China to focus on ties with neighbors in 2014

MANILA, Philippines - After the United States' strategic pivot to Asia, China is set to direct its diplomatic efforts to its neighbors this year on its way to becoming a major power in the region, observers said.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has been shifting the government's focus to its relationship with adjacent countries to adapt to "trends of the time," Jin Canrong, deputy dean of the School of International Studies under Renmin University of China, told state-run China Daily on Thursday.

"It does not mean we do not attach importance to big nations or developing countries, but neighbors will be the focus at the moment," Canrong said.

The perceived change in strategy lies amid the regional tension over China's maritime claims against Japan, the Philippines, South Korea and Vietnam among others--acknowledged to be close allies of the US.

The academic said that instead of highlighting differences and overlapping claims with other nations, Beijing intends to "ease tensions while adhering to China's basic stance."

Douglas Paal, vice president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, noted that China's foreign policy toward its neighbors is rife with "contradictions."

Paal said in a statement last Friday that while China has asserted its so-called rights over the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands against Japan, it also launched diplomatic events with Tokyo that drew positive feedback.

He also said that China seems to be treating the Philippines differently as President Benigno Aquino III was left uninvited to a China-hosted regional gathering.

"Beijing is particularly irked by Manila’s so-far-successful pursuit of a case against Chinese territorial claims with the UN’s International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea," Paal said.

Huang Jing, director of the Center on Asia and Globalization at the National University of Singapore said that China, who saw a transition in leadership last March, is committed to pursuing a "win-win cooperation" with its neighbors especially in terms of regional development.

"China sees itself and its neighbors as depending on each other for shared fortunes, good or bad," Huang said. - with Xinhua