Examination of Witnesses (Questions 180-199)
DR DAFYDD
FELL, DR
PATRICK CRONIN
AND DR
JOHN SWENSON-WRIGHT
22 MARCH 2006
Q180 Ms Stuart: But, come on, they
used to say this about Mao Tse-tung. This guy murdered more people
than anybody in the last century but we were going round saying,
"But he gave the rice bowl to the poor."
Dr Cronin: Yes, but Mao has been
dead for some time and Hu Jintao is no Mao and Jiang Zemin is
no Mao. They have changed. The generations are changing and there
has been progress. I totally agree that from a Western concept
of liberal democracy there is still a long, long way to go and
there are a lot of question marks about the future. Yes, I would
applaud Britain and the EU standing up on issues of democracy
and the rule of law in China, and the human rights issue, for
instance, that we always should run a foul on and never get anywhere.
Nonetheless, I would not hold our expectations too high that this
is going to evoke a lot of fear in the heart of China either.
I do not see Europe being cowardly in fearing China. I see them
taking advantage of the plentiful opportunities that China is
making to the world because of its focus on economic gain.
Q181 Ms Stuart: Can I push you a
little bit further. My argument was that the EU's voice is divided
because individual Member States are pursuing their own trade
interests and will only submit to a common policy under the EU
when it suits their collective interests. Are we therefore sending
out signals which are quite contradictory to China?
Dr Cronin: Yes, and this is the
complexity of China; we all have contradictory policies. This
is also part and parcel of the European Union and the whole experiment
towards integration into Europe. It is not a common foreign policy.
It is a fragmented foreign policy and the bilateral policies definitely
conflict in interest and in type from the multilateral at times,
and it makes it very difficult. On the other hand, when the EU
agrees, it is extraordinarily rock solid and people stand up and
listen because it has got that power and weight of unanimity.
The problem is that the EU tends to focus on its neighbourhood,
and Asia is a bit far afield except when it comes to the pocketbook
and economics and trade, but it also has to think about democracy,
the political side, social dimensions, human rights, issues globally.
Europe speaks very loudly around the world on soft power, with
more legitimacy than the United States these days after Abu Ghraib
and other problems, so it is very important for Europe to be unified
and to try to speak up on these issues because they are holding
up certain standards about what it means to be a member of the
international community in this century.
Q182 Mr Keetch: Just getting back
to Taiwan and Dr Fell's unshakeable confidence in his own ability
to predict the elections in 2008, could he tell us therefore who
is going to win and do his other two colleagues agree with him?
Dr Fell: The opinion polls are
saying that the KMT's Ma Ying-jeou is due to win. He was over
in London in February giving a speech at the LRC and in my discussions
with him he appears to take quite moderate positions on cross-Strait
relations, more moderate than those of some of his own more extreme
KMT party members. I know that his advisers are concerned that
he could lose this lead in the next 18 months but I cannot really
see that happening.
Dr Cronin: We are still a long
way away from 2008. The mainland was surprised last time with
the outcome; it changed on them. So we are a long way away from
that outcome but the KMT is the conventional favourite right now.
Dr Fell: Not being a Taiwan political
specialist I would not like to hazard a guess at this stage so
I will defer to my colleagues on this.
Mr Keetch: Do you have any other election
predictions in addition to Taiwan?
Mr Maples: Have you got any for Britain?
Ms Stuart: A Labour win in Edgbaston!
Chairman: I have a couple of areas I
will come back to but I will bring in John Maples now who has
got a question.
Q183 Mr Maples: Can I go back to
one of the security issues in the relationship between China and
the United States on proliferation. It seems strange to me that
China is not prepared to play a tougher role in North Korea. It
seems to me that to have a North Korean regime such as it is with
nuclear weapons on China's borders is a serious issue for China
as well as her neighbours. It is a slightly different set of circumstances
in the case of Iran but, again, I would have thought China as
an established nuclear power had an interest in upholding the
Non-Proliferation Treaty to which I think she is a signatory.
I know there is an oil deal and we were discussing before China's
mercantilist attitude to these sorts of deals. I do not know what
you think will eventually happen in the Security Council but at
the moment China seems to be playing very hard to get over trying
to stop Iran acquiring nuclear weapons. I am just wondering why
in two proliferation cases you think the Chinese see their interests
as being very different from those of the United States?
Dr Cronin: I think the Chinese
increasingly see it as a common interest but they are not integrated
into the system in the way the trans-Atlantic powers are, for
instance the P5 and UN Security Council, to act in concert, so
they are going to try to have it both ways. They do not want to
see proliferation, even on the Korean peninsula, their neighbour.
At the same time that is not their only goal. They put a premium
on stability, they put a premium on not having a military intervention
on their border, and that has to be weighed against the prospects
of what does North Korea do with a bomb in the basement? What
does North Korea do with even eight bombs in the basement? They
are not likely really to sell them to terrorists. They are watching
them very closely. It is of concern to China and not just because
of the missile test recently fired in the direction of China but
it is more of a concern what Japan does as a result, which is
that they take the screwdriver out and they build a nuclear bomb
and say, "Guess what, we can't rely on an American nuclear
umbrella, we need nuclear weapons as well," and then you
uncork the bottle on nuclear proliferation around the world. Instead
of going from five nuclear powers in 1968 (when the Nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty was signed) to nine today, you go to 20 or 30 countries
in the next 10 or 20 years. So China does share a very big concern
about this, but how far they are willing to go to do something
about it? The bet is and the assumption is and the talk inside
the Government which I serve is that China was increasingly being
co-operative around the table and willing to do things to put
pressure to talk straight to Kim Jong-Il and to try to send signals
to Kim Jong-Il to make it clear what the two paths were: the path
of integration and survival or the path of not putting your highly
enriched uranium programme on top of your plutonium programme
on the table to be negotiated away. Right now Kim Jong-Il has
not felt so much pressure that he has had to do that. He is waiting
for a much better deal and he has not seen it. He may not be waiting
for a better deal; he may be waiting to stretch this along and
survive, to keep trying to sell his old plutonium programme and
never sell his highly enriched uranium programme. You even see
rhetoric out of North Korea this week that they can do a pre-emptive
attack. You read this rhetoric all the time. They are completely
reckless in their public diplomacy because that is how North Korea
has survived after the Cold War. They have lost their patrons,
they have gone to missile and nuclear diplomacy and they are going
to keep that card right there ready to sell it. China knows they
are playing that game to some extent and that is why they do not
feel threatened by it. However, yes, they do share the international
concern about proliferation. Believe me, they do share even a
concern about Iran's nuclear weapon programme and what happens
to that as well. But what are they willing to do about it? They
see this quite differently. Just as Europe and America tend to
share sometimes different priorities on how to deal with proliferating
countries and even Iraq right now I would say Europe was probably
a bit closer to China's view on Iran than the US or Washington
these days, where to some extent Washington has increasingly talked
about regime change and that is not really acceptable language
here, despite some recent mentions of it.
Q184 Mr Maples: I would like to come
to your two colleagues on this as well. So you think that China's
policy in these two regards is driven entirely by her perception
of her own interests? It is not an attempt to cross or make life
difficult for the United States?
Dr Cronin: If there are easy opportunities
to make life difficult for the United States they will cash those
in as well, but it is primarily driven by China's interests.
Dr Fell: I would agree with that.
I would have thought that particularly North Korea is seen as
a threatening question for the PRC. I think they see it as a useful
buffer state against the United States. On Iran, again I think
the non-co-operation in pushing for Iran to use their nuclear
technology is probably seen as a way of frustrating the US on
that issue.
Dr Swenson-Wright: Just to echo
what has been said on the North Korean issue; it is clear that
the Chinese do worry about stability. The fact that they share
an 800-mile border with North Korea, a fear of refugees and the
large interaction between the Chinese community and the North
Korean community close to that border is a source of concern.
I think one should not underestimate the extent to which China
is playing demonstrably the role of a good stakeholder in this
context. A lot of people argue that without Chinese interaction
North Korea would have been reluctant to come back to the fourth
round of talks which were so important in setting up the new agreement.
It is also important to emphasise that China acts as a powerful
model of a potential way out of the current predicament in the
long term through economic development, and China is making the
case, privately in a low-profile sense, for engagement, even in
the context of creating the opportunities for greater access to
information to North Koreans. South Korean NGOs are very active
in promoting access to more information, and I think the Chinese
privately, away from the glare of publicity, are anxious to encourage
that to see a smooth transition. Yes, they want to maintain their
influence on the peninsular but they worry about the risk of instability,
as my colleague mentioned.
Q185 Mr Maples: And the Chinese attitude
and position on Iran?
Dr Swenson-Wright: Again, I would
share the views of my colleagues on this. I think it is clear
where they stand.
Q186 Chairman: Two final areas. Dr
Fell, you talked about the attitude in Taiwan to Japan. I would
be interested in the take of all of you on the attitude of Japan
to Taiwan and to the future of Taiwan?
Dr Swenson-Wright: From Japan's
perspective it would be going to far to say that Taiwan has been
ignored, but up until 1997 and the articulation of the US/Japan
joint guidelines, it was something that was very low on the agenda
of Japanese policy makers. The reinforcement of the co-operation
between the United States and Japan takes Taiwan as one of its
principal concerns. Japan maintains a one China policy. There
are periodic efforts by Taiwanese politicians. Former President
Lee Teng-hui routinely visits Japan. Some people argue that he
has some impact given his personal charisma in raising the profile
of Taiwan in terms of public perceptions in Japan, but from the
point of view of the policy making community they want to avoid
instability, they support the American position, they want to
encourage a continuing co-operative relationship. Taiwan is important
principally because of where it is and the risk of instability
associated with Chinese direct action.
Dr Fell: It would seem that the
Taiwanese have been quite successful at lobbying in Japan in the
Japanese parliament and that has been going on all the way through
since the 1950s. Perhaps that is a reason why they have been able
to keep quite close links between the major political parties.
Another factor here is the fact that Taiwan was a Japanese colony
for 50 years. Again, there are very close links there and many
see that Japanese colonialism during that period was relatively
benevolent, and that is a factor in the slightly more pro-Japanese
sentiment within Taiwan itself.
Q187 Chairman: Finally, on the completely
different issue of South China Sea regional security and the Spratley
and Paracel Islands, as I understand it, there are potential disagreements
between a large number of states there which clearly include those
that we have been talking about but some others. I would be interested
in your take on whether there is the possibility of a resolution
of these disputes or whether there is the potential for conflicts
of some kind to arise in that area, given again that we are talking
about gas and oil and all the resource issues?
Dr Cronin: I think tensions in
the South China Sea have abated in the last few years and I do
not think most analysts would fear a reversion to the kind of
frictions we saw in the 1990s, over Mischief Reef for instance,
mostly because China is taking a different approach to these issues.
Notwithstanding what I said about very assertive policies and
opportunistic policies on resources and on gas, I think they understand
that they have too much to lose in a multi-lateral setting like
this, unlike taking on the Japanese where there is a little bit
of extra political support at home for taking actions in the East
China Sea. In reviewing how China has dealt with its borders—and
it does have an amazing number of countries on its borders—one
can look at the latest issue of International Security
in which there is a wonderful article that looks at 30 border
disputes and how China has handled them since the PRC was created.
The cross-Strait issue is a unique issue in terms of its unbending
policy but on issues like the Spratleys they show generally much
more moderation and flexibility when there are other incentives
to do so because they are much less doctrinaire about it, but
I am sure my colleagues can add.
Dr Swenson-Wright: Part of the
reason why the situation has become more stable is that China
has convinced many of the key players in the region that it is
acting in a constructive fashion—support for example for
the ASEAN Regional Forum, its public condemnation of hegenomism,
its articulation of a new strategic concept, its example in other
contexts, acting as a mediator, for example, between Thailand
and Cambodia in 2003. All of these send very positive signals
about China's willingness to engage with international norms and
prove that it is a constructive player. And of course in the economic
sphere China's active support for building a free trade agreement
with ASEAN and establishing, hopefully, by 2010 of an ASEAN/China
free trade area. All of these are constructive efforts that reinforce
the perception that China's role in this context is a positive
one rather than a negative one.
Q188 Ms Stuart: An organisation which
arose out of post-World War two order disputes with China was
the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation, which started off life
really being between Russia and China and about the border disputes
but now seems to be emerging as a kind of military organisation.
I am getting terribly confused as to how significant it is and
how important it is depending on to whom you talk. So it is a
fairly open invitation to say have you ever heard of it and what
does it mean to you?
Dr Cronin: I have certainly heard
of it. Central Asia is going to a play a much more prominent role
in the future than it has in recent years. We recently had the
Foreign Minister from Kazakhstan visit the Institute, Foreign
Minister Tokayev, who explained the central role of the Shanghai
Co-operation Organisation among others. He has a hard time keeping
track of all the countries who are members because there are so
many overlapping institutions and organisations throwing things
at the wall and wondering which are going to stick, but this seems
to be sticking at the moment, largely because the two major powers,
Russia and China, want it to be, at a minimum, a condominium for
energy access, and energy is the name of the game in Central Asia.
However, in fairness and being more balanced, the Shanghai Co-operation
Organisation has partly got energy and economic co-operation on
the agenda but it has also done a very practical thing in terms
of sharing information for counter-terrorism. That is its military
and security component.
Q189 Ms Stuart: It is used for intelligence
sharing? I had not realised that.
Dr Cronin: Intelligence is maybe
too strong a word, it is more information sharing. I would not
push it too far because when you get into multilateral counter-terrorism
intelligence sharing, as soon as you have more than two countries
present, the level of information goes down dramatically, but
nonetheless—
Q190 Chairman: I think we have had
that trouble!
Dr Cronin: —it is still
going to be achieved by bringing together countries which share
a lot of trans-national problems—porous borders, drugs,
bugs and so on. You have a lot of problems in the region and they
can do some good on these issues. Certainly China and Russia are
concerned about these issues as well. There are concerns. The
United States does not like the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation
per se if you will. That is not an official policy but
the point is they question anything that is too exclusive. Even
the Foreign Minister of Kazakhstan admitted recently that they
really cannot afford to enlarge and grow—to have Japan for
instance become a real member—because they have to consolidate
rather than to enlarge. Anything that is too exclusive on this
issue is a concern and it begs the question what is it about.
So it is not a prominent organisation yet. It is becoming more
prominent because China and Russia want it to stay. The Central
Asian countries want to participate because there are energy and
economic gains and there is this counter-terrorism shared interest,
if not policy. There are outside concerns about what it will become.
Chairman: I think that is a very good
point on which to conclude. What it will become is the big question
about all these discussions. Can I thank all three of you for
coming along today. I think we have found this extremely valuable.
Sadly, because of the Budget debate attendance was a little bit
down, but nevertheless with those of us here you have the quality
if not the quantity, so thank you very much!
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