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COMMENTARY Knowing China's intentions is key By Richard Halloran |
The commander of American military forces in Asia and the Pacific, Adm. Timothy Keating, has injected a fresh element into U.S. security relations with China by urging Chinese leaders to reveal their intentions for employing China's swiftly expanding military power.
Until now, U.S. political and military leaders have insisted that Chinese leaders be more "transparent" in their military activity, disclosing what weapons and equipment they have acquired, how much they spend on their armed forces, and the state of training and readiness of those forces.
That transparency, Keating said in an interview, "is not enough." He said: "We don't want just transparency, we want to understand their intentions. There's a big difference." He added: "That's a much more aggressive position for us to ask of them."
Keating, who journeyed to China last month, said "we used that word (intentions) in every meeting we had." He said he turned down several Chinese invitations to see airfields and ships so that he could talk with Chinese leaders in an effort to gain a "comprehension of intentions."
China has acquired sufficient forces to attack Taiwan, the self-governing island over which Beijing claims sovereignty. Even so, it has continued to build a force capable of striking out into the Pacific and into other parts of Asia. Since coming to power in 1949, China's communist rulers have launched attacks on the U.S. in Korea, the Soviet Union, India and Vietnam.
Today, Keating and his Pacific Command, with headquarters high on a hill overlooking Pearl Harbor, have become the key players in the forging of U.S. policy toward China, for two reasons:
Keating's emphasis on Chinese intentions was backed this week by the new chief of naval operations, Adm. Gary Roughead, the former Pacific Fleet commander and Keating subordinate. Roughead told reporters in Washington that China's navy has become more capable but "the question always comes down to what's their intent."
Roughead said: "That's why I am a proponent of being able to engage the leadership of the PLA navy to get a better sense of what they are about." The PLA is the People's Liberation Army, which includes all of China armed forces.
Keating, who has been in command here for a year and made two trips to China plus receiving Chinese leaders in his headquarters, said the question was: "Where does China expect to be, and where do they want to be in 25 years? I believe they have a long view, but I don't know what it is."
He said the reception by the Chinese on his second trip was markedly different from the first. The atmosphere during his first trip, in May last year, he said, was "chilly," and Chinese leaders were "more didactic, more preachy and a little more brittle."
On his second trip, he found Chinese leaders "warmer, more collegial, friendly." Keating said "there was more willingness to listen to a different perspective, a U.S. military perspective, an issue that has implications for strategic relations between the PRC (People's Republic of China) and the U.S."
An underlying message, however, has not changed, Keating said. A predecessor, Adm. Dennis Blair, told a congressional committee in Washington in 1999 that he was trying to reassure the Chinese by asserting that his command was not planning to attack China, or contain China, or pick a fight with China.
The other half of that message, Blair said, was to warn the Chinese: "Don't mess with us."
Keating picked up on that point forcefully: "It's still the message."
Keating said he told Chinese leaders "we don't want to engage you in kinetic military activity."
At the same time, he cautioned them: "We're fully prepared to, we're trained to, we're ready to, and we want everybody to understand that we're not going to lose."
Richard Halloran is a Honolulu-based journalist and former New York Times correspondent in Asia. His column appears weekly in Sunday's Focus section.
