‘‘What would you say in the entirely hypothetical event that China wanted to take pre-emptive action against Taiwan, saying that Taiwan was a threat to it? How would the American, the Europeans and others react?’’ To date, the most dramatic appearance that the People’s Republic of China has made in the Iraqi crisis, has been in the above statement by French President Jacques Chirac. This only goes to show the low profile that the Chinese have maintained before and since the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1441 was passed last November. Even since the US-led war against Iraq began, the Chinese have more or less continued in the same vein. Nevertheless, there are certain discernible patterns in the Chinese responses since UNSCR 1441. Chinese officials had regularly aligned themselves with the American accusations that Iraq had defied the UN. The onus of disproving guilt, according to the Chinese, rested with Iraq itself. All the same, China believed the methods for a peaceful solution of the issue under UNSCR 1441 had not been exhausted and opposed a second resolution that would have authorised war. While refraining from overtly criticising the US while there was still hope for peace, China promptly questioned the legality of the American action once the attacks started. By stating that the American action was ‘‘not in conformity with Resolution 1441’’, China left no one in doubt that it did not agree with the US interpretation of the phrase ‘‘serious consequences’’ in UNSCR 1441 as legitimising the use of force in case Iraq refused to disarm. Its National People’s Congress (NPC) expressed ‘‘grave worries’’ and called on the US to ‘‘comply with the will of the international community’’. Further, the official People’s Daily went so far as to call the American military operations as lacking in legal authority and moral justification. And in the first student protests since those against the US bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade in 1999, students in Beijing University on March 30 condemned the war in Iraq. Moreover, over 200 foreigners were allowed to take out a protest march to the US embassy in Beijing. Now that war on Iraq has been ‘‘won’’ by the Anglo-American alliance, what about the post-war dispensation that the US seeks to impose on Iraq? China is aware as the rest of the world of the complex interplay of factors — anti-terrorism, oil, and the desire to engineer a domino effect for spreading democracy in the region and not necessarily in that order — that has driven the US policy in the region before and since 9 Indications that the Americans would try to retain a significant say in the administration of Iraq, as well as plans to ignore several contacts that other countries had made with Saddam, have repercussions for the Chinese as well. As a result, China has repeatedly stressed the importance of the UN in bringing peace and stability in Iraq. Similarly, how the US deals with the Kurds, for example, could have implications for China’s policy on the Uighur ethnic minority in Xinjiang. Since the US used the activities of the Kosovo Liberation Army to justify the NATO intervention in Yugoslavia, the Chinese regime has been concerned that Washington could exploit the Uighur separatist movement for similar purposes. After the US has finished up in Iraq, and given that they already have a military presence in Central Asia and a friendly government in Afghanistan, the US will probably only try to consolidate their strategic interests in the region. American advisors and troops are already in the closest physical proximity to the traditional Chinese trouble spots of Tibet and Xinjiang than they have ever been in the 50 years since the formation of the People’s Republic. Despite the increasing American presence on its western borders, however, China is probably more concerned about securing its eastern flanks. China’s wary responses to the present crisis have probably been framed in such a manner as to appear consistent if and when a similar situation arises with respect to North Korea — a possibility that is all the more likely with the present Republican administration in the US. China could be using North Korea as a proxy to keep US ambitions in check. The repeated North Korean attempts to turn the spotlight on itself while the US was engaged with Iraq, could be construed as trying to get the US to make concessions in one part of the world while it was busy in another. Besides the increasing US presence in Central Asia, China is probably also keeping a wary eye on the US presence in Southeast Asia. And the Japanese too, since siding with the Americans in the Iraq war, have launched two spy satellites. In the circumstance, China must be trying to avoid an American fist forming around it and use North Korea in a potent fingerlock with the US instead. In economic terms, lacking strategic oil reserves, China has the same price worries as the rest of the world but it has not remained idle on this front. Shortly after the beginning of the attacks, Russia and China signed a deal that gave the latter access to crude oil deposits in Angarsk in the Siberian east. The other question that must exercise Chinese policymakers would be that of whether the US will overreach itself in the aftermath of Iraq? Whatever advantages may accrue to the Chinese from such a situation in military or political terms, any adverse impact on the American economy will be equally detrimental to the Chinese. This is something they simply cannot afford at this stage or any stage for quite some time. (The writer is with Centre for East Asian Studies, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University)
