Australia and the Asia-PacificR. James Ferguson © 2007

Lecture 4:

An Asia-Pacific 'Concert-of-Powers' or Strategic Imbalance?

Topics: -

  1. Regional Powers and the Remaining Superpower

2. The Role of the Superpower: Creating a New ‘Concert of Powers’ or Strategic Imbalance?

3. Japan: An Economic Superpower Seeking a ‘Normal’ Role?

4. China: a Great Power Finding Its Regional Place?

5. New Relations in the Asia-Pacific Region: Beyond Balance of Power

6. Bibliography and Further Reading

1. Regional Powers and the Remaining Superpower

One difficult task is to try and define levels of national power, including, of course, economic, diplomatic, and resource factors as well as military power. We have already seen that issues of diplomatic influence, prestige, of being a 'good international citizen' cannot be excluded from how nations are perceived. The usual ranking of states has been that of micro-states (Pacific islands like Palau), small states (ranging from Fiji and to New Zealand), medium powers (such as Australia, Canada and Indonesia), great powers (a term applied in the past to nations like France and Britain), and superpowers (for problems in defining concepts such as Middle Power either qualitatively or in terms of functions, roles and behaviours, see Welsh 2004). Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in late 1991, the only fully-recognized, broadly-based superpower that remains is the United States. Potential contenders for superpower status include the European Union as an economic and diplomatic power (only recently coordinating part of its military power through the European Defence Initiative), Japan in the economic sense (though with strong ‘self-defence’ capabilities and some movement towards normalisation of defence roles), and possibly in the future China as a ‘comprehensive’ power operating in wide regional settings (see below).

However, these definitions rest on a narrow conception of state power and state action in the international system. As we shall see, transnational, regional, and institutional factors strongly affect the ability to set norms in the international system and influence the ability to use power - all factors that have become more prominent in the Asia-Pacific over the last two decades. These new factors are run both through transnational business networks, as well as through emerging patterns of international civil society and efforts to create minimum of codes of expected conduct based on emerging norms of human rights, rights for minorities, and non-aggression among states (for the real but limited role of such norms, leading to a partial normative shift, see Bell 2003, p143-145; Bell 2000). This means that the U.S. is one foci of power among a wider decision-making elite, though Washington has taken on a special role as a strategic and interventionist power through 2001-2007 (see Bell 2003, p16). On this basis, major powers use both hard and soft power in the region, and the U.S. has been described as a ‘liberal hegemon’ in so far as it seeks to use a combination of multilateral institutions alongside military power (see Ikenberry 2004b). This has been partly re-shaped from 2001 in the so called ‘war on terror’, and widened through the so-called ‘clash of fundamentalisms’ between religious and modernist orientations, occurring in parts of Central, South and Southeast Asia (see Tariq 2003). There has also been a recognition that groupings such as APEC (see lecture 2), the ARF, the SCO, CSCAP and looser processes such as the Shangri-la Dialogue (with the latest meeting in June 2007) and the Northeast Asia Cooperation Dialogue (a Track 2 dialogue including China, Russia, North and South Korea, Japan, and the United States that has operated since 1993)can provide useful fora on issues ranging from safety at sea, control of terrorist funding, through to providing a degree of military transparency and communication.

Yet there can be now doubt that at present the U.S. remains the strongest military power (in strategic, nuclear, and conventional forces) in the Indo-Pacific region, with active technological and weapons deployment that sustains this advantage, along with a web of allies and influence that retain a strong place for US policy in shaping events (Holland 1997). U.S. thinking now differentiates different tiers of military ability, with the U.S. and advanced industrial nations (First Tier) dominating smart weapons, command, intelligence and control systems, and ‘stand-off’ weapons systems (see Bell 2003, pp171-174), and the U.S. making plans for new weapons that will further reduce alliance casualties and allow rapid war conducted ‘at a distance’ – this is part of the wider so-called revolution in military affairs or RMA (Bell 2003, p182). Some military planners, especially in the airforce, have also spoken of a ‘RMA after next’ using ‘miniaturization, robots, and even nanotechnology’ (Bell 2003, pp187-188). At the least, the U.S. seems determined to maintained technological and strategic advantages even over rising powers (PRC) or returning powers (Russia under Putin). However, not all these advances can be applied to new areas of conflict (terrorism, insurgencies, civil and community conflicts), and some powers have begun to extend their own high-tech capacities, e.g. Chinese space capabilities, India’s extended missile capacities, Russia’s 2007 MIRV (multi-warhead missile designs) for the long-range RS-24 that it says can defeat missile shield technology (ABC 2007).

Over the last decade repeated comparison’s have been made of the U.S. with the kind if power managed by the Roman Empire (Allan Gyngell in Bell 2003, p10), with strategic and diplomatic power leverage unrivalled over spheres of direct and indirect control (sometimes called power preponderance). This has been re-orientated through changing global priorities (Afghanistan, Iraq), some winding down of manpower forces in South Korea, but also augmented by increased defence spending through 2001-2006. Thus the U.S. spent 456 billion on total defence expenditure in 2003 and 490 billion in 2004, with an estimated budget of around $559 billion in 2006, with spending likely to remain above 3.4% of GDP (Chipman 2007; Chipman 2004, p262; Chipman 2005). This has led to concerns that the sole power which can police and monitor world peace is really the U.S. (with suitable backing from NATO and Asia-Pacific allies), using deterrence, alliances and power-balancing concepts to maintain a relatively secure Asia-Pacific.

However, these trends have begun to generate concern in the wider Asia-Pacific region. Current problems include: -

1)Problems in balancing economic and diplomatic influence, e.g. rapid growth in the PRC economy, and changing roles for Japan and ASEAN as they navigate between the US and a growing PRC (see for example Tow 2004).

2)Problems in dealing with diffuse but real factors including the role of religion,culture, values, and popular aspirations that influence national, regional and international policy.

3)Conventional power does not readily deter terrorism, guerrilla activity, nor stop unresolved nationalist claims at the grass roots level. In the case of international terrorism, an emerging norm favoured by the U.S. has suggested that governments should not allow terrorist organisations to be based within their territory (Bell 2003, p161), a notion that has been the pretext for action at different times against Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Pakistan.; factions within Somalia, and Afghanistan. However, even if a host government is attacked and toppled (as in the former Taliban regime), this weakens but does not destroy a transnational focused terrorist grouping such as Al-Qaeda or Jemaah Islamiyah (Bell 2003, p161, p177; Singh 2004; see lecture 3). This is part of the context of asymmetric conflicts whereby stronger states are unable to bring power to bear to coerce or deter weaker social groupings that remain as long-term irritants..

4)‘Spoiler’ strategies can be used by weaker powers to undermine regional balances that do not meet their interests, e.g. both North Korea and Pakistan can undermine the agenda of more powerful states that relatively weak power.

5)It may be hard to deterfragmented states with low levels of development, and hard to mobilise accountability by governments with low levels of legitimacy and limits democratic credentials. In such cases leadership elites are not deterred by the suffering imposed on the poorer members of their communities, and are less concerned about casualties (see Bell 2003, pp173-174). Likewise, Burmese policies in relation to China, Thailand, South Asia and ASEAN means that it can retain regime support in the face of sustained human rights criticisms.

6)States with authoritarian regimes and weak legitimacy find serious reform difficult, are afraid of unleashing social forces, and their leadership elites fear future prosecution over human rights abuses or past abuse of power. These factors influence Myanmar and North Korea, both of which engage in long-term strategies of regime survival (see further below). This means that sanctions and external pressure have limited effects in modifying government behaviour.

In the 21st century, it is possible to argue that not just national relations but a range of other ‘balances’ need to be considered in the ‘international’ system: -

Morally the most important imbalance may be that between rich and poor worlds. Psychologically for many people it is the imbalance between the rate of change and the ability of people and institutions to adapt to change. Sociologically and politically, the imbalance, or changing balance, between states and markets, or peoples and resources, may prove the most notable lever of change. (Bell 2003, p14)

These factors leads to a certain temptation to use a notion called preponderance of power. Driven by international interests and heightened threats, the U.S. has used political, diplomatic, economic and military power to assert U.S. interests more forcefully in world affairs, in part through unilateral action, in part through voluntary coalitions (for earlier examples, see Khalilzad 1995). Coral Bell has suggested that in spite of growing EU and Chinese power in some areas, this relative unipolarity of power by the U.S. could last as far as down till 2030, but it must be stressed that this does not rely on the old balance of power model among great nations (Bell 2003, p14). The problem of such an approach is that it increased the major moral and leadership responsibility (see Brilmayer 1994) on the single remaining superpower, enhancing its power but increasing the risks of over-extensions and intensified criticism over its conduct (clearly seen in the case of Iraq through 2003-2007).

Through an overt preponderance of power, backed up by suitable regional and Western alliance partners, America has sought to direct several global and regional agenda (on these issues, see Layne & Schwarz 1993). Through 2000-early 2001 it seemed that the Bush administration had been tempted to pursue such assertive strategies in relation to China, in part under the advice of national security adviser Condoleezza Rice (Eccleston 2000), though this agenda was partly displaced after September 2001. Indeed, through 2001-2007 the U.S. relied not only on strong coalition partners (U.K., Australia, Poland etc.), but also gained strong support and intelligence from diverse players whose own interests might be forwarded by the so-called ‘war on terror’, including Russia, Malaysia, and China, all of whom felt they had their own terrorists (or dissidents) to deal with. Through 2005-2007 concerns over intensified competition among PRC and the US have returned, with concerns over China's need for energy and resources (Harris 2005), concerns over increased influenced in Latin America and linkages to Iran and Venezuela, threats driven my mutual defence modernisation, and some concerns over the growing influence of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. From August 2005 a Senior Sino-US Dialogue has sought to reduce some of these tensions (Harris 2005), but indicate the in many ways the US leadership role regionally has been challenges by a growing PRC (see further below). Thus, any new moves that seem to signal 'containment' of China can result in strong threat signals being generated. Thus through June 2007 PRC has once again protested U.S.-Japan-Australia cooperation on regional anti-missile systems, and stated that any deployment of such a system to Taiwan would be opposed 'very strongly' (Dobell 2007).

In general, however, comprehensive multilateral security understandings have not been strong in shaping North-east Asian affairs. Beyond limited efforts to link security dialogue onto the APEC meetings in the 1990s, the Australian idea, (supported by former Foreign Affairs Minister Evans), for some sort of organisation for security cooperation in Asia to be formed, paralleling the OSCE in Europe, was viewed as premature. At present, on the loose dialogue process of the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), and the less formal, second-track diplomatic grouping, the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific, CSCAP (for limitations of the ARF, see Heller 2005). From 1992 CSCAP membership has expanded to include not just Australia, Canada, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and the USA, but also New Zealand, Russia, North Korea, Mongolia, the EU, PRC, Vietnam, India, PNG and Cambodia, but provides only a loose dialogue for regional security for the Asia-Pacific (to be discussed further in week 6). A new, mixed-track dialogue that has emerged is the Shangri-La Dialogue since 2002 (though still with limited outcomes): -

Since its inaugural meeting in 2002, the Dialogue has become a recognised part of the infrastructure of Asian defence diplomacy and is seen as the region's premier security institution. . . .

Over the first four years of this unique IISS experiment in multilateral defence diplomacy, defence ministers attended and participated from fifteen countries. Deputy defence ministers or senior defence and security officials participated from a further six. In 2003 we also invited chiefs of defence staff, national security advisors, and permanent under secretaries of ministries of defence, and in both 2004 and 2005 we were able to include several senior officials with responsibility for intelligence, police and national security matters (IISS 2006).

This process now brings together 26 official government delegations 'led mainly by Defence Ministers, Foreign Ministers, Chiefs of Defence Staff and other senior officials, who will deliberate on security-related issues with legislators, experts, academics and business people from Asia-Pacific region and key outside powers' (High Commission of Sri Lanka 2007).

Moreover, alongside a strong military presence regionally, the U.S. will also seek address comprehensive issues such as promotion of democracy, reducing terrorism, and addressing environmental security issues (Department of Defense 1998). Over the last three decades the U.S. has been seen by many countries in Asia-Pacific as an ‘exporter of security’ that allowed strong trade flows to boost confidence across East Asia. The question we can ask is whether this comprehensive approach has been sustained in the 21st century, and whether it has been successful in the Asia-Pacific region. Is the U.S. a stabiliser in the Indo-Pacific region, or whether this perception is changing regionally, leading to new roles for other countries (PRC, India) or groupings (the East Asia Summit or the SCO). In this context, the relationships among the U.S., China, India, Japan and ASEAN remain crucial for the future peace and prosperity of Southeast Asia, Australasia and for the Indo-Pacific region as a whole. Any emergence of trilateral or four-way economic or diplomatic competition among these powers could be extremely destructive (Johnstone 1999; Ayoob 1999). In more general terms, it is possible either to envisage in the next decade at least four possible options: a new balance of power emerging with strong regional powers such as PRC emerging, a 'Sino-American standoff', a widened security network including U.S., Australia, Japan, and India (Dupont 2007), or a genuinely East Asian multilateral community emerging with strong linkages to Asia-Pacific powers (modifying Ikenberry 2004b, p354).

2. The Role of the Superpower: Creating a New ‘Concert of Powers’ or Strategic Imbalance?

Many countries in the Asia-Pacific region have viewed the U.S. presence (post-1975) as playing the role of a stabilizing, balancing force in the region. The major exceptions to this trend has been China (PRC), which has at times viewed the U.S. as a hegemon that seeks to contain a growing China, though this policy softened in the 1980s before being resurrected in the early 1990s and again to a limited degree through 2005-2007. Malaysia, India and North Korea have also been critical at various times of the U.S. overplaying their 'policeman' role in the region. Economic tensions have also resulted in a bout of mutual recrimination between some Asian and U.S. elites in the late 1990s (Harding 1998). Likewise, strong tensions between the U.S. and China have emerged after the accidental (and disastrous) bombing of the Chinese embassy in Serbia (Dellios 1999), and with continuing tensions over the future of Taiwan (see Zagoria 2003), deployment of the US anti-missile system, and tensions over increased PRC military spending (see below). In early 2000, concerned over a vote by the U.S. Congress 'to strengthen military ties with Taiwan, the Chinese armed forces . . . warned Washington not to confuse China with Yugoslavia and Taiwan with Kosovo.' (Excite News 2000). Though the ‘war on terror’ has slightly defocused U.S.-PRC tensions, over the next 30 years China remains one of the few regional powers in the Asia-Pacific that might challenge U.S. predominance. Tensions re-emerged from early 2004 during and after very close Taiwanese elections, with PRC warning Taiwan against any further drift towards declared, formal (as distinct from de facto) independence. The strengthening economy of PRC has led to a somewhat more assertive foreign policy profile through 2004-2007, both in relation to Japan and re-asserting the One Country, Two Systems solution for the future of Taiwan. However, China also gains from strong trade flows with the U.S. and has also gained from the relative stability of the Asia-Pacific region, leading to one idea that they indirectly gain security from the U.S. presence up to a certain point, especially in reducing possible militarisation in Japan (see further below). The U.S., in turn, has been critical of increased defence spending and military modernisation in the PRC, including a view that a lack of real transparency and predicability are part of its security problem in the Asia-Pacific (Strategic Comments 2007b). The new PRC White Paper on defence also hints at new power projection capacities that are to be developed in future: -