Abe, Obama’s Mission to Isolate China

The Japanese prime minister seeks the most important ally to contain the expansion of Beijing in the Pacific; the White House remains cautious.

Despite the official agenda’s focus on North Korea and Iran’s nuclearization, and the currency war in the financial markets, Barack Obama and Shinzo Abe dedicated a large part of their meeting at the White House to China. The reason is what is happening in the East China Sea, where Beijing sent the coast guard into the waters of the Senkaku islands in Japan to claim control of the Diaoyu.

Abe considers it a test of strength on the part of “a system that betrays its neighbors to increase its homeland” and calls for support from Obama so that “they would not be able to change the rules or take away somebody’s territorial water or territory by coercion or intimidation.” Beijing calls the words of the Japanese prime minister “shameful” and warned the White House not to “meddle” in the particularly dangerous dispute between the Asian giants about territorial waters, as this dispute also includes Taiwan. Washington is concerned about the many Chinese attempts to expand its southern and eastern borders and take possession of resource-rich maritime areas, but Obama’s word choice is deliberately moderate. “[The president] remains supportive of the peaceful efforts to find diplomatic resolution to outstanding issues of territorial claims,” said Danny Russell, adviser on Asia, “[but he opposes] coercive actions or unilateral steps that threaten the stability of the region.” In other words, the support of Japan is part of the position taken by ASEAN — organization of the countries of the Pacific — or opposition to the maritime blitz of Beijing without raising too much tension.

The reason is that the White House is still studying Xi Jinping. The new president of China, who took office in the fall, has sent conflicting signals: On one hand he is harsher toward North Korea, more willing to cooperate against Iran and more determined to enact internal reforms — hopefully to the point of a national Gulag Archipelago reform — but on the other hand, cyber-attacks on the United States are increasing, with the systematic looting of confidential government and business information. If Obama hesitates to openly take Tokyo’s side, Xi Jingping will consider the White House summit a confirmation of the strategic Japanese-American partnership and will immediately make his countermove: His first trips abroad will be to Moscow and Pretoria, to consolidate the good relations between BRICS emerging economies frightened by the parallel devaluation of the dollar and the yen.