Ms Yuriko Koike, Japan’s former Minister of Defense and National Security Adviser, wrote in Project Syndicate on 31 October that Asia is faced with a choice of two futures - "either the region embraces a multilateral structure of peace, or it will find itself constrained by a system of strategic military alliances." Click here
"China, it is plain to see, is at the root of most of the disputes troubling Asia.
The philosophical problem concerns China’s renewed conception of itself as the “Middle Kingdom,” a state with no sovereign equal. Throughout its history, China has sought to treat its neighbors as vassals – a mindset currently reflected in the way that it has approached negotiations with Vietnam and the Philippines over the South China Sea.
China’s free-floating rise, unanchored in any regional structure or settlement, makes this mindset particularly worrying. At the Hawaii summit, Obama must orchestrate the first steps toward constructing an effective multilateral framework within which the complications posed by China’s rise can be addressed.
The absence of such a structure of peace has been obscured, to some extent, by America’s dominant role in Asia since the Pacific War. But China’s rise and America’s other global and domestic concerns have left many Asians wondering just how enduring those commitments will be in the future. Nevertheless, China’s recent strategic assertiveness has led many Asian democracies to seek to deepen their ties with the US, as South Korea has done with a bilateral free-trade agreement. The US is reciprocating by pledging not to cut Asia-related defense spending, despite the big reduction in overall US defense spending that lies ahead.
What Asia most needs today is a well-conceived regional system, embedded in binding multilateral institutions. A “Trans-Pacific Partnership” between Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the US, and Vietnam to govern supply-chain management, intellectual-property protection, investment, rules on state-owned firms, and other trade issues – likely to be announced in Hawaii – is a good start in the economic sphere. But much more is needed.
Ultimately, the best way for peace to prevail in the region is for the US and China to share responsibility for a regional order with Asia’s other powers, particularly India, Indonesia, Japan, and South Korea.
Asia’s choice is clear: either the region embraces a multilateral structure of peace, or it will find itself constrained by a system of strategic military alliances. In Hawaii, Obama and the other assembled Asian leaders – particularly the Chinese – must begin to choose between these two Asian futures," concludes Ms Yuriko Koike.
There is no doubt that China's influence in SE Asia has been on the ascendant as China has become the preferred centre of an Asian, if not global, manufacturing production and supply chain. The latest US initiative of a China-exclusive Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is unlikely to change this situation anytime soon.
While China's economic ties in the region have been deepening (witness the "ASEAN + 3" Free Trade Zone), China has yet to be seen to develop a military bloc in the region. This stands in contrast with the recent US initiatives to specific military ties with a ring of countries facing China, including Japan, Vietnam, India and Australia.
On the one hand, this new US military network in the Asia Pacific is welcome by China's weaker neighbours. While continuing to guard jealously their huge benefits from exporting raw materials and other manufacturing inputs to China, they all desire a regional US military umbrella as a hedge against undue Chinese geopolitical, if not military influence.
On the other hand, the new TPP is also America's counterweight against a Rising China as a reflection of the US geopolitical shift towards a new US "Pacific Century" as the world's predominant superpower.
Against this background, territorial integrity cuts into the quick of China's national psyche. While China has settled a number of territorial disputes with other nations, notably Russia, through bilateral negotiations, those in the South China Sea (along with those vis-a-vis India) remain intractable. China has consistently maintained her stand that such disputes are best resolved through bilateral negotiations. But there is a fear that negotiating alone with China may weaken each country's bargaining position.
For China there is also the critical issue of safeguarding the energy and other shipment channels in the South China Sea, which are vital to her economic survival.
The danger is that classical security dilemma (with mutually reinforcing negative feedback loops) may turn these considerations into a Cold War mentality bewteen the US and China, with omninous regional and global implications.
The challenge is to expand and deepen understanding between the two superpowers on all fronts and to seek closer regional and global cooperation that promises greater mutual trust and more win-win opportunties while minimizing stances and manuoevres that could only lead to mutual misunderstanding and miscalculations.
Andrew
www.andrewleunginternationalconsultants.com
