.


Strategically sited on the South China Sea, Cam Ranh Bay served as a pivotal US air and naval base during the war between South and North Vietnam. Now Hanoi says foreign (that means American) ships could again be given access to the naval facility. The signal to Beijing is clear enough. Push too hard and Vietnam will provide physical support to the US fleet in guaranteeing freedom of navigation.


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Others have also been mending fences and warming their relationships with Washington as China waves its stick. There is more to such disputes than Beijing’s desire to restore the tributary system that afforded imperial China suzerainty over its smaller neighbours.


They are a harbinger of a global geometry more complex than the assumed standoff between status quo and emerging powers. Convenient as it is to paint a geopolitical landscape in which the interests of rising nations are in symmetrical collision with those of the west, the new order is more likely to have irregular and overlapping contours. Some among the rest will prefer the company of the west.


The relationship between the US and China looks set to be the most important of the present century, but the most volatile will be those that see the rest square up to the rest. The new powers, of course, have aspirations and instincts in common, not least in challenging western domination of the global commons. As often as not, however, the rivalries between these states are deeper than those with the west.


The decade-old Shanghai Co-operation Organisation speaks to an apparent confluence of interests between China, Russia and central Asian states such as Kazakhstan and Tajikistan. The SCO counts India, Pakistan and Iran among states with observer status. Some might consider the organisation a natural counterpoint to Nato. Yet to list the participants in the SCO is also to see the fragility of the enterprise.



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Vladimir Putin’s Russia has put itself firmly on the side of the rest. Curiously for a state that still likes to pretend it is a superpower equal to the US, it seems happy to be designated one of the Bric nations.


This positioning is an accident of post-cold war history. Mr Putin’s worldview was shaped by national humiliation after the collapse of the Soviet Union. He is of a generation of Russians that cannot shake off the notion that Russia’s natural adversary is the US-led Nato alliance.


An objective strategic assessment would say the opposite. The biggest threats to Russia are internal – economic obsolescence and rapid population decline. The external challenges come from the south and east: from Islamist extremism and the pressures on a depopulated Siberia from a burgeoning China.


China scorns Russia as a declining nation, unable to produce anything useful except oil and gas, and slowly but surely drinking itself to death. Even its military technology now falls short of Beijing’s ambitions. Russians must know this. A strategic outlook unburdened by emotion would see Moscow exchange the part of useful idiot in Beijing for economic integration with the west.



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The more obvious competition is between India and China. Half a century has passed since the two countries went to war. Indian officials say the country’s border with China is now one of its quietest. Yet the rapid expansion of trade and investment flows has not removed the suspicions.


China is the strongest opponent of India’s pitch for permanent membership of the UN Security Council. Indian military strategy is still shaped by the possibility of war with its powerful neighbour – its suspicions nourished by Beijing’s close military ties with Pakistan.


This month the Pakistan government suggested China could be offered a naval base at the south-western port of Gwadar. Nothing could be more calculated to heighten Indian neuroses about Beijing’s naval ambitions in the Indian Ocean; nor to nudge Delhi a little further in the direction of Washington.


These may seem peculiarly Asian problems, the legacies of past wars and still-disputed borders. But the rise of new powers will also create stresses elsewhere. Turkey is seen by the west as overly sympathetic to the present regime in Iran. Yet the two countries are also natural rivals for regional primacy.


Shared interests have pulled rising economies closer together. They are less dependent on the west. The expansion of south-south ties will fuel the next round of global growth. But it is far from self-evident that Latin American and African states will be forever content with the role of raw material producers for the Asian giants. Brazil already counts itself as one of the sternest critics of China’s exchange rate policy.


What emerges from all this is a global landscape in which competition and rivalries and regional alliances and hedging criss-cross the notional boundaries between the west and the rest. Europe may well choose to sit on the margins of influence. The likely role of the US will be that of the indispensable balancing power.





Alternatively, read South China Sea dispute from Great Game Perspective:


South China Sea - The New "Great Game" Front

Poll: Now, A Deteriorated Surrounding For China ?

Poll: The Best Counter-measures to S. China Sea Dispute? 13 1
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2# > A < Posted  2011-6-20 12:11  Only show this user's posts Quote from the article:
Push too hard and Vietnam will provide physical support to the US fleet in guaranteeing freedom of navigation.

The automatic assumption is that the US is omnipotent and can single-handedly move heaven and earth.  Obviously Amreica's military power is substantial.  But like everything else there is a cost to military power.  America's military budget is almost $1 trillion and the single biggest reason for American national debt.  America simply cannot go on increasing its military spending.  And if America decreased its military spending then its military activity around the globe must decrease.  Or increased military spending must be accompanied by an increase of federal revenue due to some advantage following on the establishment of overseas bases or prosecution of new wars.

So, will America gain new revenues by establishing a new naval base in Vietnam?  I doubt it.  First there is no threat anyway from China who is presumably the reason for America to spend tens of billions of dollars to build and operate an effective naval base in Vietnam.  Is China likely to forbid the passage of American ships through the S. China Sea?  For what purpose?  Furthermore, American ships can easily bypass SCS and go south of Kalimantan and through the Sulu Sea and out to the Pacific; or going the other way, through the Sunda Strait and out to the Indian Ocean.  It may be a little inconvenient, but that is the worst case.  So it does not justify the spending of tens of billions dollars a year for America to set up a naval base in Vietnam.  

Therefore, an American base in SCS will only be good for intimidating China.  But why would America want to intimidate China?  Other than Korea there is really no more contentious issue remaining between China and the US.  China is not denying America access to SCS countries.  Nor likely to be in the future.  China is not going to challenge America on a global basis for domination.  Furthermore, with many countries now increasing in power such as India, Brazil, and even Russia and Iran, the fight is not necessarily between China and the US.  And as more wind and solar power is generated, oil will decrease in importance.  China simply cannot afford to burn imported oil even if it can buy as much as it wants.  First China cannot affor to shell out trillions of dollars a year to buy tens of billions of barrels of oil.  And the burning of so much oil will have serious consequences on global warming and sea level rising.  Therefore, the reason for conflict between China and America is disappearing.  

And is there any profit for America to help Vietnam?  Not as far as I can see.  Vietnam is dirt poor.  Its per capita GDP is barely over $1,000 with a total GDP of some $100 billion.  It just does not have anything that the Americans can exploit.  America cannot buy anything from Vietnam and America cannot sell anything to Vietnam.  The only thing America can do is give subsidies to Vietnam to the loss of America.  

There is one possible reason for America to help Vietnam wrest the oil fields from China.  It can then control the oil production and get a lot of profit from it.  But if China is determined to defend its sovereignty in SCS, then there will be a serious war between China and America.  In the end, is it profitable for America to fight a very dangerous war with China?  

Even if China did not fight a hot war with the US it still might fight a cold war.  It could deny foreign trade with America and ban its investment forever.  So when everything is balanced out, America may come out on the short end.  In 10 years China may develop a national economy that is bigger than America's economy.  And China's military may be the equal of America's military.  This means if America really want to confront China in the SCS, then it had better make its military base in Vietnam very very strong.  But to make the military base very strong means it will cost very much.  So is it worth the heavy expenditure?  Where is the benefit to balance the heavy cost?  So, in the end, I don't think it is a good idea for America to build a naval base in Vietnam.  It is pointless.  It is less than pointless.  It is wasteful and will take away funding for more cost effective military spending such as deploying more advanced fighters to protect America's own homeland.
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