China: A Center For New Alliances

Everyone is getting ready for what is coming up, the clash between the United States and Chine is expected to be at the center of analysis of international relations over the next few years.
In the National Review, neo-conservative leader, writer and expert at the Benador Associates Public Relations Department Victor Davis Hanson considered that China stands as a future challenge for the U.S. power, as serious as once was the USSR during the Cold War. Under such conditions, Hanson suggested that the same strategy applied by Henry Kissinger in his fight against the USSR should be used against Beijing. In those days, China was an ally, this time China will be the target, while India will be the ally. Nevertheless, if that choice could be made when the BJP nationalists were in power in New Delhi, it seems difficult to achieve when the government comes from the Congress Party. The author also described North Korea as a satellite of China and used by China to fight Washington and Tokyo without having to get directly involved. According to what Konstantin Asmolov - a researcher at the Institute for Studies on the East at the Russian Academy of Science - said at the Kreml.Org site, it is the Bush administration, in contrast, which is manipulating the Korean crisis to affect Beijing and justify a military deployment the true target of which is China. Both countries the U.S. and China are preparing for a confrontation and both are getting equipped with the necessary weapons for it.

However, not everybody has renounced avoiding the confrontation between these two giants. Former National Security advisor Henry Kissinger tried, in the Washington Post, to discourage his country from provoking China. If Washington shows itself sensible and conciliatory, the United States can preserve its power in Asia despite the Chinese development. Kissinger thinks that cooperation between the two countries can create a positive atmosphere for both, though their attitudes could rapidly deteriorate the situation.

In the Inosmi.ru site, Singapore’s Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong defended the strengthening of the Asian integration and the opening of a great Asian market in 2020. In his view, trade is a peace factor. Therefore, he expects the United States to support this. In fact, if pacification is to exist through commercial exchanges, it is not advisable for the U.S. to provoke China.

In case of confrontation between the United States and China, what alliances would be created? Neo-conservatives are in favor of restructuring a western block against China, but nothing seems to confirm that the Cold War alliance would have any force in this new context. The rapprochement of Paris and Berlin to Beijing would even tend to prove the contrary. Be that as it may, the Dutch Foreign Minister Bernard Bot insists on the rapprochement between China and the European Union. His tribune, spread by Project Syndicate has circulated all throughout Asia and has been published by the Jordan Times, The Independent of Bangladesh, and the Daily Times of Pakistan. Tomorrow, it may appear in other newspapers. Some months ago, this author had admitted that the rapid expansion of the European Union was due to the energy crisis looming up. Europe needs to take up a considerable dimension in order to be able to compete with the Asian giants in the energy resource market. Currently, the author is defending the Chinese-European association in this area to face the environmental and development problems stemming from the existing situation.
On its side, China is developing its alliances through energy agreements and military supports. In the Asia Times, economy analyst Jephraim P Gundzik pointed out how China is building up its alliance with Russia and Iran to counteract Washington’s ambitions for supremacy. Though the press scarcely refers to the issue, and this is not new to our readers, such alliance among the three nations is well constituted for the moment. Maybe tomorrow it could be a counterbalance for the U.S. power. Chinapec (China Energy Consortium) group director Mu Shuling explains this alliance in Vremya novostyey, saying that he is pleased with the financial prospects of the Chinese-Russian energy trade and hopes that the future building of the oil pipeline carrying oil from Siberia to China will be effective. Moscow, however, hasn’t yet made up its mind whether to invest in an oil pipeline to China or in another one to Japan and South East Asia. Either one would be a large investment.