Countering China's designs in Asia

The emergence of an economically and militarily strong China is sending Asian countries into a panic mode and resuscitating the idea of creating a strong new alliance to counter China's aggressive posturing.

Indeed, international security experts envisage the emergence of a new security architecture in Asia as a reaction to China's belligerence that provides glimpses of its hegemonic designs in Asia.

The United States, criticised in the past for "neglecting" the Asia-Pacific region, is quietly encouraging the formation of a strategic relationship between India and Japan, and possibly other Asian countries, to match China's economic and military might.

The "baby steps" — the preliminary moves by a number of Asian countries towards allying themselves — are reflected in a regional diplomacy that could be a forerunner to a collective security to thwart potential Chinese hegemonic designs. Though nobody knows at this point how the contours of the collective security will look like, there is talk of forming an alliance similar to the one that emerged in the post-Second World War Europe to contain the powerful Soviet Union.

Japan and India are forging some kind of a security arrangement. During his visit to India end December, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda underscored the "common interests" between India and Japan. This was, obviously, a veiled reference to China whose belligerent attitude worries both sides.

Indian Defence Minister A.K. Antony's earlier visit to Japan served as a prelude to Noda's demarche in India. During Antony's visit, both countries agreed to hold their maiden joint naval and air exercises in 2012. Japan's interpretation of the term "strategic cooperation" acquires a new meaning, extending beyond Japan's traditional defence cooperation with the US, its major ally. India and Japan are going to focus, initially, on cooperation in maritime security, stretching it, later, to other areas of concern to both sides.

Other Asian countries will closely watch the Japan-Indian Defence Policy Dialogue to be held in 2012. Both sides want to replicate their bilateral military cooperation along the lines of US-Japan cooperation.

By forging security arrangements, Asian countries are responding not only to China's growing power but also to the vacuum in Asia when America and its allies withdraw from Afghanistan. Asian countries are also concerned over other developments such as a potential coup d'etat by Pakistan's military with tacit or overt support from the religion-based parties, the deteriorating US-Pakistan relationship, Iran's aggressive posturing, evident in the mob fury unleashed against the British embassy in Tehran in November and the recent firing of missiles across the Hormuz Strait, etc.

Self-defence effort

Then there is Australia which, not without a nudge from the US, has agreed to forge a close relationship with India which will now receive Australian natural uranium, reversing the ban on supplying the material since India's acquisition of nuclear-weapon capability. Australia, keen to strengthen ties with both the US and India, will allow stationing of US Marines on its soil, though both sides emphasise that this is not aimed against China.

While China voices its "deep concern" over this development in critical editorials of its state-controlled media, it wastes no word on its own aggressive posturing that drives other countries to undertake common self-defence effort against China's attempts to create a fait accompli situation favourable to it in the region. Indeed, many participant countries at the East Asia Cooperation summit in Bali in November openly expressed concern over China's aggressive posturing in the South China Sea, particularly in regard to the Spratly Islands to which China and several countries stake claims.

Many of these states also view with equal concern the tacit or overt military support China gives to North Korea, Myanmar and Pakistan which are seen as unpredictable and destabilising factors. China is doing a difficult dance, particularly with Pakistan: it cannot indiscriminately support Pakistan against India and push the latter into America's arms. China also needs Pakistan to keep a lid on the anti-Chinese sentiments brewing in China's Muslim majority Xinxiang province.

China and India, driven by super-power aspirations and a voracious appetite for raw materials and energy, will become more assertive in the Indian Ocean. Despite burgeoning trade and economic ties — two-way trade, currently at $60 billion (Dh220 billion), is expected to surge to $100 billion in five years — China and India have viewed each other suspiciously since their brief 1962 border war.

China's assertiveness in the southeast China Sea worries the states in the region. Depending on China's future posturing, the US, Japan, South Korea, Australia, India and Southeast Asian nations could create a new security architecture.

The ball is in China's court.

Manik Mehta is a commentator on Asian affairs.