'Pivot' could cost Obama, Asia
dearly By Brendan P O'Reilly
Barack Obama launched his second term as
president of the United States on January 21 with
an impassioned speech promising to uphold and
advance America's core values.
While he
specifically promised the American people that,"a
decade of war is now ending", China and Japan have
increasingly militarized their standoff in the
East China Sea, with Japan stating on the same day
its ability to fire on any Chinese air patrols
over disputed islands.
An American
strategic "readjustment" that will see massive
military forces parked off China's coast, and
increasing tensions between the world's second and
third largest economies, threaten to derail
Obama's vision of a peaceful second term.
At the same time, a series of open letters
to Obama from the
Brookings Institution reveal
the challenges that Sino-American relations may
hold for Obama's presidency. The suggestions of
America's political class expose the archaic and
disingenuous nature of American political
discourse on the People's Republic of China.
The Brookings Institution - one of
Washington's oldest and most revered "think
tanks", has outlined a series of "Big Bets" that
could advance Obama's foreign policy goals. It has
also warned of "Black Swans" - unlikely yet
possible events that could pose serious
international troubles for the American government
over the next four years. These different
opportunities and potential threats are explained
in a series of open letters addressed to the
president himself.
Perhaps the most
interesting letter, entitled "China in Revolution
and War", explains the threat of serious internal
instability and foreign war to China.
This
letter, authored by Cheng Li of the John L
Thornton China Center, links the possibility of
domestic instability and foreign adventurism. In
the unlikely event of serious Chinese domestic
instability, newly-appointed Premier "Xi [Jinping]
may be cornered into taking a confrontational
approach to foreign policy in order to deflect
criticism of his own strong foreign connections."
[1]
Cheng Li very reasonably advises Obama
to forge closer personal ties with Xi , as well as
to promote military-to-military links, and put
pressure on all sides to avoid the use of force in
territorial disputes.
However, Cheng Li
also calls on Obama to do the impossible: "Clarify
to the Chinese public that the United States
neither aims to contain China nor is oblivious to
their national and historical sentiment would help
reduce anxiety and possible hostility across the
Pacific." [2]
It would not be easy for
Obama to explain to the Chinese people that
America's military repositioning to the Pacific is
not meant to contain China - because countering
China is exactly the aim of America's "pivot"
towards Asia. Any serious suggestions to the
contrary are either strategically blind or
downright disingenuous. Deploying 60% of the most
powerful navy in the history of humanity to the
Pacific to counter, say, North Korea would be
rather excessive.
Meanwhile, America's
"pivot" towards Asia, and backing of Japan in the
dispute over the Diaoyu/Senkaku islands, have
provided the Chinese leadership with the perfect
foreign threat for distracting their people from
China's domestic troubles.
The Brooking
Institution's open letters to Obama are by no
means completely pessimistic regarding relations
with China. One "Big Bet" dispatch calls for
"Bringing Beijing Back In" by improving and
deepening political, military and economic ties
between China and the United States. However, this
letter by Kenneth G Lieberthal from the very
outset reveals the schizophrenic nature of
America's China policy:
Your rebalancing strategy toward
Asia has produced desirable results, including
convincing China that the United States is
serious, capable and determined to be a leader
in the region for the long term. But this
strategy is also generating dynamics that
increasingly threaten to undermine its primary
goals. [3]
The Chinese government is
indeed convinced that the United States is
committed to being a power in Asia - at the
expense of Chinese influence. For the last year,
China's state-run media has consistently decried
America's overly military "Cold War mentality"
towards the People's Republic.
Lieberthal
further addresses his sensible admission that
there are unstable dynamics to America's Asian
aspirations:
Unfortunately, at this point your
current strategy is in danger of actually
enhancing rather than reducing bad security
outcomes. Most notably, territorial disputes
have become sharper, and Beijing is largely
operating under the false assumption that the
flare-up of these disputes reflects an
underlying US strategy to encourage Japan,
Vietnam, and the Philippines to push the
envelope in the hope that Chinese responses will
lead those countries - and ASEAN - to become
more united and dependent on the United
States.
Liberthal is absolutely
correct in noting that local territorial disputes
have been sharpened in the year since outgoing
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called for
"America's Pacific Century". However, increased
tension is an entirely predictable outcome of such
a policy. Smaller powers naturally feel emboldened
against China by the protection of the world's
most advanced military.
All sides share a
degree of responsibility for the ongoing tensions
off of China's territorial waters, but the
American military "readjustment" to the region
takes the lion's share of the blame. It may be no
coincidence that conflicts between China and
Vietnam, the Philippines, and Japan began to
intensify almost immediately in the wake of
Clinton's open call for an American "pivot" to
Asia.
America's strategy exacerbates
tensions in the region for two related reasons.
First, it gives American allies who have
territorial disputes with China added muscle for
confronting the rising power. Secondly, it
inspires a resolve in elements of the Chinese
leadership to test the extent of America's
willingness to back up regional allies.
Chinese announcements of increased
maritime and air patrols around the disputed
Diaoyu/Senkaku islands could be related to a
desire to see exactly how the United States will
react in the event of a military clash.
If
the increasing possibility of a shooting war
between Japan and China is a "desirable result" of
America's Asian policy, then by all means
America's pivot has been a resounding success.
While it may be counterproductive for
Japan and China to damage their deep economic ties
with mutual threats of military action over a few
uninhabited islands, it is downright strategically
reckless for the United States to commit itself to
the possibility of universal economic ruin - and
indeed, the outside chance of global Armageddon -
over the distant and intractable conflict.
Even Obama's uplifting inauguration speech
could be seen as implicitly aggressive to a
Chinese audience.
When calling for
cooperation to advance American goals, Obama said:
"the American people can no more meet the demands
of today's world by acting alone than American
soldiers could have met the forces of fascism or
communism with muskets and militias".
This
speech was of course dutifully translated by the
Voice of America and viewed online in its entirety
by millions of curious Chinese citizens. As
America faces the possibility of fiscal ruin,
America's leadership would be wise to remember
that their single largest foreign creditor still
believes in "communism" (at least on paper).
Current American policy and rhetoric
towards China is confused, blatantly disingenuous,
and self-defeating. Pleas for increased economic
cooperation coincide with a deep mistrust of
Chinese investments in the United States. America
seeks to "rebalance" its massive military assets
off China's shores, but claims not to be seeking
to create an anti-Chinese regional alliance. While
calling for democracy, the United States may find
hyper-nationalistic forces the benefactors of
meaningful reform to the Chinese government.
Meanwhile, how can the Chinese government
strategically balance their position America's
strategic rebalance? As Kenneth G Lieberthal
warns:
US friends and allies are
encouraging the United States to enhance its
security commitments, but they are also tying
their economic futures to China's growth. The
United States is thus in danger of having Asia
become an ever greater profit center for China
(via economic and trade ties) and a major cost
center for the United States (via security
commitments)…[4]
The Chinese
leadership can take to heart from the advice of
their ancient sage, Lao Tzu: "Do that which
consists in taking no action, and order will
prevail."
China's still-massive potential
for internal economic growth and growing
international trade are far better assets for
regional influence than even the most advanced
weapons in the world.
Instead of
distracting the people with a potentially
devastating war, perhaps the Chinese leadership
could make increased investments in China's
expanding space program. Landing a person on Mars
or establishing a permanent lunar colony would be
a massive international propaganda boon, and may
prove less costly than an arms race with Uncle
Sam.
The Obama administration must craft a
Chinese policy that reflects the changed strategic
nature of our world. Time is on China's side. If
the Chinese leadership can avoid directly
challenging America's military posture, than China
is sure to win the conflict that will never be.
Notes: 1. "China
in Revolution and War", Cheng Li, The
Brookings Institution, January 17, 2013. 2.
"China
in Revolution and War", Cheng Li, Th Brookings
Institution, January 17, 2013. 3. "Bringing
Beijing Back In", Kenneth G. Lieberthal, The
Brookings Institution, January 17, 2013. 4.
"Bringing Beijing Back In", Kenneth G Lieberthal,
The Brookings Institution, January 17, 2013.
http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2013/01/bringing-beijing-back-in
Brendan P O'Reilly is a
China-based writer and educator from Seattle. He
is author of The Transcendent Harmony.
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