In one of the many frank exchanges US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel had in China this week, General Fan Changlong told him how one of his uncles died as a slave in a Japanese mine during World War Two.
Fan, deputy head of China’s powerful Central Military Commission, spoke about the lessons of history, signalling Beijing’s concerns that the United States was siding with Japan against China.
Hagel replied by saying his own father had helped fight Japanese forces in World War Two.
“The secretary made it very clear that we should be informed by history but not driven by it,” a US official told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity to recount a conversation on Tuesday that he described as terse.
The exchange sums up the frustration in China over America’s role in Asia, where in the eyes of Beijing, Washington is increasingly supporting Japan as well as other countries over territorial disputes with China. The United States has said it is not taking sides but stands ready to defend its allies.
China, some experts said, appeared to be getting anxious that recent tough talk from US officials over the disputed East and South China Seas could be a preview of what US President Barack Obama would say when he visits Asia this month.
Dispensing with diplomatic protocol, China has made clear this week that it does not want Obama jumping in with both feet when he travels to Japan, the Philippines and Malaysia.
While Beijing has territorial disputes with all three, its ties with Japan and the Philippines, both US allies, are in the deep freeze. Obama will also visit South Korea, with whom Beijing is enjoying warm relations.
China is at loggerheads with Japan in the East China Sea over uninhabited islets that are administered by Tokyo. China also claims most of the South China Sea. The Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam, Brunei and Taiwan claim parts of those waters.
“Obama needs to pay serious consideration to this issue when he comes to Asia...China has already put this message across during the meetings with Hagel,” said Ruan Zongze, a former diplomat with the China Institute of International Studies in Beijing, a think tank linked to the Foreign Ministry.
“The United States is moving in a direction we don’t want to see, taking sides with Japan and the Philippines, and China is extremely unhappy about this.”
An Obama administration official acknowledged to reporters traveling with Hagel that the tone was sharper on issues surrounding the South and East China Seas than it had been on the last visit by a US defense secretary to China. That was when Hagel’s predecessor Leon Panetta visited in 2012.
“But in other areas the tone was actually improved,” the Obama administration official said, pointing to discussions on Sino-US military cooperation and even North Korea.
On Tuesday, Chinese Defense Minister Chang Wanquan told Hagel that Washington should restrain Japan and chided the Philippines.
http://www.malaya.com.ph/business-news/news/china-fires-shot-across-us-bow-ahead-obama%E2%80%99s-asia-trip
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