China can't be contained

Speaking in Japan at the start of his East Asia tour, US President Barack Obama highlighted that his country would play an active role in the Asia-Pacific region. He also said that the US does not seek to contain China.

The first part of his statement is not worth commenting on because the US, as a superpower, believes that its national security requires interfering in every corner of the globe, and even in outer space.

But the statement about containing China deserves a pause, because it is important in estimating the magnitude of the US role in international politics.

Speaking about containing China deserves nothing but pity — unless, of course, it was a joke.

Since the 1990s, political analysts and observers have wondered about the impact of the emergence of China as a superpower.

They also wondered how this would affect the future of international relations under a new world order, in which the East plays a part it lost with the sunset of the Ottoman empire in the early 1900s.

More than a decade has elapsed since these questions were raised, and the future that was talked about back then has become our present.

China has strongly imposed its presence on the international arena and its role in decision-making regarding the international community is now taken for granted among prominent US politicians, such as former secretary of state Henry Kissinger.

In his article The Three Revolutions, published in July, 2008, by the Washington Post, Kissinger said that one of the three revolutions occurring around the globe was the drift of the centre of gravity of international affairs from the Atlantic to the Pacific and Indian Oceans.

What is really worrying for the US and its allies in Japan and Australia is the growing regional role of China in East Asia.

The US is also concerned about the major breakthroughs achieved by China in securing its energy needs. China is buying oil from Latin America and gas from Australia, and has successfully entered Africa to diversify its sources of oil. It is practising an aggressive policy to acquire energy sources.

Countries that preceded China in acquiring superpower status engaged in many long wars in remote areas, which allowed them to spread their influence and culture overseas. They had allies and enemies alike.

However, China is different. It did not engage in wars, except a limited one with its southern neighbour India in a dispute over the McMahon Line which marks the border between the two countries.

Furthermore, China has no serious disputes with its neighbours, except its stand against the Taiwanese government, which is supported by the US.

China's emergence as a superpower was inevitable for many reasons, but no one imagined that it would happen without any difficulties and without the use of force in such a short period of time.

In fact, it may be surprising that the global atmosphere was in the last few decades a contributing factor to the rise of China. The Asian giant's economic growth has not been limited by any political struggle.

Referring to Obama's statement about not containing China, there are many examples in history that show how wars have prevented some countries from rising to the rank of superpower, such as the crushing of Germany and Japan in the Second World War.

Yet China is different, because rarely has a country had such an impact on other economies, including that of the US. China is the biggest US creditor, to the tune of almost $800 billion (Dh2.9 trillion).

Obama referred to the issue in New Mexico in May, when he pointed out that the most serious economic problem to face the US would be when some foreign countries, including China, lost their appetite for US Treasury bonds.

Therefore the US is simply not capable of containing China even if it wanted to.

China's main weakness is its huge need for sources of energy to maintain its high growth rates. Despite being the world's fifth biggest oil producer, it is also the third biggest importer. Could this be the key to containing China?

Dr Mohammad Akef Jamal is an Iraqi writer based in Dubai.