[Allan Topol / AllanTopol.Com]
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The Year of Asia
by Allan Topol, [IMAGE]2005

ARTICLE ORIGINALLY APPEARED AT MILITARY.COM, January 04, 2006

Photo Courtesy: Julie Zitin
[Allan Topol / AllanTopol.Com] Political commentators don’t make new year’s wishes. They dust off a crystal ball and try to predict which developments are likely to occur. These days, world events follow the old adage, “expect the unexpected.”

With that in mind, I’m prepared to go out on a limb and predict that events in Asia will occupy an enormous amount of the time, efforts and energy of the Bush administration during the coming year. This isn’t to say that Iraq, Afghanistan, the war on terror and the Arab Israeli conflict won’t continue to fester. Rather our beleaguered president will have one additional flashpoint to vie for his attention.

The stage has been set by events of the past twelve months. The Chinese economy continues to roar along at a frantic pace with China now being fourth to the United States, Japan and Germany as an economic power. At the same time, the government in Beijing has been dealing with its own people in its usual brutal and savage manner, killing dozens in a southern Chinese village who dared to protest corruption and environmental pollution.

There were some Americans who stubbornly insisted, as the Chinese economic miracle unfolded, that the government in Beijing would be forced to liberalize and loosen its grip on the people. The analysis of those foolish optimists was that major economic development could not exist hand in hand with a totalitarian regime. They have been proven to be wrong.

At the same time that China has undergone the world’s most rapid economic growth in the history of the world, Beijing has in a much quieter way engineered a huge expansion in its military. On an almost daily basis, analysts in the Pentagon are forced to upgrade their assessments of China’s military strength. Moreover, the expansion isn’t merely in troops on the ground, but in sophisticated technology.

What good’s having a powerful army if you don’t use it? It’s likely that senior Chinese military officials will want to try out their new toys and Taiwan is a ready target. It’s no secret that Beijing regards Taiwan as a renegade province. 2006 may be the year that Beijing decides to reclaim what it believes is its territory.

For those interested in gaining an understanding of the current Chinese government and its origins, I would heartily recommend a book published in 2005 entitled “Mao—The Unknown Story” by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday. From the authors’ account, it’s clear that the current Chinese leadership grew up with bold, decisive action and a willingness to achieve its objectives regardless of potential costs.

The second piece to the Asian puzzle for next year is China’s bitter enemy: Japan. While the hostility between Germany and France has dissipated in the period since the Second World War, there has not been anything like a comparable thaw between China and Japan. Memories are long in Asia, and the cruelty practiced by the Japanese troops toward the Chinese population is far from forgotten.

Add to the mix two other critical factors in Japan. The first is that the Japanese economy has suffered through a decade of recession. At the same time, the Japanese have watched the economy of the Chinese, viewed as inferior by many Japanese, blazing away. The result is a deep seated resentment in Japan toward their larger and increasingly more powerful neighbor. At the same time, we have seen in the last year stirrings of a new militarism in Japan.

For Tokyo, Taiwan is not the only flashpoint. Japan and China are currently engaged in a fierce rivalry to seize control of ocean beds containing oil and natural gas. Both sides have sent military craft into the area. If both start drilling, they may start firing as well.

All of this puts the United States in an increasingly difficult situation. Our military is severely pinned down in Iraq and Afghanistan. The last thing that we need now is an outbreak of hostility in the Pacific—a fact which decision makers in Beijing have noticed.

On the other hand, the United States has treaty obligations to Taiwan which would require it to defend that island if it were attacked. We also have a close military working relationship with Japan. Finally, we view with suspicion the growth of China’s military threat. With all of these factors in play, it is hard to imagine that the Untied States would be able to sit on the sidelines if an outbreak of hostilities occurred in the Pacific.