In sharp contrast to Japan led by inward-looking leaders who seem mostly indifferent to the crucial international situation surrounding their nation, the world community is ushering in an era of a fierce struggle for hegemony. No nation can hope to survive without working out pertinent strategies and swiftly judging when to implement them. In Asia in particular, cut-throat diplomacy putting national interests at stake will likely develop between China and India. It would not be too much to say that such a confrontation will have implications serious enough to define the state of the world over the next 100 years. Needless to say, Japan will be seriously affected under any scenario.

　　　In 2012, Russia, the United States, South Korea and Taiwan are slated to hold national elections to choose their next heads of state, and a new leader will also emerge in China. The strategic game these leaders will play will revolve around two serious variables involving China – its new hegemonic resolve, which will be explained later, and nuclear proliferation in the third world at China’s initiative. Furthermore, the North Korean situation can change drastically almost at any time.

　　　Even before the next leaders emerge in these nations all about the same time, an intricate strategic game will be hotly pursued in the western Pacific and the Indian Ocean in 2011 – the new center of world tension. Although a major Asian power, Japan will not be able to get through it without resolve and a well thought out strategy.

　　Much has been discussed about China’s abnormal military buildup, and the world has indeed been faced with the Chinese threat head on. However, the world confronts a new Chinese threat – because China decided to implement a major change in its political posture in the summer of 2009. Parting with Deng Xiaoping’s instruction that China should “keep a low profile and keep its capabilities hidden,” China switched to a new strategy of “doing what it takes to achieve our national objectives” – a high-profile approach. A confident China, regarding it as unreasonable to conform to the international system and values sacrificing its own national interests, has chosen to try to change international rules and values in the direction of Chinese norms.

　　　Unmistakably, China has declared its intention to become a hegemonic power. The Chinese have thus created for themselves a serious and delicate problem embracing the possibility of territorial disputes with almost all of its neighbors, including Japan, India, Russia, and Taiwan. And yet, this is what the Chinese are prepared for, now that they have decided to “do what it takes,” instead of keeping a low profile.

　　　Unlike the former Soviet Union, China is well aware of the importance of the economy as the foundation of nation-building, and is dead set on exercising hegemony in all directions, not just militarily. Finance is one example. China is trying to convert the international monetary system to benefit China as a means of building – and maintaining – a strong economy.

　　　Taking little notice of Japan, whose economic growth has consistently been hampered by the yen, which was strengthened to an almost unreasonable level following the 1985 Plaza Accord, China has managed to keep the Renminbi (RMB) ridiculously low. China has resisted pressure for a revaluation of the RMB by the U.S. and European nations with the will of a nation marked by the military strength ranked second only to the U.S. Not only that. China has blatantly challenged the dollar-dominated international monetary system, as was demonstrated by an open proposal by Zhou Xiaochuan, president of the People’s Bank of China, that his country “keep away from the dollar as the world’s key reserve currency.”

　　　In other words, China has set the strategic objective of eventually making the RMB the key currency of the world.

　　　That China has steadily been increasing its voting rights at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as well as the Asian Development Bank (ADB) may well be regarded as reflecting part of the Chinese efforts to create a new international monetary system favoring China. Meanwhile, China had also announced that, by December 6 of this year, it would altogether change its economic management format hitherto relying on foreign capital, abolishing a preferential taxation system given foreign manufacturers operating in China. China has truly been gaining confidence in its own economic strength.

　　　However, China’s confidence quite often leads to violation of international rules, as has been evidenced by its common infringement of intellectual property rights. For example, it has unilaterally regulated the export of rare metals to Japan after the Senkaku incident, despite its membership in the World Trade Organization (WTO). China is clearly taking the approach of using raw power to achieve its objectives, as evidenced by this example of rare metal exports.

　　　When a manufacturer appropriates the intellectual property of other manufactures – technologies as well as products – without properly paying for it, development costs are dramatically reduced and the competitive power of that company increase sharply. The multiplicative effects of the economic strength thus gained, together with the aforementioned military buildup, contributed to China’s impressive presence in the international community today. The Chinese have finally ended up by fundamentally changing the geopolitics of the world.

　　　In 1982, China with Deng at the helm worked out a long-term strategy aimed at securing mastery of the seas inside the “first island chain” stretching from the Japanese archipelago to Borneo by 2010. It further set out to command the area along a line in the western Pacific linking the Bonin Islands with Guam by 2020, and end the exclusive control of the western Pacific and the Indian Ocean by the U.S. Navy by 2040. China’s advance into the open seas has methodically been carried out under this very strategy.

Blatant Pursuit of Expansionist Policy

　　　Having made meticulous preparations in the background over the years, China has advanced its ambitions with relative ease, turning both the Indian Ocean and the western Pacific into seas of tension. The thoroughness of China’s preparedness is seen in its approach to the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, where an extreme case of ethnic cleansing through suppression and massacres has developed, revealing the fundamental model of China’s expansionism.

　　　After using force to gain control of East Turkistan, a nation said to have comprised anywhere between 8 and 15 million inhabitants, China created the so-called Autonomous Region of Uighur and then moved in an overwhelming number of Han Chinese to prevent the remaining Uigurians from banding together. By brutally suppressing the indigenous inhabitants, China also plotted to alienate them from the Turkish people in central Asia who share the same ethnic origin with the Uigurians. While doing so, China also successfully contained adverse criticism from central Asian nations by showering them with generous economic aid. Having thus been isolated both at home and abroad, the Uigurians in China were almost completely deprived of their powers of resistance.

　　　Meanwhile, China has begun to claim abundant natural resources in central Asian nations while undertaking the construction of a crude oil pipeline stretching from the Republic of Kazakhstan to Xinjiang via the Caspian Sea, as well as a natural gas pipeline that passes through Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan.

　　　China has deprived the Uigurians of their homeland in a ruthless fashion, obtained coveted natural resources, and succeeded in prompting central Asian nations to depend significantly on its economic power.

　　　China’s expansionist policy is rapidly being directed towards the Russian Far East. The decline of the national power of Russia, once far superior to China’s, is conspicuously notable in the Far East. There, only as few as 7 million Russians live in a land mass approximately twice the size of the whole of Europe, and the population is expected to drop to 4.5 million in the next five years. East of the border are the Chinese – to the tune of 100 million or more – eagerly waiting to cross the border in search for land, resources, and entrepreneurial opportunities. In fact, a significant number of Chinese have already settled in the region – an area of scant population and vast natural resources which appears destined to eventually be incorporated into the Chinese sphere of influence. This makes Russian leadership very suspicious of all Chinese actions in the area.

　　　In spite of the popular expression that Chinese fondly use – “China’s peaceful rise to great power status” – their government is blatantly pursuing an expansionist policy on a global scale. While building aircraft carriers on its own, China is seen to have secured as many as 75 submarines to restrain the activities of U.S. aircraft carriers in the East China Sea and the South China Sea, as well as the Indian Ocean in times of contingency. Two cyber units aimed at incapacitating U.S. armed forces are in full operation. Also, the People’s Liberation Army is already fully equipped with anti-ship ballistic missiles, as well as a vast network of radar to support them. So precarious did the situation look that the RAND Institute, a non-profit U.S. think thank affiliated with the U.S. Department of Defense, introduced an analysis in its 2009 report to the effect that by 2020 the U.S. “would not be able to defend Taiwan from a large-scale Chinese attack.”

　　　If successful in bringing Taiwan under its control, China will be able to apply greater naval power to the South China Sea – a vital stronghold for its  strategy for world hegemony. Points out Sumihiko Kawamura, Deputy Director of the Okazaki Institute in Tokyo and an expert on submarines who once served as a commander in the Japan Maritime Self Defense Force:

　　　“China is out to make the South China Sea its second-strike base for a nuclear attack against the U.S. Should an attack against the land base come in the wake of a nuclear war, submarines will be able to thwart the attack. Submarines surviving the attack will launch nuclear missiles at the continental U.S. This is what the second strike is about. China, which has yet to

acquire such a retaliatory capability, is desperately trying to master it. The South China Sea is deep enough – an ideal spot to hide these submarines.”

　　　The large scale naval base completed on Hainan Island in the East China Sea is the home port for China’s fleet of the newest and most powerful Jin-class ballistic missile submarines complete with a tunnel-shaped underground base capable of accommodating 20 submarines. Observes Kawamura: “China seriously believes only by making the South China Sea an untouchable  nuclear second strike base, can it become a true military super power capable of grappling with the U.S. squarely.”

Operation “Pearl Necklace”

　　　Putting the East China Sea under its control is the very first step of critical importance for China as it strives to realize its strategy for world hegemony by excluding the U.S. from the western Pacific and the Indian Ocean by 2040.

　　　Once a plan is mapped out, China continues to pursue it patiently. It never gives up, and exercises amazing flexibility and tenacity.

　　　For instance, China in these past 10 odd years has helped build and maintain extensive port facilities capable of embracing military bases and berthing warships in a number of Indian Ocean states, encircling India along the way as a means of eventually controlling the Indian Ocean. Popularly called “Operation Pearl Necklace,” the project has been carried out with countries like Bangladesh, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, and Pakistan cooperating with China. While the U.S. and members of the European Union strongly called on Myanmar’s military administration to expedite democratization of the country while suspending economic assistance, China showered aid generously on the hard-pressed nation. In exchange for the aid extended to Myanmar, a nation inhabited by a gentle people blessed with the largest territory in the whole of Southeast Asia and rich natural resources, China has successfully come into the possession of land and resources as well as a strategic stronghold for its campaign against India – extensive port facilities it has built in the city of Sittwe.

　　　In 2011, China is scheduled to start constructing an express railway linking Kunming in the southwestern Chinese province of Yunnan with Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city. The railway is expected to branch off halfway between these two cities, veering off to reach the port of Sittwe.

　　　China is least concerned with the system of government or the values of its counterparts, single-mindedly pursuing what it desires to acquire. China has also given the third world its biggest and most controversial gift – nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.

　　　Points out Raja Mohan, a prominent Indian strategic and foreign policy analyst as well as journalist:”The nuclear weapons in Pakistan and North Korea all trace back to China.”

　　　In the same way as North Korea constitutes a big problem for East Asia with its nuclear weapons and missiles, Pakistan with its share of nuclear weapons and missiles is a serious problem for South Asia. To make matters worse, Taliban forces are operating behind the scenes, casting a dark shadow over the future of Afghanistan. All these are the results of nuclear proliferation in the third world for which China is responsible. Clearly, China is the destroyer of peace and order in Asia.

　　　Encircled though they are by such a hegemon as China, however, Indians on the whole manage to remain unruffled. Asked to comment on China’s “Operation Pearl Necklace,” Shiv Shanka Menon, a prominent national security advisor to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, has this to say: “Actually, China’s building of ports and related facilities themselves doesn’t pose any threat. The problem is how these are used.”

　　　Meanwhile, on China’s supply of nuclear weapons to Pakistan, Mohan pointed out the sheer need “for India and China to have the political will to sincerely discuss complex matters pertaining to the subject.”

　　　Remarks by the two top Indian experts, whose highly valued views significantly influence the formation of their nation’s foreign and security policies, strike one as surprisingly neutral and calm – at least on the surface. However, the real situation is actually far tougher than one can imagine.

　　　Professor Tadae Takubo, Deputy Director of the privately-funded Japan Institute for National Fundamentals (JINF) headquartered in Tokyo, who has over the years commented on Japanese foreign policy, points out:

　　　“The terrorists, including the Talibans in Afghanistan, must now be anxiously waiting for the summer of 2011, when the scheduled withdrawal of U.S. and European troops is slated to start. After the withdrawal, I am concerned about the possibility of nuclear weapons and missiles in Pakistan falling into the hands of the Taliban regaining strength. Pakistan under Taliban control constitutes a major threat to India, as much as neighboring Iran. Will India cooperate with Iran, as the two nations are on relatively good terms with each other? If India seeks closer ties with Iran, what will the U.S. think when it suspects Iran of having produced nuclear weapons, or at least being in the process of manufacturing them? What now is totally invisible is the strategic scenario involving Afghanistan after the planned U.S. troop withdrawal. Under present circumstances, as U.S. troops sweat it out to preserve peace in Afghanistan, China is steadily minding its own business of copper mine development.”

To Become a Dauntless Nation

　　　With the situation in Asia as it is today, not a small number of Indians in the know feel their country should adhere to the spirit of its traditional non-alignment diplomacy while attempting to expand it to develop bilateral – as well as multilateral – strategic relations with countries like Iran, Russian, the U.S., Japan, South Korea, and Australia, as well as members of the Southeast Asian community. In the face of the actual crisis posed by a nuclear Pakistan marred by alarming instability, as well as by an Afghanistan whose future remains extremely uncertain, India is groping for survival by pondering a grand strategy based on a far-sighted view on the present and future state of the world.

　　　On November 6, 2010, President Obama visited India, remaining in the country for four days – unusually long for a U.S. presidential visit. While in India, Obama declared the U.S. will support India’s bid for permanent seat in the United Nations Security Council. The president also emphasized the common interests that exist between the two nations, bringing into sharp focus the differences with China.

　　　Obviously, Obama too has come to recognize China as the source of many of the serious problems involving the Eurasian continent, the Indian Ocean, and the western Pacific. Undoubtedly, the president is revising U.S. strategy towards China, as well as South Asia based on such a perception. Once again, the South Asian balance of power is undergoing a significant change.

　　　Asked how he thinks India and Japan together should cope with global problems from 2011 on, Menon emphasizes the need to develop a bilateral relationship of multifaceted cooperation between the two countries. It was obvious that he was conscious of China as he made those remarks, although he did not specifically refer to the country. Now is the time for Japan to seriously grapple with the question of how to go hand in hand with India. And the answer will definitely have a decisive bearing on Japan’s survival in the years ahead.

　　　The task for Japan for the time being would be to take the initiative in promoting satisfactory economic and personnel interchange with India, simultaneously with interchange of military personnel and information.

　　　At the risk of inviting some misunderstanding, however, the author believes even such a step is a side issue in view of the critical question people in Japan must seriously put to themselves – as to whether Japan can function properly as a responsible and sovereign state under the existing Japanese system. To be blunt, the real issue is whether Japan can protect Senkaku Islands with the war-renouncing Article 9 of its “peace” constitution.

　　　Japanese people from all walks of life – politicians, bureaucrats and ordinary citizens alike – must all be determined to recognize their share of responsibility for running the nation on their own, looking specifically at this juncture with keen interest at the drastically changing international community, and giving careful thought to what will make Japan inhabited by over 100 million people a responsible, well-functioning sovereign state.

　　　It is critical that Japan become a stronger nation unafraid of squarely tackling Chinese imperialism. With this in mind, it is high time for the good people of Japan to join hands and set clear objectives in working out a grand strategy for future generations – not only in Japan but in the rest of Asia.

(Condensed from “Renaissance Japan” column No. 442 published in the combined December 30-January 6, 2011 issue of The Weekly Shincho.)