April 8, 2003	Tuesday	Safar 5, 1424

WASHINGTON: Recent Chinese moves to influence events in the Korean peninsula are part of a new assertiveness in Beijing that has dovetailed with closer economic and political ties with the United States, experts on Chinese-US relations claim.

“Interdependence between our two societies has never been deeper,” said Wang Jisi, director of Beijing’s Institute of American Studies and the author of a recent book about US foreign policy after the Cold War.

“There is ballast in this relationship,” added Kurt Campbell, a former Pentagon official who analyzes Asian security issues for the Centre for Strategic and International Studies. Two years ago, he said, “no one would have ever imagined this situation.”

Last week, the Chinese government took the unusual step of urging North Korea not to provoke the United States amid media reports that China had closed a key oil pipeline to North Korea as a way to send a message to Pyongyang that its nuclear standoff with Washington was threatening regional peace.

Chinese officials denied the oil cutoff, but admitted they are taking a more active role in resolving the tensions in Northeast Asia that have led North Korea to restart a nuclear power programme that could produce weapons and test-fire missiles in waters near Japan.

“We have realized that we cannot let this situation alone,” a Chinese government official told the Washington Post the other day. “So we’ve decided to attempt to influence it.”

“There does seem to be now a clear sign that China is making a substantial effort to persuade the North Koreans, first of all to engage in multilateral dialogue and secondly to exercise a greater degree of restraint,” Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer told reporters after visiting US President George W. Bush in Washington last week.

Wang, speaking at a Washington forum on China sponsored by the Japan-based Sasakawa Peace Foundation last week, said Beijing’s actions reflect its growing importance in Asian affairs and comes at a time when its ties with the United States are closer than at any time since the People’s Republic was founded in 1949.

Growing economic ties, a $10 billion bilateral trade relationship, China’s deep interest in American culture and films and the fact that “we have no crisis in sight” show how deep the relationship has developed. “There is an increased institutionalization of linkages between the United States and China,” he said.

As further examples, Wang said the United States and China have “no open quarrel” about Taiwan or Iraq and are jointly engaged in fighting terrorism, particularly in the region around Afghanistan. At the same time, the Chinese media no longer refers to US “imperialism and hegemonism” while US newspapers have painted generally positive images of China, he said.

Compared to the early days of the Bush administration, when the relationship seemed heading toward a major confrontation, “the siege mentality is gone”.

Another factor in China’s new assertiveness in world affairs, Wang said, is the country’s economic progress. For the first time in its history, he argued, China’s economy surpasses those of its neighbours and is seen in many quarters as healthier than Japan.

This does not mean that all is rosy. The Bush administration’s pre-emptive war doctrine and its declaration of war against the so-called “axis of evil” are “alarming tendencies,” Wang said, “but at least they are not directed against China at the moment.”—Dawn/InterPress News Service.