In a breakthrough that could have a major impact on the control of climate change, the world's two economic superpowers, United States and China have agreed to give serious attention to how they tackle their emission of global-warming carbon gases. Meanwhile in a breakdown that could have major impact on global peace and security, the United States and China world's two military nations appear to have embarked on a rapid and threatening campaign to build-up power and influence in the Asia-Pacific region. The two developments are deeply at odds with each other. The 2009 Copenhagen Summit on climate change was seen as a watershed moment which would capitalize on long and difficult negotiations since the United Nations first succeeded in forcing climate change onto the international agenda at Rio in 1992. The huge hopes invested in the summit were dashed, in very large measure because, despite repeated indications to the contrary, China and the United States were not prepared to risk their respective competitive positions by allowing any climate deal to limit their manufacturing and industrial output. China argued, with some justice, that Western economies had prospered and grown thanks to their historic pollution. Therefore it was unjust to expect China and other still developing economies, to curtail their own industrial growth by limiting pollution. For their part, the Americans, who themselves continue to be major contributors of carbon gases, were not ready to cut unless the Chinese did so likewise. Twelve years on and China's cities are polluted hell-holes, huge expanses of its agricultural land are contaminated with toxic chemicals, rivers are laden with deadly discharges and an alarming number of water sources are polluted. Beijing is finally buying into the climate-change agenda, so therefore Washington will do so as well. There is unfortunately no such consensus on the military front. China's desire to match its considerable economic power by asserting itself militarily in its own backyard, has produced alarm among its neighbors, particularly Japan, Vietnam and the Philippines. Japan is abandoning its post-war pacifist neutrality for active rearmament in response to Beijing's belligerence. The change is being quietly welcomed by countries such as the Philippines which were actually wartime victims of Japanese aggression and brutal occupation. In addition Washington is boosting and spreading its military presence in the Asia-Pacific. The policy change has been one of the key issues discussed with the South Koreas, Malaysians, Japanese and Filipinos during Obama's Asian tour that finished yesterday. On the face of it, China's claims over the extent of its territorial waters which also affect the Vietnamese, are provocative. Certainly Washington's narrative that the Chinese military threat must be contained, is easily sold. But it is important to examine China's position. Has not Beijing long felt itself threatened by the extensive US military presence, effectively on its doorstep? Did not China suffer horrifically from the 1933 Japanese invasion, whose generals are among the dead still honored at the Yasukuni war shrine, visited by the present premier Shinzo Abe this year? Beijing officials say that, militarily, China feels itself caged. That reaction deserves some respect. However, before Asia embarks on a dangerous arms race, ought not Washington and Beijing be looking to the example of their new cooperation on carbon-gas emission controls, to see if a like agreement cannot be found for the emerging territorial and military issues, before they get out of hand?
