Condoleezza Rice visita l’Australia e l’Indonesia per stringere i legami con gli USA contro la Cina

Indonesia

• La visita della Rice in Indonesia aveva come scopo il rafforzamento
  della “alleanza strategica”, in particolare con le sue forze armate su cui gli
  USA hanno contato per puntellare il dittatore Suharto. Le forze armate
  americane addestreranno 40 ufficiali indonesiani, aiuteranno a modernizzare le
  forze armate indonesiane.

Giappone

• Il primo ministro Koizumi sta utilizzando la carta
  cinese per ravvivare il nazionalismo giapponese e giustificare la maggiore
  aggressività militare giapponese nel N-E Asia.
• In dicembre 2005, il ministro Esteri giapponese: la
  Cina sta divenendo «una minaccia considerevole».

Australia

• Il quotidiano australiano Age: scopo dell’incontro
  a tre è quello di arrestare quella che viene vista come deriva dell’Australia
  verso la Cina. C’è la preoccupazione che noi ci avviciniamo troppo a Pechino.
• Il governo australiano deve bilanciarsi tra gli
  interessi economici crescenti che legano il paese alla Cina e in generale
  all’Asia, in particolare per l’esportazione di materie prime (gas naturale,
  minerale di ferro, carbone…):
• 15 mesi fa accordo per vendita gas naturale per
  $25Md. a Cina, il maggior contratto australiano di export fino ad ora.
• in aprile il premier cinese Wen Jia-bao si
  recherà in Australia per sottoscrivere un accordo per l’acquisto di 10 000
  tonnellate di uranio l’anno.
• e l’alleanza con USA e Nuova Zelanda (ANZUS), in atto
  dalla fine della Seconda guerra mondiale (quando passarono dall’alleanza con la
  GB a quella con gli USA). Per ottenere l’appoggio americano ai propri interessi
  in Asia, l’Australia ha appoggiato gli interventi militari americani in
  Afghanistan e Irak.
• Ministro Esteri australiano: «Riteniamo sarebbe un
  grave errore una politica di containement della Cina. Il dialogo a tre non deve
  essere interpretato come ostile verso la Cina»
• La dichiarazione congiunta ufficiale non ha
  menzionato direttamente la Cina, si è limitata a rimarcare i punti di
  accordo su questione iraniana, con appello a Nord Corea di riprendere negoziati
  a sei per il programma nucleare; approvazione all’accordo USA-India.

La possibilità di vendere in futuro uranio all’India è un incentivo per
l’Australia ad appoggiare l’accordo USA-India.Wsws 06-03-21

Condoleezza
Rice visits Australia and Indonesia to tighten US ties against China

By Peter
Symonds

Coming just weeks after US President George Bush’s trip to India
and Pakistan, the visit by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to Indonesia
and Australia last week was aimed at further strengthening Washington’s key
alliances throughout Asia—directed against China in particular.

Central to Bush’s trip was the consolidation of what the White House views as a crucial
strategic partnership with India. The American president signed a battery
of agreements in New Delhi, most notably a deal to assist India’s civilian
nuclear programs despite India’s 1998 nuclear tests and its refusal to sign the
Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT). In return, as well as greater access to
the expanding Indian economy, Washington is seeking to exploit New Delhi as a
strategic counterweight to China.

– The focus of Rice’s visit was a tripartite meeting in
Sydney last Saturday with Australian foreign minister Alexander Downer
and Japan’s foreign minister Taro Aso. The talks were billed as the
inaugural meeting to establish
an ongoing high-level strategic dialogue between the three countries on “contemporary
security issues” in the Asian region. Both Australia and Japan have formal military alliances
with the US.

Prior to the Sydney meeting, Rice
made a number of pointed remarks directed against China.

–
The previous week she declared that the tripartite
talks would concentrate on China’s military and economic expansion. “All
of us in the region, particularly longstanding allies, have a joint
responsibility and obligation to try and produce conditions in which the
rise of China will be a positive force in international politics, not a
negative one,” she said.

Of course, Rice’s comments were in coded
diplomatic language. The US administration has shelved, temporarily at
least, Bush’s rhetoric during the 2000 presidential elections that China was “a
strategic competitor”.

–
Beijing’s acquiescence in
Washington’s bogus “war on terror” and the invasion of Iraq, as well as its assistance in pressuring North Korea have proven
useful to the US. Washington’s
long-term strategy remains, however. While US officials talk about “strategic relationships” with India,
Japan, Australia and even Pakistan and Indonesia, no one in the US administration
is suggesting China as a strategic ally.

In fact, during the past five years,
the Bush administration has deliberately strengthened its strategic position
in countries on China’s borders. In the lead up to the US-led invasion of
Afghanistan, the Pentagon
established military bases and agreements for the first time with a number of
Central Asian republics that were formally part of the Soviet Union.
Washington has also forged
closer military ties with Japan and India, as well as the Philippines,
Pakistan, Nepal, Singapore and Thailand.

The main purpose of Rice’s visit to
Indonesia was to reinforce its “strategic partnership” with Jakarta, and in particular with the Indonesian
Armed Forces (TNI), on which the US relied as a key regional prop during the
Suharto dictatorship. The Bush administration has already partially
lifted restrictions on relations between the Pentagon and the TNI, imposed
following the Indonesian army’s murderous activities in East Timor in the 1990s.
While few details were released during Rice’s trip, the US military is to
begin training 40 Indonesian officers, help “modernise” the TNI and
assist in counter-terrorism, maritime security and disaster relief.

As for Japan, Prime Minister
Junichiro Koizumi has been playing
the China card to whip up nationalist sentiment and justify a more aggressive
Japanese military stance in North East Asia. His foreign minister Taro
Aso has been particularly provocative, declaring last December that China
was becoming “a considerable threat”. Prior to the tripartite meeting in
Sydney, Aso echoed Rice’s comments, calling for China to be “more transparent”
about its military spending.

–
The Australian government,
however, confronts a basic dilemma over China. To garner US backing for
Australian interests in Asia, Prime
Minister John Howard has been the most fervent supporter of the Bush
administration’s “war on terror” and committed troops to the US military
interventions in both Afghanistan and Iraq. The ANZUS alliance between Australia, the US and New
Zealand has formed the cornerstone of Canberra’s strategic policy
ever since World War II, when the Australian ruling elites switched their
allegiances from London to Washington.

At the same time, the political
fortunes of the Howard government have rested heavily on its claims to have
brought continuous economic growth.

–
A major reason for the relative buoyancy of the Australian economy has been a vast expansion in the export of
raw materials to the expanding Chinese economy. Just 15 months ago,
for instance, Australia signed a deal to sell natural gas worth $25 billion
to China—its largest ever export contract. In its efforts to further expand the sale
of natural gas, iron ore, coal and other Australian commodities, Canberra has
been cautious not to offend Beijing. Its room for manoeuvre,
however, has increasingly narrowed as Washington has tightened its
strategic noose around China.

In a bid to undercut Rice’s comments on
China, Foreign Minister Downer declared in an interview prior to her
arrival:

–
“Our message is that we don’t support a policy of
containment of China… I think a policy of containment of China would be a
very big mistake.” The tripartite talks, he
said, “should not in any way be construed as hostile towards China”.

–
At their joint press
conference, Rice played down the issue, declaring that “containment,” along
the lines of the Cold War, was not on the US agenda, but reiterated the demand
for Beijing to be “more transparent” on its military budget. Undoubtedly,
the discussion was blunter behind closed doors.

In a comment in the Age newspaper,
Australian strategic analyst Hugh White noted that Saturday was going to be
“a tough day” for Downer. “These [tripartite] talks are not routine
diplomacy. The US Secretary of State and the Japanese Foreign Minister have
gone to a lot of trouble to be here together for today’s session. They have a serious purpose: to
arrest what they see as Australia’s drift towards China. They worry
that, dazzled by China’s economy and seduced by its diplomacy, we are
going too close to Beijing.”

White also summed up what Rice means by
China playing “a positive role” in international politics.

–
“Even ‘pro-China’ Americans find it hard to imagine ever
treating Beijing as an equal partner in managing regional affairs. They think it’s up to China to choose whether it is going to
play by America’s rules, or face America’s wrath. That is what the Pentagon
means when it says China is at a ‘strategic crossroads’,” he explained.

–
Canberra faces a similar
problem. All of the Howard government’s manoeuvring has been to avoid making
a painful choice between Australian economic ties with China, and more
generally Asia, and its strategic alliance with the US. As David Zweig,
director of the Hong Kong-based Centre on China’s Transnational Relations,
observed: “The Australians are in a pickle.”

The tripartite talks produced no
diplomatic fireworks. The official joint statement emphasised the points of
agreement on issues at the top of Washington’s agenda. It expressed “grave
concerns” over Iran’s nuclear programs and the need for “concerted
action” by the UN Security Council over Tehran’s alleged breaches of the
NPT. The three ministers also called on North Korea to immediately return to
six-party talks over its nuclear programs.

– Significantly, the statement also stressed “the importance of reinforcing our global partnership
with India” and welcomed the US nuclear agreement with India as “a positive
step towards expansion
of the reach of the international proliferation regime”.

–
The US-India deal does
precisely the opposite. By making an exception to the NPT for nuclear-armed
India, while simultaneously
treating Iran and North Korea as international pariahs, the Bush administration
is effectively undermining the entire previous framework for preventing
the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

–
The emphasis on India marks it
out as a possible future partner in a US-sponsored “security dialogue” in Asia.
The prospect of lucrative
sales of uranium to India is an added inducement to Canberra to toe
Washington’s line. Howard, who
visited India hot on Bush’s heels, was virtually amending Australia’s
policy on uranium sales on the flight into New Delhi. While in India, he indicated a way would be found to
sidestep the previous Australian ban on selling uranium to countries
like India that refuse to sign the NPT.

–
On the key issue of China,
the statement was almost silent, commenting only
that the participants “welcomed China’s constructive engagement in the
region”. Hugh White told the Financial Times that the “sparse” language probably
meant that “the US and Australia could not agree on harsher language and in the
end found it easier to virtually keep China out of the statement”.

The statement’s language also
indicates that Rice, who is quite capable of
being blunt and provocative, did not come to Australia to deliver an
ultimatum. Rather,

–
she sought to establish a framework, within which to apply
pressure to Canberra to fall into line when the need arises, and, in this, she succeeded.
When push comes to shove, Canberra
will be compelled to choose between its relationship with China, and its ties
with Washington and Tokyo, which remains Australia’s largest trading partner.

–
How Beijing reacts to Washington’s latest steps to encircle
it with strategic allies is yet to be seen. Foreign
Minister Downer was at pains to stress on Saturday that China should not feel
that the US, Japan and Australia were “entering into a conspiracy” against it.
But he may not have too long to wait to find out the Chinese leadership’s real
feelings about Canberra’s involvement in Washington’s plots—Chinese Premier Wen Jia-bao is due
in Australia next month to sign a highly profitable deal to buy 10,000 tonnes
of uranium a year.

–
The Bush administration’s aggressive moves to maintain US
economic and strategic preeminence in Asia are having a profoundly
destabilising influence. Following Bush’s visit to
South Asia, the Pakistani
regime has already publicly hinted that it may look to China if Washington
continues to relegate it to a second-class status behind longtime rival India.
By steadily backing Canberra into a corner over China, Rice is inevitably
heightening tensions not just in Australia-US relations, but throughout the
region as a whole.