Debating Continuing American Global Leadership

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As a descant to the US-China relations melody, there is a rising debate at least among the cognoscenti over US global leadership.  A recent addition to that debate is a piece from International Security brought to you by Stephen Brooks and William Wohlforth of Dartmouth and John Ikenberry of Princeton.  The piece, “Don’t Come Home America: The Case Against Retrenchment” appears in the most recent winter edition of the Journal.  The examination in the Journal is one of assessing America’s grand strategies – will it be retrenchment or the continuation of US global engagement.  The authors somewhat curiously refer to an article that examines US policy in Asia by Harvard’s Joseph Nye when he was away from Harvard and at the time the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs (it is curious if only because it is approaching twenty years ago that the piece was written and refers to a largely forgotten Clintonian – Bill not Hillary – report – “United States Security Strategy for the East Asia Pacific Region”).  Events and the evolution of countries – especially China – has in my opinion significantly altered the context of the article, though its conclusions may still be valid.

In any case the authors examine US grand strategy first declaring US overlapping core strategy objectives are:

  • managing the external environment to reduce near- and long-term threats to US national security;
  • promoting a liberal economic order to expand the global economy and maximize domestic prosperity; and
  • creating, sustaining, and revising the global institutional order to secure necessary interstate cooperation in terms favorable to US interests.

For good measure though the authors recognize that “security commitments are a necessary condition of US leadership, and that leadership is necessary to pursue the strategy’s three core objectives. Without the security commitments, US leverage for leadership on both security and nonsecurity issues declines.”  There of course is the heart of the matter that US leadership/hegemony/primacy – call it what you will – remains crucial to achieving the objectives – that is US national objectives, a stable world economic and political order.  Here a reference to the 1995 Nye article is indeed helpful:

The United States is committed to lead in the Asia-Pacific region.  Our national interests demand deep engagement.  For most countries in the region, the United States is the critical variable in the East Asia security equation.  The United States is not the world’s policeman, but our forward-deployed forces in Asia ensure broad regional stability, help deter aggression against our allies, and contribute to the tremendous political and economic advances made by the nations of the region.

Now it is evident from the title of their article that three strongly favor “continuation of the globally engaged grand strategy.”  The authors in fact declare early on that such an approach is “a wholly reasonable approach to pursuing narrow US interests in security, prosperity, and the preservation of domestic liberty.”   The article then takes a long examination of the various arguments for retrenchment (I will take a look selectively at their description and evaluation of retrenchment in a follow on piece) and concludes that the cost/benefit  favors continuing US engagement – read that as global leadership. Indeed the authors suggest that critics of deep engagement overstate the costs and understate the security benefits. As the authors conclude:

Advocates of  a clean break with the United States’ sixty-year tradition of deep engagement overstate its costs, underestimate its narrow security benefits, and generally ignore its crucial wider security and nonsecurity benefits.  Many moreover, conflate the core grand strategy of deep engagement with issues such as as forceful democracy promotion and armed humanitarian intervention – important matters, but optional choices rather than defining features of the grand strategy. … In the end, the fundamental choice to retain a grand strategy of deep engagement after the Cold War is just what the preponderance of international relations scholarship would expect a rational, self interested, leading power in the United  States’ position to do.

So that ‘point finale’ of their article may indeed be right, but there are nagging concerns that accompany this favorable nod at continuing deep engagement. As pointed out earlier, the changing context in Asia – the rise of China – and the more recent assertive China posture in the region challenge US leadership.  While the bilateral security  relationships are a vital part of US deep engagement in the region, it is not an answer to how to build a competitive but still non-rivalrous relationship with this rising power.  Certainly in Beijing last month most argued for building a collaborative relationship but with a few exceptions (Stephen Walt and Nicholas Burns were exceptions as pointed out in an earlier blog post here “Looking at the ‘World’ with Two Lens“)  there are few clues as to how  do this.

More broadly there is little in deep engagement that extends beyond the primacy/hegemonic approach.  While there is a expressed desire to build the institutional structures especially of the global economy, but also the regional settings, deep engagement remains locked in primacy.  There is little that describes a more global governance, multilateral  approach. There are various nods to greater multilateralism – but ‘realistically’ for the advocates it remains an exercise about US leadership – or not.  So more collective leadership is barely a topic of discussion in deep engagement.  It is this aspect of deep engagement that is ‘broken’ – or never attended to –  and needs far more intellectual and policy examination.

Image Credit: bostonglobe.com

 

 

 

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

Where To? – Russia at the Helm of the G20

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So a quick trip to Moscow!  Moscow you say – in December?  Yes indeed.  Russia took over hosting of the G20 Leaders Summit on December 1, 2012 and decided to declare a kind of G20 ‘Party’ of sorts.  To initiate Russia’s leadership in organizing the agenda for the G20 and to then actually host the G20 Leaders Summit in September in St. Petersburg, the Russian President and Russian officials called for a Sherpa meeting for December 11th but added additionally a B20 meeting, a Think20 meeting and a civil society.  There was much ‘hustle and bustle’ of the G20 sort.

And of course lot’s of thinking!  This from all the gatherings including the G20 business, civil society groups now identified as the C20 and experts from the G20 think tanks.  I couldn’t resist, therefore, picturing all that thinking.  So there I am on the official Russian website – presumably thinking quite a bit.

Now the Russian President in his first remarks as G20 Host struck this very broad consultative cord – which G20 leader hasn’t – but here is President Putin:

Russia is ready for the broadest possible cooperation on reaching the G20’s objectives.  In order to make the G20’s work more effective and transparent and increase trust in what it is doing, we will hold the broadest consultations with all interested parties, with countries not part of the G20, and also with international, expert and trade union organisations, and business community, civil society and youth representatives.  Practice shows that global measures are only effective when they are based on the views and take into account the interests of different groups.

All right so broad consultation it is.  But where are the Russians hoping to take the agenda for the G20 leaders summit?  In his remarks President Putin identified Russia’s G20 priorities:

  • Growth through Quality Jobs and Investment;
  • Growth through Effective Regulation; and
  • Growth through Trust and Transparency in Markets

With these priorities, so the President claims, G20 policy progress will occur with further efforts on:

  • A framework for strong, sustainable and balanced growth;
  • Jobs and employment;
  • International financial architectural reform;
  • Reforming the currency and financial regulation and supervision systems;
  • Energy sustainability;
  • Development for all;
  • Enhancing multilateral trade; and
  • Fighting corruption.

And the President identified two additional issues on the financial agenda:

  • Financing investment as a basis for economic growth and job creation; and
  • Modernizing national public borrowing and sovereign debt management systems.

In a column from Sergey Strokan a Russian journalist posted by Russia’s RT titled, “Uphill battle: Russia at the helm of G20“,  Strokan reports:

The key issue Russia’s G20 presidency needs to address is the restoration of investor confidence, adds Russia’s Finance Minister Anton Siluanov. In a situation, when economic growth in the locomotives of the world economy, including China, is still slowing down and the southern countries of the EU are in recession, global investor confidence is crucial for meeting the main global challenge of jump-starting economic growth, says Mr. Siluanov.

It appears the Russian Presidency hopes to hold – beyond the usual Sherpa and Finance Ministers and Central Bankers gatherings, a meeting of Finance and Labor Ministers as well as a meeting of Energy Ministers.

What can we make then of all of this?  First, as usual there is far too much G20-speak; for the ordinary citizen from the G20 and beyond, this appears like a lot of ‘gobble y-guck’.  It is hardly transparent to them.  Even to the G20-types there is much vagueness and a lack of clarity over the specific policy objectives – probably to satisfy large and disparate interests in the G20.  Then there appears to remain a conundrum at the heart of G20 policy – a key clash by G20 countries that appeared at the Toronto Summit – and remains to this day.  That is which lever should G20 countries pull – the austerity and fiscal consolidation lever, or the stimulus lever.  Now it is likely that the answer lies in timing and reflected in the specific conditions of various country budgets, job creation, debt accumulation and most critically economic growth.  But the fiction remains of an overarching  G20 policy agenda.

It would also appear that Russia can’t help but poke at the traditional economies with calls for monetary reform.  What is urgently needed is a more serious discussion over currency manipulation whether China’s or the United States or now with a new Prime Minister in Japan.  This is a tough issue but currency reform starts here.

And then there is hollowness of the consultation process.  While it is valuable to encourage the various interests – business, think tanks, youth and labor – it lies rather uncomfortably with a government that still retains legislation that requires foreign-funded NGOs to declare themselves as “foreign agents”.  It is dispiriting to witness this Janus-like behavior and the willingness of NGOs largely to ignore, this oppressive domestic behavior in the face of what appears a seat at the table – if a small one and far from the core table.

So the picture remains clouded but let’s see if the Russian presidency takes it upon itself to order transparency and accountability in the G20 agenda and policy process.  There is time yet.

Image Credit: Official Russian Website of the G20.

“What’s on Second”

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So let’s stipulate – I like acting like a US lawyer – that the US grand strategy  of the second term seems fixed on Asian rebalancing or  a ‘Pivot’, and that we have at least some acknowledgement in the halls of Washington that the new grand strategy is as much about economic diplomacy as political and military actions, as I wrote in the last blog post – ‘Determining Who’s On First‘.  Well how does this then line up the US-China relationship in the face of new leadership in Beijing?  That requires us to look at both the domestic and foreign policy stance of the new leadership.

On the domestic front are we likely to see significant economic and even political reform?  On the foreign policy front are we likely to see a more reflective and restrained Chinese strategy in the Asia Pacific in the light of the need to build or rebuild economic alliances and wider collaborative behavior?

Now a quick examination of likely domestic policy moves.  First, let’s dispel the impossible.  There was little likelihood, asymptotically approaching zero I’d say that these new leaders – from this generation of leaders – would on their own adopt democratic political reform.  As China expert Susan Shirk put it recently in the FT.com in the run up to the new Standing Committee choices:

This is a question of legitimacy and popular support for the party,” says Susan Shirk, a US expert on Chinese politics put it ft.com in “China wrestles with democratic reform (November 7, 2012): “They need to show that they’re moving in the direction of democracy but they are very fearful of losing actual control.

So their might be musings of reform – in fact there were such thoughts expressed by some in the old Standing Committee, but actual reform – not likely.  To seemingly underscore this, the two candidates most likely to favor political reform – Li Yuanchao the head of the Organization Department (and an early attendee to Harvard’s Kennedy School) and Wang Yang the Communist Party Chief of Guangdong Province – were both left off the Standing Committee. As Iain Mills, a freelance writer in China saw it:

Also of note was the public reappearance of ex-President Jiang Zemin alongside one of the instrumental figures in the Tiananmen crackdown, ex-Premier Li Peng. Although Jiang had taken on the state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and secured China’s accession to the World Trade Organization during his presidency, in terms of social and economic policy, the influence of this generation of leaders would seem to be highly retrograde. Jiang loyalists took senior positions in the Central Military Commission, while conservative factions appear to have blocked the promotion of reform-minded officials such as Wang Yang.

Okay so little likelihood of serious political reform.  But what of significant economic reform.  Certainly the previous leadership including Premier Wen Jiabao pointed to the need  to tackle the growing economic power and corruption of China’s State-owned Enterprises.  Now of course The Premier only began to talk about this at the twilight of his career.  And it would appear that the collective message, including from the new Chairman Xi Jinping,  is a broadly anti-corruption message.  Unfortunately this message is conservative and not reformist.  The anti-corruption message is an internal Party message to root out bad guys -if they can be found – and not indicative of major structural reform. Again Iain Mills reflections on economic reform seems apt:

It should also be noted that the renewed pre-eminence of conservative elements on both the Standing Committee and the Central Military Commission comes ahead of potential changes of the heads of key civilian institutions including the People’s Bank of China, the state-run power sector and the National Social Security Fund. How these institutions will be aligned and function under the new administration remains unclear. The broader picture, however, seems one of an economic reform agenda that will continue at a gradual pace, while hopes of major political reform have been pushed out to 2017 at the earliest.

Finally, what then of foreign policy action? Now it was positive that the new Chairman took over the the Central Military Commission.  It is evident that foreign policy has suffered from a number of voices.  China’s behavior in the Asia Pacific has seemingly become more assertive.  The pattern has yet to end.   A new policy to take effect on January 1st provides that border patrol police will have the right to board and expel foreign ships entered disputed waters in the South China Sea.  China has also begun to issue new visas that includes a picture including disputed territory in the South China Sea.  Various South China states including the Philippines and Vietnam have publicly objected to the new visas and refused to validate them.  Officials seem to be continuing policies that reflect the assertive China strategy in the South China Sea, not to mention the East China Sea.  In the face of little moderation, China policy, as described by Mills, appears to continue to be an assertive nationalist approach:

Beijing has often been unable to speak with one voice on major external events and has offered no clear articulation of how it would operate as the largest power in Asia. This vacuum, coupled with still-fervent nationalist sentiment in many quarters, appears to have been filled by those who favor a more forceful approach to enforcing China’s foreign policy objectives.

The assertive China approach has driven a number of ASEAN states to encourage a US return to Asia; it has even enabled Japan to play the military card with a number of Asian players.  There is little to hinder the new leadership if it chose to moderate its stance in the Asia Pacific.  Let’s watch closely for a more collaborative China approach of the new China leadership.

Image Credit:  Reuters

Determining Who’s On First

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The last couple weeks have concluded busy leadership contests.  The two contemporary great powers of the international system – The United States and China – both have chosen new leadership.  The methods could not be more different.  Many observers have commented on the dramatic contrast.  And the contrast is stark –  Barack’s democratic national election voted on by millions upon millions of American citizens, as opposed to the backroom horse-trading by unelected Party seniors concluding shortly after the 18th Communist Party Congress, with the traditional march on stage of the seven – all men – Standing Committee Members of the Politburo.

But this yawning gap in the reliance on popular will and accountability is no surprise.  This has been, and sadly continues to be, the CPC modus operandi.  Nor is it a surprise to witness the dramatic electoral slog by sitting Presidents – all to the good – and the US contenders “dukeing” it out – in this instance President Obama and Governor Mitt Romney – and billions spent by both sides in this electoral contest.  Instead let’s look at the expectations and consequences of the choices made.

Certainly, the reelection of Barack Obama keeps fixed in place – at least for now – the signature American foreign policy thrust – the rebalancing of US policy toward Asia – the so-called pivot. And indeed Obama’s first foreign sojourn has been to Asia and to the leaders EAS gathering in Phnom Penh.  And on the way Obama – a son of Asia in part – visited Thailand and more startling – Burma – indeed the first American President to make such a visit.  But it was at the EAS, the Leaders forum, where the United States made its presence known.  One of the agreements signed was with the ASEAN, a key player in Asia, where the US and ASEAN signed the “Expanded Economic Initiative” or E3 -an agreement as the White House Press release declares is:

… a new framework for economic cooperation designed to expand trade and investment ties between the United States and ASEAN, creating new business opportunities and jobs in all eleven countries

ASEAN at this time has a combined GDP of USD$2.2 trillion and is the fourth largest export market for the US and largest trading partner overall.

But this agreement signals a more nuanced and sophisticated foreign policy.  US policy has been so militarized over the last decades and in particular by the initiatives in Iraq and Afghanistan that many officials and observers fail to recognize today the critical nature of economic diplomacy.  But the US rebalancing is not just about – and indeed possibly not primarily about – repositioning of forces, though this is important as well.

It is more than evident that foreign policy officials, especially Secretary of State Clinton see that US grand strategy is about – economic diplomacy.  In fact just before the announcement of the E3 initiative between the US and ASEAN, Secretary Clinton delivered a speech at the Singapore Management University entitled, “Delivering on the Promise of Economic Statecraft.”  This important speech includes the ‘startling’ admission that:

For the first time in modern history, nations are becoming major global powers without also becoming global military powers.  So to maintain our strategic leadership in the region, the United States is also strengthening our economic leadership.  And we know very well that America’s economic strength at home and our leadership around the world are a package deal.  Each reinforces and requires the other.

Now in fact the myopia of the Washington beltway is rather breathtaking when you think about it.  Geez foggy bottom has discovered economic diplomacy.  It is not just about guns boys and girls.  I would gently point to my mentor, and indeed a mentor to many in the international relations field  – Richard Rosecrance – now at the Harvard Belfer Center that wrote way back in 1986  The Rise of the Trading State: Commerce and Conquest in the Modern World. The book focused in part on Germany and Japan that had chosen the path of territorial conquest only to discover post war – and following the enormous destruction brought by territorial conquest – that power and plenty and great power status could be acquired through trade, investment and commerce and without the resort to territorial aggrandizement.

In the context then of current US grand strategy then, as Secretary Clinton states:

In short, we are shaping our foreign policy to account for both the economics of power and the power of economics.  The first and most fundamental task is to update our foreign policy and its priorities for a changing world.  … Responding to threats will, of course, always be central to our foreign policy.  But it cannot be our foreign policy.  America has to seize opportunities that will shore up our strength for years to come.  That means following through on our intensified engagement in the Asia Pacific and elevating the role of economics in our work around the world.

Of course the path of US grand strategy is equal parts domestic and foreign policy.  The so-called ‘fiscal cliff’ and debt accumulation of the US do need to be addressed.  To counter China views of US decline, US domestic policy needs to repair its economy – and not on the backs of others.  But US economic initiatives of the sort that Clinton reviews in the Asia Pacific will be critical in raising US economic growth from the anemic to the robust and ensuring the US a continuing influence in the Asia Pacific.

But what about China and its new leadership?  Stay tuned.

Image Credit:  Daily Telegraph – dailytelegraph.com.au

A Turbulent and Yet Vital Country

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It is very hard to capture the essence of a place in a short visit to a far away land. I am still trying to digest all that I saw and heard while in South Africa over the last couple of weeks.  Although this trip was not my first visit, it was for me the most sustained time that I spent there.  And I had the good fortune to spend time at the University of Pretoria with good colleagues and also with: a variety of folks from the diplomatic community; as well as officials from the government of South Africa.

For those of us interested in global summitry, South Africa is a significant new player in the global governance game.  It is the first, and to this point only African state that participates consistently at the “high table” of G20 leaders.  Moreover, and I’d say most critically, South Africa is a turbulent yet vibrant member of the democratic community in global summitry.

Today South Africa remains the largest national economy in Africa, though growth has been increasingly a question mark for this most southern nation in Africa.  South Africa may be taken over by Nigeria in the not too distant future.   While I was in Pretoria  the government released two vital pieces of information.  First, and due to its most recent census, South Africa had reached a population of some 50 million people.  Second, as I mentioned in the previous blog post, “An Apparently Potent Flavor of the Month”  South Africa has acknowledged that its official unemployment rate has climbed to 25.5 percent.  Now that is a nasty piece of business but let’s not forget – and I was reminded about this in recent new reports – that Spain, yes Spain, part of the eurozone, has an official unemployment level about the same as South Africa.  Definitely food for thought.

Now a quick examination of the pros and cons on the national ledger.  Official statistics reveal that violent crime is on the decline, though what we here in North America at least call b&e is not.  In fact on that front what the South Africans call “smash and grab” is seemingly an ever-present reality. Indeed, one of my colleagues at UP, or as it is affectionately known and called – Tuks – has suffered through three incidents in just a year.  In fact this colleague was on the way to pick me up when an assailant put a brick through the car passenger window and lifted the bag and credit cards of my colleague.  The more than pleasant guest facility that I was temporarily housed in had a high fence surrounding the entire facility where swiping a card was required to gain entry.  Even more sadly the University, which was only about ten minutes walk from this same guest facility was completely surrounded by an equally high fence and there was absolutely no admittance without a card or by way of a thorough check and the guarded entries.  It was to say the least unnerving.

On the wider civil society front there have been stormy and even violent labor strikes recently.  The most notorious was the Marikana strike – mines near Rutenburg – where in August 47 people, mainly miners, where shot and killed by South African Police Services personnel.  Strikes have not ended in the mining sector though they have abated, but there have been recent strikes by agricultural laborers  that have led to hectares and hectares of vineyards being torched.  Not pretty.  The social unrest is real and disconcerting and it has allowed the most populist political elements to seek advantage.  Also not pretty.

But on the positive side, I would suggest that the democratic impulse  is a tangible and ever present sense in the country – among the elites and more importantly in the broader South African society. This is a vibrant democratic society.  In response to the Marikana shootings, for example, the government struck a public commission of inquiry.  Now it could be a “white wash” and possibly a serious effort of political deflection but the instinct and impulse is right – and it is evident that this is what the South African people expect.

On the democratic side, the real impediment to a deep and deepening  democratic entrenchment is the continuing stranglehold on political life, and the national government, of the current ruling Tripartite Alliance – the amalgam of the African National Congress (ANC) the Communist Party of South Africa (SACP)   and the Congress of South Africa Trade Unions (COSATU).  This ruling party, and government, is a consequence of the struggle against apartheid.  But the alliance now impedes – my political science is about to shine through, sorry – the “circulation of elites” and the holding accountable of office holders in particular.  Unfortunately, the stranglehold of the ANC alliance saps the prospect of democratic renewal and accountability.  While the DA or Democratic Alliance opposition has made gains – even holding provincial government – it remains viewed by the black majority as a white party.  The DA requires more change.  Thus, South Africans have to rely on the interplay of factions, including reformist factions, within the ANC to renew democratic accountability and to punish cronyism and graft.  It is not adequate. Extremist elements continue to call for a “second revolution” – threatening private property and in the end the rights of all citizens.  A truly bad business and unlikely to encourage investment in the economy from within or from without.

Storm clouds or not the democratic presence in South African life is palatable and to be nourished.  It was encouraging that colleagues saw the unique South African character. Notwithstanding the current Administration’s fantasies over the BRICS membership – and an unlikely South African leadership in it – colleagues and experts  were alert to the leadership and partnership prospects in the India-Brazil-South Africa partnership – IBSA.  South African leadership needs to see it as more than a development forum.  The democratic values at the core of this alliance gives this organization the critical foundation for these emerging powers and potentially a values driven institution.  And just within the G20 there are immediate partners – Turkey and Indonesia.  This is the way forward for South African leadership in global influence. Let’s encourage it.

 

An Apparently Potent ‘Flavor of the Month’

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Well I have been absent – my bad.  But I do have an explanation.  I am currently in South Africa at the invitation of colleagues from the University of Pretoria – Tuks as it was once called – and between preparation for leaving for SA – and indeed arriving here – time ran short.  But I am back now.

This should help to explain my absence.  An hour after arriving I was whisked to Witwatersrand University in Johannesburg and the Jan Smuts House where the South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA) is now located.  There experts examined, “Values in Global Economic Governance: Do India, Brazil, and South Africa Share a Common Vision?”

Hardly able to catch my breath, I was requested to join a gathering in the downtown the following day, where a panel was organized to discuss South Africa and its role in the G20.  Entitled, “South Africa and the G20 – Challenges and Opportunities” this panel was put together by SAIIA again and in this event the featured speaker at the panel was the Deputy Governor of the South African Reserve Bank, Daniel Mminele.

A third day and ‘lo and behold’ – a third panel.  Fortunately, this panel was organized by colleagues here at the Department of Political Sciences at Pretoria.  Here again the organizers put together a panel on the G20 and the featured speaker on this occasion – Alan Hirsch the Director General of Policy Coordination and overseas economic policy implementation in the South African Presidency, in other words – South Africa’s Sherpa.  The session entitled “The G20: Looking to the Future” included a number of officials from the diplomatic community including officials from the Russian and Mexican embassies as well as representative from the Open Society Foundation representing civil society.

So quite an opportunity to learn about the G20 and other global summitry institutions and how the informed and informing public here and select officials view current global summitry So what do I glean from all this conference activity?

Well South Africa continues to take its leading role in Africa seriously.  But there are signs of concern.  South Africa is struggling to raise economic growth.  And there are projections that Nigeria will overtake South Africa in the size of its economy.  Statistics from the government in the last few days reveal that unemployment has risen to 25.5 percent.  And who knows what the real number is.  Strikes are seemingly an ever-present phenomenon, especially in the mining sector.  Though wage increases have been accepted, employers have begun a series of public announcements identifying plans to down size to cope with the wage increases.  There are a series of government scandals over government provision of services from the delivery of textbooks to the public schools to the provision and tolling of new roads, and on.  And there are growing doubts over the Zuma presidency.  Where is the drive?  The goals?

In the midst of this, there is excitement – in the global summitry community – over South Africa’s hosting of the BRICS Summit in March.  This enthusiasm appears to have spread beyond officialdom to the media and public intellectuals and even beyond to the broader public.  Why?  It is not clear?  Part of it appears to be that the Zuma presidency seems to view BRICS membership and hosting as a part of the Zuma legacy.  While his predecessor highlighted South Africa’s involvement in the IBSA Summit – India, Brazil and South Africa – Zuma and his officials have turned their sites on the BRICS.  Indeed The SAIIA conference at Jan Smuts House explored the future prospects for South Africa in IBSA – tied together by the commitment to democratic governance – as opposed to the BRICS – tied together by – well no one is quite sure.  For the moment the public has been excited by the proposal to inaugurate a BRICS bank.  There has been much discussion of exactly how to put together such an institution and to what end would such a bank be created for at least in concept as early as the next summit.  South Africa has publicly announced that it would be willing to host the bank in South Africa – especially if the bank’s purpose was to fund infrastructure in Africa.  There is much loose talk that the bank could represent an alternative to the “old” institutions of the World Bank.  But that seems far-fetched and South African officials have been quick to tamp down such talk.

As many have suggested though the fascination here in South Africa with the BRICS appears to be that it represents an alternative club – without the traditional powers.  No UK, France or United States.  And including China.  It appears to resonate with the anti-colonial rhetoric of many in global south.  Interesting – but it is such an odd collection.

And the love affair with China is tempered here in South Africa by China’s actions.  In Pretoria there is much frustration.  China is completing a new and very large embassy here – in fact near the US embassy.  Workers were transported in from abroad and apparently 80 percent of material procurement occurred from China.  Reality beyond the rhetoric.

So there it is – enthusiasm for an alternative – but the hard reality of policy practices that may not secure favor.  Let’s keep looking.