Now, this isn't a condemnation of Germany, mind you. Countries fight wars and countries wax and wane in power. Germany had the misfortune to sit in the center of Western Europe while surrounded by other powers with an intense interest in Germany's waxing and how Germany would use that growing power. But for the Nazis in the last round of fighting, nobody would probably think much of Germany's struggles than they do over any other country's changing borders over time.
So now that Chinese power is transforming China from an island of self-sufficient but poor proletarian fury (that its leaders boasted could endure nuclear bombing and still leave a lot of people alive relative to their enemies) to a nation that can project power, how will other countries react to the Middle Kingdom of Asia?
Japan, for example, in their new defense guidelines, will notice China officially:
The guideline will outline a new stance called "dynamic defense capability" which will call for deterring China around Japan's southern islands, while also responding to terror and guerrilla attacks, the Nikkei business daily reported. ...
A draft appendix to the guideline will include plans to increase the number of submarines to 22 from 16 and strengthen the air force's fighter plane contingent, the Nikkei added.
The guideline will also call for stronger security cooperation, not only with the United States but also with allies South Korea and Australia, the paper said. ...
China's defense spending has nearly quadrupled over the past decade, while that of Japan, saddled with a weaker economy and a public debt twice the size of its $5 trillion economy, shrank by 4 percent, according to Japan's defense white paper.
Speaking of Australia, in quiet talks with our people, then-Prime Minister Rudd worried about China:
Rudd, a Mandarin-speaking former diplomat who was once posted to Beijing, argued for "multilateral engagement with bilateral vigour" in China.
He called for "integrating China effectively into the international community and allowing it to demonstrate greater responsibility, all while also preparing to deploy force if everything goes wrong", the cable states.
This should be no shock given the form of Australia's defense modernization plans which stress submarines and air power, and which clearly are aimed at China and rely on holding on until American help arrives.
India, of course, is already starting to focus on China and downgrade the relative threat that Pakistan poses to India.
South Korea, another rising Asian power, while clearly starting to look beyond their horizon with the beginnings of a blue water navy, still has North Korea to keep it busy. So South Korea is taking steps closer to home:
South Korea's president promised Tuesday to transform five islands that lie along the tense maritime border with North Korea into "military fortresses" impervious to the kind of deadly attack the rival neighbor launched last month.
As the government in Seoul struggles to counter the widespread impression its response was too weak and too slow, the new defense minister also ordered his top commanders to retaliate with force if attacked.
President Lee Myung-bak has demanded upgraded rules of engagement to allow the military to respond more forcefully to provocations since the Nov. 23 shelling of Yeonpyeong Island, a tiny enclave of military bases and fishing communities along the Koreas' disputed western sea border. He has also reinforced troops stationed on the island.
China has to contemplate whether a South Korea freed of worry about a rabid attack dog in Pyongyang snarling at Seoul will react to growing Chinese power the way other neighbors have. Sure, there is always the possibility that a South Korea freed of threats from the north might distance itself from America and move closer to China based on anger at Japan's era of owning Korea. But the example of Japan seeking to reinvigorate American ties two decades after the end of the Soviet threat reduced Japan's need for America argues that South Korea could wobble but ultimately remain in the Western camp. Once South Korea can set aside worries about small islands near North Korea and seriously look out to the world, they will see China as the main power threatening their sea lines of communication to the rest of the world.
Our unique position as friends and allies of all these countries and other smaller nations worried about China, with bilateral defense and diplomatic ties, puts us in the position to stiffen the resolve of nations opposing China's rise by violent or bullying means and prevent individual governments from cutting a deal with China because they worry that the many separate nations opposing China won't hang together despite their overall superiority. We need to maintain power and reputation to pull this off.
We aren't necessarily looking at a new Cold War of containing China--China is too plugged into the current world economically unlike the Soviet Union. But we do face a period of managing the rise of the Middle Kingdom whose choices of goals and means to achieve those goals will determine whether China's rise is peaceful or results in war.
China should consider that Germany has achieved a dominant position in central Europe plugged into the Western system; achieving what multiple wars in the last 130 years could not.
And we and our allies have to consider that the Chinese reputation of patience and long-range plans is just a myth, and that Chinese leaders--who live no longer than any other leaders notwithstanding their long national history--will display impatience that could lead to war as they take insult to not getting the status they think they deserve, when they deserve it, and on China's terms.
This isn't the Pacific Century. This is the century of the Middle Kingdom Question.
