Friday, November 30, 2007

Beating a Hawk in the Water



"Beating a dog in the water” is a Chinese expression meaning "exploiting the disadvantageous position of an opponent to gain the upper hand".

I think that’s what’s going on with the Kitty Hawk affair.

As his been widely reported, the Chinese abruptly withheld approval for the Kitty Hawk carrier group’s Thanksgiving port visit to Hong Kong.

President Bush called some PRC diplomat to the White House to express his displeasure and the White House announced that the whole thing had been a misunderstanding.

That, I think, was the U.S. government’s big mistake. It laid us open to an embarrassment that we should have seen coming a mile away.

The Chinese fired back with a statement that the snub had been intentional, and triggered by U.S. sales of $940 million worth of Patriot missile stuff to Taiwan.

From the New York Times:

Beijing also said today that Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi had not told President Bush in a meeting Wednesday that the decisions to deny the ship visits were a “misunderstanding,” as the White House had reported after the talks.

“Reports that Foreign Minister Yang said in the United States that it was a misunderstanding do not accord with the facts,” a Foreign Ministry spokesman, Liu Jianchao, said in Beijing today, adding that China had “grave concern” over United States weapons sales to Taiwan.

Ouch.

The Chinese clearly wanted to make a point with the Kitty Hawk—and make it publicly.

And to have the Bush administration flinch--and trout out a lame, concocted excuse that the Chinese briskly and completely rebutted—makes it looks like the truth about what’s going on in the west Pacific is something that the PRC is ready to deal with, but the U.S. is unwilling to confront.

As a belated riposte, the Kitty Hawk made a big deal of sailing through the Taiwan Strait.

I think there’s something different and greater at stake than complaining about Patriot missile sales or President Bush’s grip and grin session with the Dalai Lama.

What I think is at stake here is whether the United States has the right to treat the western end of the Pacific as its private lake—or whether it needs Chinese agreement to sail in the new “Red” sea.

The symbolism of the Kitty Hawk snub would be rather apt.

The Kitty Hawk is a Cold War relic, the last conventionally-powered aircraft carrier in the U.S. fleet, the only carrier group based abroad—at Yokosuka, Japan—whose most recent mission was a big joint exercise with the Japanese practicing sinking (presumably Chinese) submarines.

The Thanksgiving trip was meant to be part of the Kitty Hawk’s final victory lap around the west Pacific before it sails to the United States for decommissioning early next year.

What better way to signal America’s retreat from Asia and declare that the U.S. naval presence in the waters near China is contingent upon Chinese sufferance than denying the Kitty Hawk a graceful, triumphant exit from the scene?

The United States is quite serious about Hong Kong port visits.

As I wrote in March, the U.S. Navy engaged in a frantic scramble to rush (or, in its terms, “surge”) the nuclear carrier Ronald Reagan to visit Hong Kong in place of the John Stennis, which was being redeployed to the Middle East.

If you think the USN jumped through all these hoops to send a carrier 10,000 miles to Hong Kong so its sailors could have the opportunity to party in Wanchai instead of San Diego, there’s a big bridge I’d like to sell you.

In August, the Nimitz visited Hong Kong and was welcomed—though, perhaps significantly, it is based in San Diego and not Japan.

Then, the Kitty Hawk goes to Hong Kong to make a point—that the U.S. is an indispensable and inescapable presence in the Pacific—and this time the Chinese wanted to make exactly the opposite point.

I’ve previously argued that the objective of China’s naval build up is not to slug it out with America’s Seventh Fleet, or create a deterrent to U.S. intervention opposing a Chinese move on Taiwan.

The Chinese do intend to use military power for Taiwan reunification, but only to demonstrate to Taipei the advantages and inevitability of coming to terms peacefully with the dominant power in the west Pacific.

And the true inauguration of the Chinese century—if it’s really coming—will be marked by the arrival of the Chinese navy at Taiwan—during a peaceful, invited port call.

By this reading, the strategy is to establish the Chinese navy as the credible security guarantor (in superpower parlance) for the smaller Pacific nations falling within its economic sphere--or biggest bully on the block in the west Pacific in blunter terms--to a line extending out to the “second line” Pacific Island chain.

A Chinese navy with reach—but not necessarily hyper-power sized technology or muscle-- removes the “the world can’t accept a power vacuum out here” justification for a forward U.S. naval presence in the region, which currently conducts massive exercises in Asian waters on anti-piracy, disaster relief, and near-shore interdiction missions that seem better suited to the Coast Guard.

Whittling down the justification for a massive U.S. naval presence in Japan to Taiwanese security would put the United States and Japan in the awkward position of admitting we are keeping a carrier group in the western Pacific only for confronting the PRC.

Since the United States is officially committed to a one-China policy and we don’t appear ready to characterize our dominant supplier of socks, underwear, and lead-based toys as a our strategic enemy, this would at the very least create some diplomatic and propaganda awkwardness for the U.S.

In a riposte to the Rumsfeld-era unctuousness of “we can’t understand why the PRC is conducting a military build-up”, the Chinese could say, “we can’t understand why U.S. and Japan are maintaining a carrier group in North Asia; our fleet has matters well in hand here.”

“And, in fact, we made it clear in November 2007 that you guys can’t just sail around here like you own the place.”

So the Kitty Hawk’s replacement, the George Washington, will cruise to take up its station in Japan next year under a cloud.

I expect that there will be some of what I characterize is “muscular handwringing”. That’s the pundits’ version of “concern trolling”, framing a decision or position we don’t like as evidence that the people doing it are pathetically deluded dingbats.

In the Kitty Hawk situation, that would take the form of more sorrow than in anger tsk-tsking that the PRC’s civvy-suited Communist leadership is being led down the wide avenue to destruction by reckless elements in the PLA who are endangering China’s aspirations to responsible stakeholderism in the world system.

For the reasons above I, on the other hand, consider the Chinese move to be a rather savvy one, exploiting an important opportunity to advance its foreign policy interests in line with its long term strategic objectives.

And I don’t think the decision to turn away a U.S. carrier group was made by some disgruntled harbor master. This one went to the top.

I would also consider the Black Thanksgiving stunt a particularly clever piece of political theater—because it occurred on the Bush administration’s watch, when the U.S. was trying to inveigle Chinese support for Iran sanctions and unable to respond to the Chinese insult with anything more than an "in your face" sail through the Taiwan Strait.

If the Chinese had pulled this stunt during the administration of the next (and quite possibly Democratic) U.S. president, the Blue Team would have been all over the craven appeasers of the Democratic Party—and the administration might have been stampeded into a harder line as a result.

But critics will have to deal with the fact—which will be noted in foreign ministries throughout the world—that the precedent has been established—and rather meekly acknowledged—during the blood-and-thunder reign of George W. Bush.

When it comes to powerful entities finding themselves in weak and vulnerable positions, the Kitty Hawk isn’t the only dog in the water.
Photo from the Kitty Hawk website

16 comments:

Michael Turton said...

Nice essay -- and nice reply by Kitty Hawk. It's not their water yet. I think the Bush Admin/Navy only feel awkward because the Navy was trying so hard to establish good relations with China. At one point PACOM forbade the fleet HQ in Hawaii from contacting military exercises with China as the target. Now the Navy has been abused by China, and shown up for being a bunch of naive panda huggers.

I don't read this a signal to the Bush Administration in the way that you mean. KH is the 9th vessel (and one aircraft) to suffer this fate. The Chinese have also curtailed mil-mil contacts. There's an ongoing statement here, from the Dragon Throne to the barbarians: align yourselves properly with the righteous dragon throne.

I've got two long posts on my Taiwan blog, Le Roi Soleil as a Responsible Regional Player: L'Affaire Kitty Hawk and More on the Kitty Hawk.

Great post, man.

nanheyangrouchuan said...

I would hesitate in congratulating Beijing's triumph over the Bushies. Their snub of the Kitty Hawk simply continues to erode the standing of the pro-China (pro-CEO-god, pro-Wall St.-at-all-costs) crowd.

The PLAN's naval exercise set off alarms in the PI, Japan, Taiwan and Vietnam.

The PLA is playing a dangerous game with the CCP's diplomacy strategy on top of not wanting any sort of crisis diffusing communication with US military leaders. This is how wars start.

Dave Porter said...

Does China really think these kind of symbolic gestures are important? Was it important internally? I do not think it was a sound move externally. If I were China I would not provoke the US in ways that would result in the US funding/building more weapons systems to counter China and support the independence of Taiwan. At a time when the American public was beginning to see the defense of Taiwan as a cold war relic and might be drifting toward letting Taiwan fend for itself, did China really want to stir up anti-China sentiment / pro-Taiwan sentiment. And did China really want to send a signal to the US that it does not value military to military relations with the US? I still can not see that it was in China national interest to do this.

Kint said...

Why is there no mention of the alleged recent Chinese naval exercises? That's the only plausible reason.

Michael Turton said...

It's not in the Chinese national interest to do this, as we define national interest. But their view of the world is completely different from ours. In Chinese thinking, it's your job to align yourself with the Throne and wait patiently for it to manifest its benevolence to you. Further, in Chinese society all transactions are zero-sum, and all produce a clear winner and loser. Hint: China considers itself the winner here.

Andy, the mil-mil contact cancellations started before the exercises. Hence the exercises explain nothing; it is simply the western desire to want a "rational" explanation for Chinese behavior.

What western observers don't grasp is that this cannot be explained in western terms. China evolved "reasons" for the cancellation after the fact of the cancellation, that is why they floundered around diplomatically. Basically, they canceled the port visits and curtailed the mil-mil contacts because....they could. The common pattern in China's relations with the outside world is for them to screw their biggest supporters.

As I noted on my blogpost about this:

Anyone who has observed China's relations with the outside world for any length of time has seen this pattern again and again. In the midst of negotiations with the Vatican, it consecrates two bishops for the state Church. In the midst of negotiations over the Torch coming to Taiwan, it denies a visa to the representative of the city of Kaohsiung to discuss games held there in 2009. Arriving in India for negotiations, its ambassador announces a whole Indian state is part of China. Some months back the Chinese government shut down an expat magazine in China that was widely considered the most sympathetic and supportive expat rag in the nation. China gets the Olympics, and crackdowns on the internet, and journalists intensify, while state security arrests double. Catch the pattern?

It screwed the Vatican after it decided it might switch from Taiwan to China. It screwed the Navy after years of Navy attempts to develop relationships with the Chinese. Right now the powers-that-be in Beijing are laughing their asses off at how dumb the Navy is for ever trusting them. "Ultimate winning" in Chinese culture means making a profit while humiliating your opponent.

This is a good thing, this Kitty Hawk affair, I think. It will finally convince many observers that the panda huggers have been wrong and China cannot be treated as a normal power with interests that are identifiable and amenable to bargaining.

Michael

Unknown said...

As if not having enough enemies already, is it really necessary to add China onto that list? Imagine how a red-blooded American patriot would feel if another country had supplied weapon systems to the Black Panther or the Poerto Rico Independent Movement, or even to Iran or Taliban; how should the Chinese feel any differently in a reverse situation? I believe that the real motivation behind the Chinese modernization of their military is not to have one of its “nuts”--Taiwan (the other one being Hainan) constantly squeezed by the Americans.

Unknown said...

**Michael Turton said...
Nice essay -- and nice reply by Kitty Hawk. It's not their water yet. I think the Bush Admin/Navy only feel awkward because the Navy was trying so hard to establish good relations with China.**

like this
http://www.g2mil.com/May2001.htm

this
http://tinyurl.com/2j5sbk

this
http://tinyurl.com/2ng3ct

and this ?
http://tinyurl.com/ysr6a6

is this is your idea of making nice, god help us when you turn nasty one day.


so you have been trying hard to please, but those chinese just dont get it eh?
mt,
what do they call someone who "believes his lies will be believed by others even though there is verifiable proof to the contrary" in english ?
http://tinyurl.com/23gkqz

denk

Unknown said...

**
Wade said...
As if not having enough enemies already, is it really necessary to add China onto that list? **


well said man, but then you miss the point , china is supposed to be the antidote for the yanks' Enemy Deprivation Syndrome"

Unknown said...

**Michael Turton said...
Arriving in India for negotiations, its ambassador announces a whole Indian state is part of China. **

like so many trouble spots in the world today, this is courtesy of your enterprising forebears who set sail from england to grab the world's premium real estates from america to falkland and asia..
http://tinyurl.com/27fm9u

"No Chinese government ever accepted the McMahon Line. Neither did the Imperial Government of China in 1914, nor the Chiang Kai-Shek government ever agree to it. The very fact that even the Chiang Kai-Shek clique, which is nothing but a tool of U.S. imperialism, has not dared to dispute the Chinese People's Republic's position of the China-India border dispute, it in itself the most eloquent testimony to the correctness of the Chinese position"

not even your puppet man chiang kai shek recognised the socalled macmahon line and you know why ?

Unknown said...

**
nanheyangrouchuan said...

The PLAN's naval exercise set off alarms in the PI, Japan, Taiwan and Vietnam. **


surprise surprise, all the yankee lapdogs [except vietnam] are crying wolves.

how about some objective opinion nanhe ?


**The PLA is playing a dangerous game with the CCP's diplomacy strategy on top of not wanting any sort of crisis diffusing communication with US military leaders. This is how wars start**

i guess we will just have to take your words then since you are the acknowledged authority on such matter isnt it ?

Unknown said...

**Michael Turton said...
It's not in the Chinese national interest to do this, as we define national interest**

the only safe world is one where every country keeps a us military base, every sealane is guarded by the us navy and every air corridor is patrolled by the us air force, thats your def of national interest right ?

**This is a good thing, this Kitty Hawk affair, I think. It will finally convince many observers that the panda huggers have been wrong**

"panda huggers" eh,
wow we have got a "blue team" wingnut here guys.

**China cannot be treated as a normal power with interests that are identifiable and amenable to bargaining**

"What would have been welcomed as 'peace" almost anywhere else, looked to Americans like an enemy shortage

is the usa a "normal" country, mike ?

Unknown said...

michael thurton,

i see that you are an english teacher, but your passion for taiwan has spread far and wide,
http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/4713

ever thought about making it a full time job as a taiwan lobbyist -- its a lucky man who can combine work and pleasure, besides i understand it pay handsomely. (-;

since the fpif has banned me from their site, i would like to ask u some questions here -- why are there so many yanks like u who root for taiwan separatists , let me guess, its all about democracy, right to self determination, ?

nanhe,

your passion about china is well known, but why restrict yourself within that cloistered pekin duck, where inconvenient opinins like mine are not welcomed and filtered out, it sure give democracy a bad name no ?
you should get out more and smell the roses, china hand is very democratic, i am sure all are welcomed here.

Unknown said...

denk, you are delusional. Are you one of these people who report 'illegal internet usage' to the MII thus aiding in the brainwashing of Chinese, and love it that Mao killed so many people "because China's population is too big anyway"?

You think that China spending so much money on its military when more than 50% of its people don't even have running water is a good thing? Commit to being a average Chinese person living on a farm only just being able to grow enough food to stay alive and still having to pay heavy taxes to your heavenly leaders, then you will have earned the right to say anything the Chinese government does is right.

Unknown said...

**
Gareth said...
denk, you are delusional. Are you one of these people who report 'illegal internet usage' to the MII thus aiding in the brainwashing of Chinese, and love it that Mao killed so many people "because China's population is too big anyway"?**

oh the same old clique, "mao murdered millions of his own people", you are the epitome of a thoroughly brainswashed dude.
whats your point anyway ?

**You think that China spending so much money on its military when more than 50% of its people don't even have running water is a good thing? **

i thought only rumsfeld is dumb

Anonymous said...

What fueled the conclusions of this post?
How does China come out looking anything but dangerous in this instance?
Were they to deny our planned visit and leave it at that while we sulked back to Japan, that would be one thing. But didn't they change their minds, and grant permission to dock sometime afterwards (the US ships were already well on their way to Japan, and it was too late to turn around)? That seems pretty indecisive to me. And regarding a topic this important - I would classify our port call as humanitarian in nature (we weren't there for exercises, but to get families together) - shouldn't the Chinese have been better prepared?
They either look cruel and spiteful or indecisive and unorganized - not sure how that's a perception win for the Chinese.

Unknown said...


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