Category Archives: US-China Relationship

Without Trust and Without Paranoia: US-China Relations

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It was a time for informal face-to-face contact – just ended – the California summit between Presidents Xi and Obama. There is a strand of global summitry that emphasizes contact between leaders. Such contact can be disastrous of course. Kennedy’s encounter with Khrushchev in Vienna in June 1961, left leaders with misconceptions about the other that ultimately led each to take steps that raised threats and crisis. Let’s hope that nothing like this occurs as a result of this summit. And the reality is that the ‘world of summits’ has changed mightily. The two presidents will see each other again shortly in St. Petersburg Russia at the G20 Leaders Summit. And they will meet again shortly thereafter in Asia at the EAS.

What can we draw as the consequences of this informal meeting of the leaders of these two great powers? Ostensibly the two leaders are searching for a “new type of great power relationship” (xinxing daguo guanxi) – The announcement of this informal summit and the search for a different kind of relationship – read all that as an effort by IR types to avoid what international relations theory tells is the likely outcome of rivalry, friction and conflict between an established superpower and a rising one. Thus many of the foreign policy experts have indeed waded in to describe what might result from such a meeting – and give some expression to the ongoing Sino-American relationship.

Stephen Walt at Foreign Policy, the consummate realist suggested a modest result:

Neither Obama nor Xi can alter the core interests of the two countries, or wish away the various issues where those interests already conflict or are likely to do so in the future. The best they can achieve is a better understanding of each other’s red lines and resolve and some agreements on those issues where national interests overlap. In this way, each can hope to keep things from getting worse and at the margin make relations a bit warmer. … But even if Obama is successful this weekend, this effort is unlikely to prevent Sino-American rivalry from intensifying in the future. The basic problem is that the two state’s core grand strategies are at odds and good rapport between these two particular leaders won’t prevent those tensions from reemerging down the road.

Walt acknowledges the description just referred to is a pessimistic one (he does describe a far more optimistic alternative) based on “… Sino-American rivalry in the future no matter how well Obama and Xi (or their successors) get on this weekend. And so for Walt “intense competition is likely”.

Then there is Walt’s FP compatriot – Dan Drezner. Now Drezner is no realist – and in fact in some ways leans more to a neo-liberal framing of international relations (I suspect Dan may not buy this). But Drezner reflected on this upcoming summit at his blog (I anticipate that this blog post is not his final word on this) by referencing Harvard’s Iain Johnston in a piece Jognston wrote recently for International Security examining the growing Chinese assertiveness – which Johnston largely rejects. The lesson for Drezner is China is no revisionist power. As he argues, “Since 2008, China has had multiple opportunities to disrupt the US-Created international order, and Beijing has passed on almost all these opportunities.” So for Drezner the landscape is filled with collaborative opportunities between the US and China:

Now let’s be clear – China is doing almost all of this to advance its own narrow self-interest. None of the above means that China is suddenly going to embrace the US perspective on human rights or the South China Sea. Still, there are a healthy number of issue areas where China’s interests are pretty congruent with the United States, and where China has taken constructive policy steps. … My main point here is that China is a great power that is inevitably going to disagree with the United Sattes on a host of issues. China is not, however, a revisionist actor hell-bent on subverting the post-1945/post 1989 global governance. To use John Ikenberry’s language, recent Sino-American disputes are taking place within the context of the current international order. They are not about radical changes to that international order. Indeed, contrary to the arguments of some, the current system has displayed surprising resilience.

In a curious way this perspective resonates if only a little with a far more pessimistic view – that expressed most pointedly by Yan Xuetong the Dean of the Institute of Modern International Relations at Tsinghua University. A strong nationalist, and realist, Yan Xuetong is not well known outside China-expert circles. FP did themselves and their publics a great favor in printing a post by the Dean entitled, “Let’s Not be Friends“. For some time now Yan Xuetong has been arguing that leaders and their officials should not promote a vision of a trust-based collaborative relationship – those arguing for it will only be disappointed. The US and China are competitors. But that need not prevent incidents of collaboration:

States cooperate not because of mutual trust, but because of shared interests that make cooperation safe and productive. China and the United States should look hard to identify what these incentives and shared interests are – and focus on developing positive cooperation when their interests overlap or complement one another, such as on denuclearization of the Korea Peninsula, and preventive cooperation when their interests conflict, such as on preventing collisions in [the] South China Sea. … Preventive cooperation differs from positive cooperation because it is based on conflicting — rather than shared — interests. … Areas of friction are likely to become more common in the coming years, but the two countries can skillfully manage their competition if they work to minimize these emerging conflicts — not only in the military sector but also in nontraditional security sectors such as energy, finance counterterrorism in the Middle East, anti-piracy in Somali Sea, and even climate change. … Encouraging China and the United States to prioritize preventive cooperation does not mean they should abandon efforts to build mutual trust. However, it does mean the two countries can stabilize their strategic relations without it. The worst-case scenario is not that China and the United States is not that China and the United States will face more strategic conflicts in the coming years, but that they never learn how to develop cooperation based on the lack of mutual trust, thus allowing a small conflict to escalate into a major one.

I suppose it is a framing a little like: “don’t trust but verify”. The dilemma I fear however is that all this realist formulation will lead – at least in US circles if not Chinese ones – to analogize the relationship to something like the cold war contestants, even as they draw distinctions between the two sets of rivals. Simplistic competitive framing is too easy and too familiar. The Washington-types that always lean on “hedging” and insist on greater military preparedness will target the competitive and forget the collaborative. Inexorably the US and China will be characterized as the new cold war rivals.

I have argued for the necessity of wedging cooperation into the relationship and rejecting any logic to US-Soviet competition. In the past I have argued that “both friend and foe” (yi di yi you) is the better framing for the great power relationship than “neither friend nor foe” (fei di fei you) – a framing often used by Chinese experts. Starting at the post, “Not Required to Choose – A Strategy for US-China Relations” I have argued that defining the relationship as including a collaborative dimension is necessary to avoid sliding into a more difficult unpleasant great power relationship. Yes, it will be difficult especially for US decision-makers to retain the partnership aspect – that is both collaborative and competitive. -Without that collaborative element to the relationship, however, Washington leadership will be all too willing to accept just a rivalrous competitive relationship with China. It is after all politically so much easier.

Let’s not make it easy for the claque.

Image Credit: channelnewsasia.com

Still A Dialogue of the Deaf – Pivot and Containment

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On the eve of the first summit between US President Obama and China’s new President Xi Jinping scheduled for the 7th and 8th at Sunnylands estate in Rancho Mirage, California,  Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel delivered an annual and important statement at the Shangri-La Dialogue.  The speech entitled “The US Approach to Regional Security”, is not markedly distinct fromrecent speeches by the new Secretary of Defense or speeches by the National Security Advisor Thomas E Donilon – except maybe the announcement that the USS Ponce would be acquiring a solid-state laser to combat missiles and small speed boats, etc., – but still the imbalance between security and military and broader Asia-Pacific initiatives remains stark.

Now he is the Secretary of Defense giving a speech at a military and intelligence conference but the focus on grand strategy, tactical improvements and the strengthening of US allies and alliances is evident. And it didn’t long at all for the Chinese to respond.  In the question and answer Major General Yao Yunzhu, the director of the Center for China – America Defense Relations at the Academy of Military Sciences in Beijing took the opportunity to criticize the speech arguing: (1) it was not at all clear to the Chinese that the US wanted a “comprehensive”  relationship with China; and (2) that the US rebalancing or pivot amounted to anything other than “containment” of China.

Now the “containment” refrain is a Chinese point of view that you cannot miss when discussing US-China relations with Chinese experts and officials.  Indeed at the most recent meeting of the Harvard – Peking University dialogue called “The Challenge and Cooperation”  held in Beijing in January 2013, the refrain of containment was persistent from our Chinese colleagues.  Now the repeated charge is a bit much – not everything is about China – (indeed as our colleague Joe Nye asserted , “only China can contain China”) but a speech like Chuck Hagel’s certainly might well be interpreted in such a way.

So the speech is strong on alliance renewal and/or development – Japan, Korea and then allies further out in the Asia-Pacific, Thailand, Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines and even Burma.  It says little about China other than efforts to improve military-to-military contacts – and that is not inconsequential.  But the speech is otherwise disappointing.

Secretary of Defense repeats some standard lines that warrant some reaction. First Hagel claims: “The Asia-Pacific rebalance is not a retreat from other regions of the world”.  Well it may not be a retreat but it sure seems like an escape from the Middle East.  I can’t imagine any US leadership not wishing a respite from the Middle East after Iraq and Afghanistan and the endless unproductive Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.  And with budget constraints, I would think that some form of zero sum game is being played out here.  The real dilemma for the US is that it may not be possible to disengage from the Middle East as it would like and the Middle east may require more resources than the US military currently wants to commit.

The second standard line is: “In support of this goal, America is implementing a rebalance – which is primarily a diplomatic, economic and cultural strategy.”  Now again this is a strategic speech by the Secretary of Defense but a one paragraph description in an entire speech of what is claimed repeatedly by officials to be a diplomatic, economic and cultural strategy – I got to say doesn’t really cut it. Moreover in that one paragraph the Secretary of Defense raises the Trans Pacific Partnership – a new trade and investment initiative –  which most Chinese analysts, in fact not even Chinese analysts will tell you is all about the exclusion of China.

In Asia, Secretary Hagel see a range of persistent and emerging threats, including:

  • North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missile programs, and its continued provocations;
  • Ongoing land and maritime disputes and conflicts over natural resources;
  • The continued threat of natural disaster, the curse of poverty and the threat of pandemic disease;
  • Environmental degradation;
  • Illicit trafficking in people, weapons, drugs, and other dangerous materials – including the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction;
  • And the growing threat of disruptive activities in space and cyberspace.

And these matters are exactly where a comprehensive US-China relationship can be built.  If there are rising tensions in the Asia-Pacific and in the China-US relationship, here is the starting point.

But you can’t look to this speech for any guide to a more positive or more comprehensive relationship.  Maybe such a relationship will become clearer at the upcoming Presidents’ meeting. Let’s watch!

Image Credit:  channelnewsasia.com

Rising to a Summit – Australia’s Kevin Rudd and US-China Leaders

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Kevin Rudd, the former Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Australia has been on the “speechifying path” recently – I guess that’s what comes with others running the show.  He has been in North America and in the granddaddy of  foreign policy journals – Foreign Affairs – he has provided an interesting addition to the examination of US-China relations – “Beyond the Pivot: A New Road Map for US-Chinese Relations“.  But my suggestion is that rather than a road map his piece is more detour as he describes contemporary global summitry and how summitry today can be used to achieve both progress and stability in this most important of great power relations.

Now I must say I am a fan of Rudd – far more knowledgeable about, and interested in, international relations and international policy than most contemporary leaders. He has written a serious piece on US-China relations.  Shining a light on the new leaders and what this new leadership should examine probably would have been enough for me but in addition he has become a strong proponent for advancing the US-China relationship by a regular series of summits between the leaders – Xi Jinping and Barack Obama.  While I am never one to ‘pooh pooh’ summit advocacy, I think our former Australian leader has missed the contemporary structure of summitry and the effective means to influence contemporary regional and international stability.

So let’s drop back for a moment and examine global summitry.  Now at the global summitry project here at the Munk School of Global Affairs the working definition of global summitry is:

The   variety   of   actors – international   organizations, transgovernmental networks, states and select non-state entities – involved in the organization and execution of global politics and policy.   Global summitry is concerned with the architecture, the institutions and most critically the political and policy behavior and outcomes in global governance.

This is not your old style summitry.  It is not primarily about the “great man” theory of summit leadership – you know key leaders gazing intently across from each other determined to avoid conflict, or advance a new strategic direction – be they Chamberlain and Hitler or Kennedy and Khrushchev or a little closer to Rudd’s theme – Mao and Nixon .

I have pressed the case in this Rising BRICSAM blog and will again in the new ejournal Global Summitry we are about to launch at the Munk School of Global Affairs that to look at these leaders summits alone,  referring here particularly to the apex of such summitry today – the informal and now annual G20 Leaders Summit –  misses the better part of the structure of international governance.  Today a significant structure underpins and motivates summitry.  I call this view the ‘Iceberg Theory of Global Governance‘.   In the case of the G20 there are: the periodic meetings of the finance and central bank governors; the sherpa meetings – the personal representative of the leaders – where the agendas are put together, the meetings of the Working Groups – and there are more than a few, the meetings and reports from the traditional IFIs including, the IMF, World Bank, others, the transgovernmental regulatory organizations like the FSB, BCBS – you get the picture – a large largely unstructured structured institutional network that feeds the periodic meetings and moves the agenda forward to completion in many circumstances.

I think Rudd is rather too enamored with the old frame of global summitry.  Rudd urges that the United States choose the following course:

A third possibility would be to change gears in the relationship altogether by introducing a new framework for cooperation with China that recognizes the reality of the two countries’ strategic competition, defines key areas of shared interests to work and act on, and thereby begins to narrow the yawning trust gap between the two countries.  Executed properly, such a strategy would do no harm, run few risks, and deliver real results.  … A crucial element of such a policy would have to be the commitment to regular summitry.

As he points out there are many informal initiatives between the two great powers, “[b]ut none of these can have a major impact on the relationship, since in dealing with China, there is no substitute for direct leader-to-leader engagement.”  As a consequence Rudd urges:

The United States therefore has a profound interest in engaging  Xi personally, with a summit in each capital each year, together with other working group meetings of reasonable duration, held in conjunction with meetings of the G20, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, and the East Asia Summit.

But the governments also need authoritative point people working on behalf of the national leaders, managing the agenda between summits and handling issues as the need arises.  In other words, the United States needs someone to play the role that Henry Kissinger did in the early 1970s, and so does China.

Now Rudd suggests that for an agenda the leaders need to then take one or more issues that are currently bogged down and “work together to bring them to successful conclusions” and he suggets tackling the stalled Doha Round issues, climate-change negotiations, nuclear nonproliferation or specific outstanding items on the G20 agenda.  Rudd concludes:

Progress on any of these fronts would demonstrate that with sufficient political will all around, the existing global order can be made to work to everyone’s advantage, including China’s.

Now Rudd doesn’t end there but has suggestions for the regional dimension including obviously the island disputes and a protocol to address incidents at sea; and on the bilateral matters Rudd urges that military-to-military contact be upgraded and the talks should be insulated from the ups and downs of the US-China relationship.

Now there is value in urging bilateral summits.  But let’s not turn these current global summit efforts into a G2 – there is much suspicion already around the high table of an implicit bilateral power consortium. An explicit effort of this sort could only undermine collective summitry efforts.  So let’s avoid China and the US dealing as a central agenda with the global agenda of the G20 or the EAS Summit.  And let’s build this new summit network off of let’s say the bilateral S&ED (Strategic and Economic Dialogue).  Here groups tackle bilaterally through a vast network of national officials and ministries the bilateral issues that raise tensions and conflict in US-China relations.

I have heard that President Obama, following the G20 Toronto Summit, complained that he was meeting all the same leaders from one summit to another.  I hope his officials pointed out that that was exactly the point.  So for both Obama and Xi, the G20 or APEC or EAS remains part of global governance structure that is needed for collective discussions and decision-making – leave the bilateral to the bilaterals.

And as for the military-to-military discussions I suspect it still a vain hope to expect these meetings to be insulated from the competitiveness and rivalry that remains an element of the great power relationship. However, I would think the building of a more structured and regularized network dedicated to the S&ED – its tasking and summit meetings – could in the long run insulate the military discussions from the displays of political displeasure.

There is clearly a case for global summitry for the US-China relationship it is just not the model Rudd suggests.

Image Credit:  www.heraldsun.com.au

The ‘China Dream’ or ‘A New Type of Great Power Relationship’

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Experts are trying to puzzle through exactly what Chairman Xi Jinping has in store for US-China relations now that the power transfer has been completed in China and Xi has been named President. There appear to contending views from the US side on the future of the US-China relationship.  There is one school – attractive for the “China Threat” and grand strategy types – that focus on Xi’s reference to “The China Dream”.  For some others, myself included, less ‘exercised’ by the China Dream possibilities and intrigued – but aware of the empty content so far in Xi’s proposal – a reference to “a new type of major or great power relationship”.  It is worth exploring both to try and tease out Xi’s think, if we can.

The China Dream 中国 之梦 －zhong guo zhi meng

Many of the China Threat types have raised concern over Xi Jinping’s reference to the ‘China Dream’.  Though it is officially described as the ‘rejuvenation of the nation’, the focus for most is President Xi’s series of talks to the military on the ‘China Dream’.

This title, as has been described by a number of sources, also reflects a book that was written some 3 years ago by Colonel Liu Mingfu of the PLA and a professor at National Defense University.  As described by Jeremy Page, a Beijing reporter for the WSJ in a recent article entitled “For Xi, a ‘China Dream’ of Military Power”,  the book by Liu Mingfu predicted a “marathon contest for global domination”.  Though suppressed soon after the publication – it was viewed apparently, as likely to cause damage to US-China relations – a new edition was approved just shortly after President Xi gave the China Dream speech.  And in the run up to the final leadership transition Xi Jinping has made it a point to speak to various groups of the military.  Chairman Xi, for instance,  told a group of sailors late last year aboard a guided-missile destroyer that had patrolled in the hotly disputed South China Sea that “To achieve the great revival of the China nation, we must ensure there is a unison between a prosperous country and strong military.”

All this has led many in US diplomatic, strategic beltway and analyst circles to believe, according to Jeremy Page that:

… Mr. Xi is casting himself as a strong military leaders at home and embracing a more hawkish worldview long outlined by the generals who think the US is in decline and China will become the dominant military power in Asia by midcentury”.

So those attracted to this view and Xi’s efforts to woo the military see:

… Mr. Xi is setting the stage for a prolonged period of tension between China and neighbors, as well as for a potentially dangerous tussle for influence with a US that is intent on reasserting its role as the dominant Pacific power.

In setting out apparently on this more military and aggressive policy, Xi appears to be setting aside the doctrine expressed by Deng Xiaoping: 韬光养晦 (taoguang yanghui) – concealing one’s capabilities; biding one’s time; to have an achievement.  Many have identified the more assertive behavior of the former leadership since about 2010 – in the South China Sea and more recently in the East China Sea, as a product of greater national aspiration and great power determination.  According to Xinhua news, President Xi expressed the following to the Politburo

… but we will absolutely not abandon our legitimate rights and interests and absolutely  cannot sacrifice core national interests.

The closeness to the military and the reflections on a more aggressive approach has led President Xi to issue orders to focus on “real combat” and “fighting and winning wars.” It certainly appears an evident contrast to the previous leadership of Hu Jintao who seemed to keep a very low military profile. But President Xi may well have adopted various territorial and nationalist perspectives that were seen to be confined before to largely military hawks to secure strong military loyalty.  Why, is still unclear.  It may be to secure the loyalty of the military as Xi prepares, perhaps. for serious economic reform.  We really don’t know, though there is much speculation.  Time will tell.

But then on reflection while the policy shift may be now, military capabilities are quite another.   What China can bring to this “party” are not anywhere near what the US currently possesses and deploys in the Asia-Pacific.  And the China Dream at least as expressed by Liu Mingfu is decades away.  And the desire to build the military resources of the Chinese military – aircraft carriers and stealth fighter jets – are costly weapons systems that may yet prove to be yesterdays war tools.  As today’s platforms become increasingly vulnerable, serious military spending on today’s costly weapons systems may prove to be a serious and not very effective weapons path.  And I always look at the official weapons expenditures and double the amount. Why?  Well at least in the recent past China – state and party – have spent about as much on internal security as they have spent on the military.   This is not a Party operating from strength, but perhaps, fatal weakness.

In the final analysis the China Dream is founded on US decline.  Today the military gap between China and the US remains demonstrably large (for 2013 China is proposing – at least officially – a budget of $119 billion while the US budget calls for $553 billion) .  The key player in this relationship is surely the United States – as much as it is China.  While there are voices that seek the US to lower its profile in the international system or that the US can shift to some notion of offshore balancing to get others to do what is necessary, reduce defense costs and maintain US influence, the reality appears to be that the US is moving in the opposite direction in the Asia-Pacific.  And while the Defense Department will be required to participate in the ‘right-sizing’ of the US budget, including weapons procurement, US decline does not appear to be evident – or on the horizon.  There is however, one policy change that could alter the strategic equation and nudge US-China relations toward a “New Type of Great Power Relationship”.

新型大国 关系 – (Xin xing daguo guanxi) – new type of great power relationship

So alert to the potential turn in relations, yet not entranced by the China Dream perspectives, what then of a new type of great power relationship.  As I mentioned earlier there is nothing at the moment that fills this particular diplomatic and strategic vessel.  But in reflecting back on the conversations that a number of colleagues and I had in January in Beijing at the Harvard-Beida conference I came away with one overwhelming conclusion – China experts – possibly not officials  but maybe – believe that the Obama pivot is a policy targeting China and indeed a strategy all about China and US determination to contain China and remain the hegemon in the region and beyond.  Moreover the China experts suggest that the US pivot will give comfort to Vietnam, the Philippines and most especially Japan to advance more aggressive stances with China in the continuing “Island Disputes.”   Especially with the latter, US diplomacy can be effective in alerting allies quietly, especially Japan that the US has little appetite for crisis and no appetite for conflict, intended or not.  The same needs to be conveyed quietly to China.  Publicly the US needs to avoid some of the more pointed language that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton publicly prone to express, though she claimed to be advancing a neutral stance.  This even-handedness is obviously most difficult with the Japanese, where security guarantees tilt US statements.  Overall the US needs to frame the Pivot in a wider frame of diplomatic and economic engagement – and away from a military focus.

So a tuning of US policy toward greater diplomatic and economic policy in the Asia-Pacific is the bedrock for a new type of great power relationship.  In addition while greater competitiveness is evident in the US-China relationship, there are possibilities of collaboration.  In a recent assessment of the US-China relationship at the China US Focus David Shambaugh, from George Washington University,  and long time observer of China and the US-China relationship acknowledges  the deep interdependence of the two in what he sees as a ” … predominantly competitive relationship with a major power with which it is simultaneously deeply interdependent.”  He characterizes the need for a new relationship as:

For all these reasons, President Xi Jinping and the new Chinese leadership is wise to put forward the desire for a “new type of major power relationship.”  It is definitely needed – because the “old type” of competitive and suspicious relations is now predominant in the bilateral relationship.  … While establishing such a “new type of major power relations” is a desirable aspiration, this observer believes that “managing competition” is the more feasible reality. To establish a relationship of “competitive coexistence”  is more realistic.

It would appear that David has bowed – at least a little – to a more contemporary framing of the US-China relationship – it is primarily competitive.  It leans in the direction of the characterizations expressed by the IR China scholar Yuan Xuetong, the Director of the Institute if International Studies at Tsinghua University, accepting the current enmity and rejecting superficial friendship, extending the meaning of the traditional Chinese perspective –  (非敌 非友)  (fei di fei you) – “neither friend nor foe”.

亦敌 亦友－ (yi di, yi you) –  both friend and foe

The traditional expression it seems to me to leans too far in the direction of a competitive relationship.  The slight turn of the traditional phrase, above, which I have commented on in earlier blog posts appears to me to better situate the two – highly interdependent powers in a periodically competitive relationship.  So unlike earlier competitive power transitions, this relationship is defined as much by high economic interdependence and various potential global or near global collaborative leadership settings, e.g. APEC, EAS and the G20. This doesn’t suggest that the road map to a new type of great power relationship is self evident or inevitable but  it does set off this competitive relationship from the host of earlier power transitions – whether US-Soviet or Germany and Great Britain before World War I.

It leaves me to suggest that there are a number policy steps that the US – and for sure China can take – that  can help build a new type of great power relationship:

  1. As noted above the US needs to widen its “Pivot” and underscore that it is as much diplomatic and economic as it is political and security.  And I would think that the advice from Harvard’s Stephen Walt at the Harvard-Beida Conference, and then on  his return to the blogosphere, warrants policy exploration. He urged policy efforts of both positive and negative cooperation.  On the positive side the evident possibility is the DPRK and there has been some sanction cooperation between the two.  There needs to be more and that requires – I suspect President Xi – to press the PLA to bring greater reality to the DPRK military;
  2. President Xi also needs to take note of Harvard’s Joe Nye’s realistic strategic framing – only China can contain China – and that its “assertive behavior” has accomplished exactly that in the region;
  3. President Xi can take a giant leap – and I suspect this is more in the realm of wishful thinking – and put to the test the US position that the TPP (Trans Pacific Partnership) is not designed as an anti-China economic initiative, by signalling its interest in joining the talks  now that Japan appears to have signaled the same; and
  4. Then in the realm of perception and policy followup both the Chinese and US leadership and the cognoscenti circling the leadership need to avoid framing the relationship in “Cold War” terms.  It is all too comfortable for policy makers and the military to see the relationship in growing competitive even growing rivalrous terms.  Perceiving it may in fact hasten it.  Now that is really a bad idea!

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Structural Complexity in the Global System

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[Editors Note – Arthur was another expert that joined the Harvard-Beida Conference earlier in the month.]

The disjuncture between economic and military structure is not a new phenomenon.  The Cold War, certainly from the early 1960s on, consisted of military bipolarity and economic multipolarity (at a minimum, the end of the Bretton Woods order in the early 1970s signaled the end of US economic hegemony).

The post Cold War has seen military unipolarity and economic multipolarity.  In each case, economic multipolarity has meant that there have been powers capable of exerting substantial economic power but not militarily capable of global power projection.  In a sense, the current case of China is similar.  China is a global economic power, with an economic impact that extends to every continent, but militarily only a regional one.

The critical difference today is the alignment pattern.  In the past, the other centers of global economic influence were security allies of the US and dependent on the US for their military security.  Now, China is not part of a US security sphere, and the concern is that it will have in its economic orbit states that have security links to the US.  This raises a concern that did not exist in earlier periods, that of an economic power (China) that would use its economic leverage to achieve geo-strategic objectives antithetical to the US and its allies.  The result could then be economic appeasement on the part of US allies.

One place to look for this consequence is the current financial troubles of the government of Vietnam.  Will acceding to China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea be the price of a Chinese bailout of Vietnam?

Looking at the ‘World’ With Two Lens

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Final reflections on the Harvard-Beida conference on US-China relations (see previous blog posts for further information).  If I was a meteorologist, I would suggest that the weather forecast for US-China relations has gone from, partly sunny to partly cloudy.

A number of international relations experts examining the Asian architecture recently have described a growing polarity in the structure of pan Asian relations.  So, for instance Evan Feigenbaum now at the Paulson Institute (a former US official) and Robert Manning (also a former official) but now at the Atlantic Council described in “A Tale of Two Asias” in October in foreignpolicy.com that Asia today consisted first of a “Security Asia” described by the two as “a dysfunctional region of mistrustful powers, prone to nationalism and irredentism, escalating their territorial disputes over tiny rocks and shoals, and arming for conflict.”  And there was a second Asia, what the two authors called “Economic Asia”, a dynamic, integrated Asia with 53 percent of its trade now being conducted within the region itself, …”

The first pole, according to Feigenbaum and Manning  is dominated by the United States while the second has become increasingly dependent on China. For the two experts the dilemma posed by this structure is that Economic Asia is increasingly seen to be at risk by the rise of nationalism and the growing security competition in the region. As Feigenbaum and Manning have written recently in the East Asia Forum in a piece entitled, “The Problem with the Two Asias,” a response to a critical piece written by American University’s Amitav Acharya’s “Why Two Asias May be Better Than None” also posted at the East Asia Forum:

Our principal point is that Asia’s incredible economic dynamism and growing integration are at risk because of debilitating security competition and sharpening political disputes within the region, not just between the United States and China, but among Asia’s major economies as well. … Put simply, competing nationalisms and the scars of national memory remain potent forces in Asia.  And they risk undermining the economic gains that have done so much too promote integration, boost growth and foster opportunity.

At our own conference at Beida, our colleague John Ikenberry from Princeton sketched a similar two pole pan-Asian architecture.  Acknowledging a division in the structural construction between security and economics in Asia,  Ikenberry proposed that the longstanding partial US hegemonic order, as he called it, is giving way to:

In effect, as noted earlier, there increasingly are two quasi-hierarchies in East Asia.  There is an economic hierarchy led by China and a security hierarchy led by the United States. This circumstance creates constraints and dilemmas for the United States.

Now most suggest that the reassertion of classic balance of power dynamics in Asia would be detrimental to all and lead to growing friction and rivalry between the US and China and put pressure on the powers in Asia to choose one or the other.  Ikenberry puts well the unease that appears to pervade Washington circles today:

At the same time, the United States does see China today in the way it has seen potential regional hegemonic rivals in the past.  It is worried that China could amass sufficient wealth and military power to fundamentally alter East Asia. The ultimate danger is the growth of a Chinese rival that would endeavor to drive the United States out of the region and project illiberal ideas and policies outward into the world.

I think the “two poles” construction today still distorts the current Asian architecture.   Feigenbaum and Manning point to the fact that 53 percent of Asia’s trade is now conducted in an intra-regional basis identifying this datum, and others, as indicating that “Asian economies have become increasingly reliant on pan-Asian regional trade.”  But a quick comparison with other regions shows the strength of intra-Asia’s broad intra-regional trade but suggests that it is hardly excessive.  EU intra-regional trade as a percent of global export merchandise trade is 26 percent as opposed to Asia where the intra-regional trade is 16 percent.  Furthermore, any examination of global value chains would suggest that in fact long valuable chains stretch to Europe and North America.  And EU-Asia trade as a percentage of world trade comes in at 3.6 percent.  This rather too static look at intra-Asia trade  and the growing China trade presence in Asia, I believe does lead falsely to a conclusion that there is a security pole, headed by the US, matched by an economic pole dominated by China.

That being said there certainly does appear to be rising nationalist sentiment in Asia among the key players.  And there is no question that interdependence is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for stability in the global environment – though I would suggest that “complex interdependence” – globalization, generates a quality different than say the interdependence in the period before World War I.

So what conclusions can one derive from our conversations at Beida and in the surrounding informed blogosphere debate? Here is a part of what I take away from the conversations and readings:

  1. China is ‘driving the bus’ in the region in many issues – especially on the island/islets dispute – and it is driving it in the wrong direction.  China repeatedly appeals to acting only in response – a reactive stance – in the South and the East China Seas island disputes.  But for many, “one man’s reactive is too frequently aggressive behavior to the other”.  The apparent manipulation of the Cambodia host at the most recent ASEAN gathering and the continuing unwillingness to contemplate seriously a binding Code of Conduct or to put the sovereignty disputes away for cooperation on resource development, are all unhelpful and raise the temperature over these disputes.  As Joe Nye so aptly described, “only China can contain China” so as China has become more assertive China, in fact, has begun to contain China in the region (see a more developed view by Nye following the conference posted at the NYT).  So China responding
    with more measured cooperation here would be a fabulous starting point for the new China leadership if it was determined to lower the temperature;
  2. China experts need to consider abandoning a view that every action by the US has only China in mind and that all US actions are designed to contain China.  The US, in fact, has been a primary supporter of Chinese leadership building its economic strength and achieving greater prosperity for all Chinese;
  3. Much attention was paid to the overreaching of the “Pivot” both in US actions but most especially in its rhetoric.  A number of US experts were critical of what they saw as the unnecessarily aggressive statements of US officials.  One expert urged that US and China focus on solutions that preserve face for both suggesting a start with much broader exchange and cultural programs.  Another arguing the reduction in assurances by the US to China urged that the US undertake efforts to build trust.  He has urged in the past that the US could give way on the close-in surveillance of the Mainland, made unnecessary by other surveillance means.
  4. The US, according to many at the Conference needs to work very hard to  avoid “balance of power” actions.  Instead, a look at Stephen Walt’s proposals seem designed in particular avoid balance of power actions.  Walt urges (see his blog post at foreignpolicy.com) positive and negative security cooperation including the involvement of the US and China.  On the positive side he points to possible cooperation on Iran, Korea or anti-terrorism.  It does strike me that Korea is a most apt choice, especially given the DPRK’s recent threats against the US.  On the negative forms of cooperation surely greater efforts to conclude a multilateral Code of Conduct led by the US and China and useful for both sets of island disputes could be extremely valuable.

There is likely more.  Let let me conclude here nevertheless.  The cloudy forecast is a result of the insidious impact of rising nationalism in China, Japan, Korea and elsewhere.  It is time for the new China leadership and the renewed US leadership to build trust and lower the nationalist temperature throughout the Asia-Pacific region.

Image Credit: www.bbc.co.uk

The Diversity of Opinions in US-China Relations

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Two days of opinion, argument and interpretation.  That’s what I’ve just enjoyed in the smog capital of China and possibly the world – though thankful the winds have picked up and we could at least enjoy the sun by the end of the conference.

This Beijing meeting was the latest in a series of encounters between former officials from the US and China and experts from the same.  These encounters have been organized by the Kennedy School, Ash and Belfer Centers at Harvard and SIS and the Institute for China-US People-to-People Exchange at Peking University.  By one participant’s calculation this was the 8th meeting of the two groups.

So what are the possible takeaways from this meeting – subtitled, “How Can Rising China and Adjusting US Manage Their Relations and Deal with Global Challenges?”  In comparison to the November 2011 meeting in Cambridge MA, the last meeting in the series, this meeting in Beijing reflected by the speakers’ remarks and follow up, a certain sense of enhanced competitiveness – a possibly larger distance – between Chinese and US speakers and their countries over immediate issues.  Most acknowledged competition between the two powers, some suspicion over intentions and a disappointment over the lack of trust between the two.  Speakers sought to identify, in their own ways, both the source of current problems and/or obstacles in the relationship and the means to reassure China and the US thereby build greater trust and restore stability.  What is required, as suggested by one expert, is an “active cooperation.”

The other noticeable feature in the discussions over the last several days was not only the apparent growing diversity of opinion between the groups of experts but a greater diversity of opinion within the groups.  While clashing US expert views over events, intentions and policy were hardly a revelation; the variety of voices and interpretations from our Chinese colleagues was rather more surprising – an unexpected note in the discussions.

So where were the differences most evident?  Well, unlike November 2011 two sets of events were front and center in our examination of the evolving US-China relationship and posed the most marked contrasting interpretations.  The first was the series of island dispute clashes over sovereignty in both the South China and East China Seas.  The second was the description, analysis, purpose and consequences over the US Administration’s “pivot” or “rebalancing” in the Asia-Pacific.  Both event discussions laid bare the contending views of the country actions.

First, the island disputes.  For these former officials and experts, it was evident that they understood the deep differences in the two island chain disputes.  But much attention was placed on the rising friction between and among disputants.

The island disputes moved China, as one expert acknowledged, from reassurance to resolve.  As a result it appears that China’s more assertive behavior has led to many of the disputant states to encourage increased US involvement.  As one expert suggested only China could contain China and as China has become more assertive it has accomplished just that.

There was also much animated discussion over the Administration’s “pivot”.   Some of the most pointed analysis came from US experts.  Much criticism was laid out of the Administration and its intention – the seemingly aggressive use of language by high US officials in the region, the failure to acknowledge the continuity in military policy and the reduction in US assurances to China.  Experts chided the US for interference in the open disputes in particular between the Philippines and China and Vietnam and China in the South China Sea and between Japan and China in the East China Sea.  For Chinese discussants there was a growing suspicion that US actions were designed to contain and constrain China and that US intermeddling, as they saw it, had raised hopes of US support for its Asian allies and had the effect of encouraging greater belligerence among these countries, including the Philippines, Vietnam and most especially Japan.  As one expert suggested while it may not have been US intent, the pivot has put in place policies that increased US presence in region.  Chinese experts were insistent that Chinese actions were only reactive.  Though China was always particularly resolute over sovereignty questions – having endured the many years of humiliation over the foreign interventions in China – its current behavior was neither aggressive nor offensive.

The China experts also raised somewhat puzzling perspectives on US policy in the Asia Pacific region.  Many China experts were critical of the Pivot for it’s almost exclusive attention to military and strategic actions in the Asia Pacific.  They repeatedly questioned the intentions of US policy makers – pointing over and over to designs to constrain China and deny China’s rise.  But then when US experts raised the diplomatic and economic initiatives – the US agreement to join the East Asia Summit, adhere to ASEAN’s TAC – the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation, the effort to build consensus for new economic agreement in the Pacific – Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) – these too raised suspicions among some China experts of a unilateral China targeting.  The TPP in particular raised suspicions of an effort to contain China through the proposed trade and regulatory arrangements with an evident effort to isolate China and to target its State-owned Enterprises. Even when it was pointed out that the TPP was in fact a creature originally of the preceding Bush Administration and not immediately connected to the Obama pivot it did not appear to allay concerns.  The incongruity remained on the table:  was the US pivot all about the strategic, or was there in fact a broad revitalization of US actions including strategic but addressing diplomatic and economic initiatives and not solely designed with China in mind.

So a sense of greater friction between the US and China pervaded the discussions.  A number of experts urged that US-China relations not slide toward traditional balance of power relations.  Such a slide could raise the real prospect of competition and growing rivalry in the Asia Pacific. Instead a number of experts suggested that the US and China work on serious issues together, even if these issues were outside the region, to help (re)build trust between these two vital powers. Looking for those issues of engagement is a central focus of a number of the experts following the meeting.

Image Credit:  csmonitor.com

Looking at the Big Question

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Well I am looking forward with anticipation to a conference here in Beijing that begins this evening.  Now I didn’t exactly count on clean air in Beijing – but I didn’t expect the most unbelievable  dirty air I’ve ever seen.  It is hard to believe that China’s leaders – who live in this sprawling capital – wouldn’t pull out all the stops to work on pollution reduction here and in all the very polluted cities across the nation after this weekend of dirty dangerous air in the nation’s capital.

Anyway back to the conference.  This is a Harvard University (The Kennedy School and the Belfer and Ash Centers) and the Institute of China-US  People to People Exchange, Peking University. This is the latest in a series of encounters between experts from the US and from China – with one thrown in from Canada – me – concerned with the US-China relationship.  The subtitle of the conference tells it all: “How Can Rising China and Adjusting US Manage Their Relations and Deal with Global Challenges?”

In preparation some of my Harvard and Princeton colleagues prepared a series of memorandum on the relationship.  A particularly interesting piece was prepared by Charles Maier “Ambiguous Lessons from History”.   Charlie’s principal point is that while there is something he, and others call a “Thucydean Model” –  where a rising power raises fears in the hegemonic power.  The growth of the new power, in this model, makes war inevitable.  Charlie acknowledges the hegemonic war thesis but suggests that it is in fact the entangling alliances that leads to the prospect of war between these powers.  As Charlie argues:

They were locked into a logic of bipolar rivalry such that implicitly any change in the balance of power or the “corollary of forces” must have appeared a threat to both sides.

It is this structural feature – alliance loss or gain, rather than misperceptions that led to conflict – or as he says “they arose from the geometry of the overall situation.”

What this in turn suggests is a need for analysts to examine the properties of the international/regional context to determine the shift to a form of balance of power and away from the previous hegemony. This is an examination undertaken by, among others, our colleague John Ikenberry from Princeton who urges us in “Source of Order and Great Power Restraint in East Asia”  to look at: “What are the sources of great power restraint in a region that is increasingly less defined by America’s hegemonic presence?”    Now John raises the possibility of a turn to a balance of power, though he suggests that this is not what has yet occurred. It is instead a “partial balance of power order.”

But a look at the regional and global dynamics of East and Southeast Asia seem to me to suggest something very different.  Probably the best short examination is that proposed very recently in the EastAsiaForum by Don Emmerson an Asian specialist from Stanford University who heads the Southeast Asia Forum in the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford University. Applying a lens that includes ASEAN and economic relationships puts a rather different spin on the evolution of relationships in the region.  In my remarks I will focus on the many FTAs including in particular the EU initiatives in Asia.  But more on that soon.

Credit Image:  Peking University

The Fear of the “Boogey Man” And Other Thoughts – China as a Great Power

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I suppose it is partly due to US electoral season but the “China Threat School” has been rather busy in the last while.  Stephen Walt blogger  at foreignpolicy.com and professor of international relations at Harvard has noticed it as well.  In a recent blog post “Inflating the China Threat” he chronicles stories  from several mainstream media where the talk is all about China raising its nuclear deterrent capability.  As Walt argues:

The discussion is all pretty Strangelovian, of course, but nuclear strategists get paid to think about all sorts of elaborate and far-fetched scenarios.  In sum, those fiendish Chinese are doing precisely what any sensible power would do: they are trying to preserve their own second-strike deterrent by modernizing their force, to include the development of multiple-warheads missiles that would be able to overcome any defenses the United States might choose to build.

I won’t dwell in the ‘ghoulish world’ of counterforce, countervalue, first strike and second strike capabilities, but international relations’ experts remain dogged in their efforts to describe the Grand Strategies for the United States and China and to establish a path for both to avoid the rivalry, competition and even conflict that historically has occurred in great power relations with so-called power transitions.

It is that vein that I recommend back-to-back pieces by two American experts writing in the September/October issue of Foreign Affairs.  First there is the piece by Aaron Freiberg a professor of the Woodrow Wilson School of Princeton University who previously served in the George W. Bush Administration as the Deputy Assistant of National Security Affairs in the Office of the Vice-President – yes, the Darth Vader of the Bush Administration.  The article is “Bucking Beijing: An Alternative U.S. China Policy”. The other perspective is tackled by well known China expert Andrew J. Nathan of Columbia University and his co-author Andrew Scobell at the Rand Corporation – their article “How China Sees America: The Sum of Beijings Fears”.

It is now common to describe the China-US relationship as the most important relationship of the 21st century.  In this instance this common declaration is in fact – right.  But then how each should engage the other remains opaque. It is particularly difficult when when it comes to China.  The fact is China experts or others are unable to see into the “blackbox” of Chinese decision-making.  Most critically, we  have little idea of how the Chinese military influences China’s Grand Strategy.

But then we don’t really  have a good handle on what China’s Grand Strategy is, anyway.  Think how we’ve been speculating in the last few years on what China’s core interests are? Whether China since 2010 has exhibited a “new assertiveness”? Or what military modernization strategy China is following – and to what end?

Into that opaque environment the China Threat School wades in with relative ease.  For realistically in the face of such uncertainty a “hedging strategy” is not unreasonably a favorable option.

Now Aaron Freiberg’s analysis provides a sophisticated two-headed US hedging strategy. This strategy is two-headed because it requires the US to both balance China’s growing power and to seek economic engagement as well. As he declares:

Developing and funding a credible strategy for countering China’s [military] buildup and adopting a tougher approach to economic engagement will both be important. So, too, will be continuing to stand firm on issues of principle. … What China’s current leaders ultimately want—regional hegemony—is not something their counterparts in Washington are willing to give.  …  Short of Beijing’s genuine democratic transition, however, Washington will not willingly abandon its policy of balancing and withdraw from the region.

Freiberg then underscores the vital nature of  firm US actions in this region:

The stakes could hardly be higher. Since the mid-1990s, China has been piecing together what Pentagon planners describe as asymmetric “anti-access/area-denial” (A2/AD) capabilities. … Absent a strong U.S. response, Chinese planners might eventually come to believe that their growing A2/AD capabilities are sufficiently impressive to scare the United States off from intervening or provoking a confrontation in the region. Worse still, they might convince themselves that if the United States were to intervene, they could cripple its conventional forces in the western Pacific, leaving it with few options other than the threat of nuclear escalation. Maintaining stability requires reducing the likelihood that China’s leaders could ever see initiating such an attack as being in their interest.  A direct U.S.-Chinese military confrontation is, of course, extremely unlikely. But the aim of the balancing half of U.S. strategy must be to ensure that it remains so, even as China’s power grows.

It is a get tough/stay tough kind of policy – with effective military pushback from the United States and a credible commitment to allies in the region and avoid any incipient appeasement by these allies toward China:

In the absence of strong signals of continuing commitment and resolve from the United States, its friends may grow fearful of abandonment, perhaps eventually losing heart and succumbing to the temptations of appeasement.  …  When it comes to Asia, the United States does not have the option of what The New Yorker first described as the Obama administration’s penchant for “leading from behind.

So a renewed firmness – apparently that has slide in the recent Obama years. But suggests Freiberg there is the need to promote engagement with China as well.  But this economic engagement needs to be “righted”.  Freiberg declares:

Rather than treating engagement as desirable for its own sake, the United States needs to take a more clear-eyed and results-oriented approach. The place to start is trade. The bilateral economic relation- ship still provides benefits to both sides, but it has recently grown increasingly lopsided. Beijing uses its currency policy and subsidies of various kinds to boost its exports.

Here it is then – strong on defense, strong on balancing against the rise of China, and a tough but fair economic policy.

So let’s look across the divide to the piece by Nathan and Scobell.  Shortly.

Image Credit: WWE – the Boogeyman

 

 

 

 

 

It Takes Two to Tango

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As I mentioned in the previous post, “‘Pivots’ and Great Powers – Both Sides Now” I thought I should dwell a bit on former Australian Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd’s speech/article called “The West Isn’t Ready for the Rise of China” (for the article grab it at the NewStatesman.com).  The fact is Rudd – prime minister or not, or foreign minister or not – is one of the smartest foreign policy dudes, especially when it comes to China, in all of the Asia-Pacific.

So what did Rudd say and what did he write?  Now the title comes from a quote in the article “It Takes Two to Tango.” It was Rudd himself who drew attention to the quote.  It was Rudd’s assertion in his recent Munk School of Global Affairs speech – that closely tracked the New Statesman article – that the quote comes from Mae West.  My exploration suggests – “it ain’t so”. Of all the quotes attributed to the famous Mae West no list seems to include that quote.  But the quote itself is a reminder of the impact the powers have on each other.  More on that below.

So what is Rudd’s basic point?  Well it comes from the sub-title.  China’s rise to dominance in the international system is, as Rudd suggests, “imminent”.  In fact what he actually says is, “… the west is completely unprepared for China’s imminent global dominance”.   More pointedly Rudd then poses the key question: we seem unable to determine whether China is prepared to accept the international order the west created over the last 50 years or not.  Will China, as Rudd says, “accept the culture, norms and structure of the postwar order?  Or will China seek to change it?”:

Importantly, some might say disturbingly, the matter remains unresolved among the Chinese political elite themselves.  … At present, there is no centrally agreed grand design.  In other words, on this great question of our age, the jury is still out.

While there are some elites in China that favor the continuation of the liberal economic order – obviously those in particular that have benefited from reform and opening – there are political forces in China – conservative political forces and the military – that do not.  It is not that they haven’t benefitted from the dramatic sustained economic growth but they certainly are resistant to greater domestic political reform.  Moreover, the military – like militaries everywhere adopts hedging and worst case scenario strategies – which raise countermeasures and mistrust in the region and heightens rivalry and competition. The most evident arena of tension recently is the South China Sea but there is tension between China and Japan in the East China Sea.  Nevertheless, it remains possible for the west (this is the term Rudd uses but the inclusion of Korea and Japan etc., make this an odd reference) and others, according to Rudd, to have an impact on China’s views and to help China’s leaders to accept a continuation of the current international political order:

Moreover, the rest of the world’s ability to shape the contours of China’s future global role constructively represents a limited window of opportunity, while China’s international debate is still fluid, while Chinese influence continues to be contested, and well before final strategic settings become entrenched.

So Rudd carries a relatively positive message – though clearly not a starry-eyed one.  And as he argues, effective engagement with China that retains the liberal order will only come with concerted and collective effort:

But it will require collective intellectual effort, diplomatic co-ordination, sustained political will and, most critically, continued, open and candid engagement with the Chinese political elite.

Rudd has outlined a number of steps for the strategic engagement of China and its elites.  But before we get there let me comment on a number of aspects of this analysis that seem to me to raise questions over Rudd’s policy roadmap.  First, Rudd’s approach suffers from what I call, “Time Travel”.  Though it may be a helpful rhetorical device, I think the notion of China’s imminent global dominance is just wholly exaggerated.  Here I am focused on the “imminent”.   While China’s dominance in the international political order may come – it is no time soon.  There well may be a long period of rivalry and competition but given strategic-military deployments the China “dominance” will for the immediate future remain regional.  Which doesn’t mean that engagement of China is not required but it leaves global leadership and influences more fluid and less likely to be dominated by China.

The same “Time Travel” dilemma seems to me to be evident when he examines the emergence of China as the largest economy.  Now Rudd admits that it is likely to occur sometime over the next two decades – though he believes that it likely to come sooner rather than later. Fine, but we are still talking some significant time in the future – let’s be optimistic – ten to 12 years. That impacts then on the framing and immediacy of change to the political order and the character of the engagement called for in the global setting.  More critically is the reality that real economic power derives from GDP per capita and not just the absolute size of an economy.  And China is somewhere in the neighborhood of 100th in GDP per capita.  And beyond the low per capita GDP, we should be hesitant to predict China’s economic trajectory from past growth.  So while China’s growth has been phenomenal and sustained over thirty years there is still a significant distance to go.  And again that impacts on China’s position in the global political order.

On the policy roadmap Rudd believes that the fashioning of China’s engagement necessarily occurs in the Asia-Pacific and where Rudd suggests, “ … the new regional institution underpinned by shared international values will be needed to craft principles and practices of common security and common property for the future.”  Now Rudd, to his credit, has consistently over the years urged the need for a broad Asia-Pacific security community.  While Prime Minister Rudd promoted the Asia Pacific Community, now he believes that the East Asia Summit (EAS)  – from his perspective the successor to the APc – is the appropriate critical setting arraying together all the major powers of the region, including now India, Russia, the US and China, around a single table with, as he describes it, “an open mandate on political, economic and security issues.”

The security dimensions of the EAS and other multilateral settings, however, are contested by China.  In the recent ASEAN Ministerials and the ARF meetings China strongly resisted the discussion of the South China Sea territorial disputes, which China has insisted should only be handled bilaterally.  The EAS – the summit leaders forum – is just as likely to find China arguing that these disputes should not be included on the leaders’ agenda.  Rudd’s comments in Q&A at the Munk School argued that these territorial matters were taken up in any case.  Well, they were but at the cost of no communiqué and the discussions at the ministerials say little about the likelihood of placing it on the leaders agenda.  It is not the smooth path implied by Rudd.

Multilateral discussions are critical.  Engaging China is necessary.  But several conclusions can be drawn from contemporary events and behaviors.  First, the asymmetry of power with many ASEAN members make the inclusion of most of these states open to division, especially in the context of consensus.   Collective effort is important but the critical relationship is the bilateral US-China one.  The Australias, Indonesias, Japans and Koreas are significant and can assist in supporting the liberalizing elements within the Chinese system, but it is the engagement of the US that remains critical.  If the US-China relationship cannot maintain engagement and a collaborative spirit, I am doubtful the rest can ensure success

Image Credit: Wikipedia – Kevin Rudd