Asia Has a Taste of Things to Come

Her

e's a rule of diplomacy: when the blindingly obvious becomes controversial, you've got a problem. If political leaders were sitting down to discuss potential hot spots in Asia, it would be hard to avoid concluding that the Taiwan Strait was one of them. On one side of the waterway is Taiwan, whose democratically elected leader speaks of it as a sovereign state. On the other side is China, which regards Taiwan as no more than a renegade province, and has vowed to prevent, by force if need be, any formal declaration of independence by Taipei. Oh, and another thing: the U.S. is committed to defending Taiwan if it is attacked without provocation. Put all that together, and you've got a spot that is definitively hot. Yet when news broke last week that the draft of a communiqué by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, together with their Japanese counterparts, mildly identified "peaceful resolution of issues concerning the Taiwan Strait" as a "common strategic objective" of the U.S. and Japan, the news rolled round Asia like a thunderclap coming out of a clear blue sky.

Why the surprise? Because in the past, Japan—mindful of China's position that what happens to Taiwan is nobody's business but its own—had never publicly linked itself to U.S. policy on the Strait. Indeed, the last such security statement, issued by Japanese and U.S. officials in 2002, didn't mention Taiwan at all. To add zest to the controversy, the communiqué came at the end of a week when China had already been annoyed by American musings on Taiwan. In testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee, Porter Goss, Director of the CIA had said—in another display of the blindingly obvious—that "Beijing's military modernization and military buildup is tilting the balance of power in the Taiwan Strait." China branded Goss's comments "irresponsible" and said that "the U.S. has outrageously interfered with Chinese internal affairs and sent a false signal to the advocates of 'Taiwan independence.'"

Behind the fuss lies a bigger point. In the communiqué, Asians could see harbingers of their future. It has become conventional wisdom to assert that the inexorable rise of China means that it will soon become Asia's preeminent power. Inconveniently for this thesis, Japan remains—and will remain for some time to come—the richest, most technologically advanced nation in the region. Given the heavy baggage that their relationship carries—with memories of wars, invasions and atrocities—there is intense interest in how the two giants will deal with each other. Howard Baker, who has just retired as the U.S. Ambassador to Tokyo, made the point in remarks to journalists last week. "Japan is a superpower, China is on its way to being a superpower," said Baker. "They are both rich, they both have a history and tradition in this region, and they don't much like each other, I think."

No kidding. Increasingly, Japan looks unwilling to roll over and allow China to dictate terms in Asia. Under Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, it is modernizing its military and strengthening its strategic alliance with the U.S. ("The relationship between our countries is the best it's ever been," said Baker last week.) Notoriously, Koizumi has ignored China's demands that he cease visiting the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, where the souls of some war criminals from World War II are memorialized.

Now comes evidence that Japan's new self-confidence extends even to the most sensitive of all matters in the region—the future of Taiwan. The island was a colony of Japan from 1895 to 1945 and ties between the two nations remain remarkably close. Advisers to Taiwan's President Chen Shui-bian, whom Beijing loathes, happily describe Japan as an ally, while in Tokyo, political leaders such as Shinzo Abe, secretary-general of the Liberal Democratic Party and frequently tipped to be Koizumi's successor, have made no secret of their support for Taipei. Taiwan, Abe pointed out last year, has been separated from the mainland for 50 years, "so perhaps it's natural for them to want independence." That sort of sentiment has Beijing using language a lot stronger than "irresponsible."

Those nervous at spats between China and Japan have one prayer: that the U.S., which has close relationships with both nations—and is the guarantor of Taiwan's security—will continue to hug Asia's powers in a comforting embrace. Few things so exercise gabfests on the future of Asia as the fear that the U.S., absorbed by the Islamic world and a desire to rebuild its relations with Europe, spends too little time thinking about the region. For an Asia left to its own devices, where China and Japan are allowed to intensify their rivalry without Washington spreading its mediating balm, would be a dangerous place indeed. That's blindingly obvious, too.