Weakened economic prosperity, both in China and the rest of the region, and the continued accumulation of military strength will also create new security challenges.
The financial crisis, coupled with the accumulated burden of the global War on Terror (or Overseas Contingency Operations, if you prefer) has affected the perception of America’s relative power. During the Obama administration’s first 100 days, there were two interesting events in this context: the first, Secretary Clinton’s conciliatory attitude in Beijing; the second, the renewal of the minister-level bilateral dialogue between Beijing and Washington.
In January, former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski proposed the ‘group of two’ (G-2) idea in Beijing and in the Financial Times. In April, the Obama administration announced it would send Secretary Clinton and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to head the new minister-level dialogue, and Chinese State Councilor Dai Pinggo and Vice Premier Wang Qishan would be their counterparts.
Even though this author appreciates the importance of bilateral ties between Beijing and Washington, the ‘group of two’ cannot be the foundation of an emerging regional architecture.
To cope with two key security challenges in Northeast Asia, the Korean peninsula and Taiwan Strait, the U.S. has enhanced its partnership with South Korea and Japan, and it has maintained its security relationship with Taipei. The hub-and-spoke alliance system has provided the basis for both military capabilities and U.S. forward defense against an uncertain security backdrop in the region.
Brzezinski looked at Iran, South Asia and the Middle East as potential areas for US-China security cooperation, but addressing security issues in East Asia, where military spending is increasing and sources of tension still exist, is a more complex exercise.
These sources of tension, regarding both aggregate military capabilities and U.S. forward defense, are significant. For any diplomatic negotiations regarding North Korea (and, potentially, Taiwan), it is hard to imagine that G-2 bilateral negotiation is necessary and desirable, since it would create serious credibility problems for the U.S. amongst Washington’s partners.
The rise of Chinese military budgets and its development of maritime, air, and space technology is a common security concern for neighboring countries. It, also, cannot be solved solely by G-2 dialogue. Unlike the 1970s, merely stable Sino-American relations can not provide peace because we now do not regard the tensions between China and the US as the key problem to be overcome.
Economically, the U.S., Japan, and other advanced economies – including EU countries – will maintain their global dominance, and their relatively strong position vis-à-vis newly emerging economies like China and India will continue for the foreseeable future.
It is unlikely that China and India (and possibly Russia) will form their own international institutions to provide an alternative for the established ones. It is important to keep a coalition of advanced economies in rule-based international institutions.
Simply put, my temporary solution relies on a ‘three-tier approach’: distrust amongst the bilateral relations of other states, the first tier, must be acted upon introducing strong mini-lateralism, the second tier, especially with regards to China-Japan-U.S. trilateral dialogue. Gaining consensus on regional security, economic architecture and global governance (including China’s seats and voting weight in each institution) forms the third tier.
The point is this: we need an inclusive framework for all major states, and it would be desirable for China, Japan and the U.S. to first relinquish their mistrust towards the other two parties’ bilateral relations, and incline this mini-lateral framework towards broad, regional institutions.
The Obama administration’s warming towards ratification of the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation and joining the established ASEAN-based regional framework is a welcome development.
To make the most of this opportunity, we should not repeat past experiences and miss the opportunity for community building, especially before the first East Asian Summit, and we need to design the inclusive and dynamic framework with China as a key participant. Vice President Joe Biden’s recent remark, celebrating NBAR’s 20th anniversary, mentioned the idea of an official China-Japan-U.S. dialogue, which is also a welcome move.
Since there is a newfound impetus towards non-traditional security and peacekeeping missions, in addition to financial and functional cooperation, there is potential for China and neighboring countries to work together during key operations, and promote confidence through educational seminar diplomacy amongst the various military forces.
The next few years may well be the epoch-making period for new regional architecture. We need to find out the best frameworks for each role, against the background of many existing multi-layered regional relationships in the Asia-Pacific region. The most important thing to do is bind China and the U.S. together in this emerging regional architecture.
Considering its unique position and relations with China and the U.S., Japan needs to change its strategic thinking and move beyond looking at things through a traditional alliance lens. I also believe Australia and some Southeast Asian counties could be a good mediator to help create this new architecture.
This idea is adopted and updated from the author’s recent provisional paper for Australia-Japan Security Workshop co-sponsored by Australia-Japan Foundation, COE, and ANU in Canberra, 10-11th of March, 2009.
I have a quick comment first and will provide more comment latter on.
The point or the approach that Ryo Sahashi is making does not quite match the title of the article. Or the other way around, the title does not match well the content. It may reflect the complexity of the reality as well as some entrenched / long held thinking among some people.
The title is “A three-tier approach to Asian regional architecture”. Accoding to this title, one would have thought that this is a matter for Asian countries. But in the article, Ryo Sahashi goes on to talk about G-2 (US and China) and China-Japan-U.S. trilateral dialogue. In both and probably the third tier, one cannot fail to see the US as a key player in them.
Is the US an Asian country? Or is the author talking about some other arrangements than the Asian region? If it is about Asian regional affairs, why does the auther have to drag the US from America not Asia into this? Why not get any other regional powers into it? I have been left wondering. it seems that Asians can’t survive or don’t know how to do so without the US!
This is my second comment on this article, as I mentioned in my first comment. In this I will focus on a point regarding economic matters, as evident from the following excerpt from this article:
[Economically, the U.S., Japan, and other advanced economies – including EU countries – will maintain their global dominance, and their relatively strong position vis-à-vis newly emerging economies like China and India will continue for the foreseeable future.
It is unlikely that China and India (and possibly Russia) will form their own international institutions to provide an alternative for the established ones. It is important to keep a coalition of advanced economies in rule-based international institutions.]
While it is true that the US, Japan and the EU are now still world largest economies both individually and as a whole, the rise of some large developing economies is causing rapid changes to the world economic landscapes, with shifting in geoeconomic powers. The current financial and economic crisis is accelerating those changes. If anyone has any doubt about this, the G20 meeting in London in April can be a case study for people to derive some useful insights and helpful conclusions. It is not too difficult to see that the argument of “their global dominance, and their relatively strong position” of the US, Japan and EU is no longer necessarily correct.
Further, the trends of the relative shift of economic powers seen in the past decade or so will accelerate to an unprecedented degree over the coming decade, as the inevitable readjustments of large international imbalances between the US and some other countries in the wake of this world wide economic crisis. There are profound economic implications from these adjustments. The US is likely to see a lengthy period of slower growth with possibly higher inflation.
While this could, on the other hand, be a potential threat to some of the rapidly rising developing economies, some of them have advanced to such a degree that they can adjust their economic structure to accommodate their higher saving rates through channelling savings to more rapid capital accumulation. This may not be very easy and should take some time, but the result will be more rapid growth and faster shrinking of the gaps between the now advanced and developing economies.
Besides, an important consequence of the current crisis is that the authorities in many countries have to increase government deficits and debts to try to get the economies up and going again. The burdens of increased government debts are likely to be heavier in the US, Japan and the EU, relative to some of the rapidly rising developing economies. Efforts to reduce government deficits and debts will dampen the economy, further constraining its growth in the medium term. This headache is likely to persist in some advanced economies for some time to come.
Whether there is a need for the large and more rapidly growing developing economies to form their own international institutions to provide an alternative for the established ones is an open question. However, the existing main international economic institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank are likely to experience significant changes in their governance and approaches. Like it or not, the representations of developing economies in those institutions will be enhanced at the expenses of the existing heavily represented advanced countries. This is not a rivalry between the advanced and developing countries, but simply a reflection of the new reality. The existing structure of governance simply cannot work effectively any more.
To conclude, the economic dominance of the three major advanced regions internationally will disappear at a frightening speed, if that has not happened already. The coalition of advanced economies is no more than a wishful thinking. Countries, advanced and developing alike, will seek every opportunity to advance their own economies. In that process, the more dynamic developing economies are more attractive than semi-stagnant ones. That is the beauty of evolution and human beings will continue to seek beauty and love beauty, among the laments and the noises of wingy from some minds who may feel the world is changing too fast for them to cope.
Asian Union – a true community for Asians
This is my third comment on this article – likely to be the last one.
There is the European Union; there is the African Union; there is the Summit of the Americas. Asia is world largest continent with about half of the world population. Yet there has been no such a thing as the Asian Union, or the Summit of Asians. Neither culturally, economically, or militarily, is Asia world most advanced, nor is it the least developed. So in the modern time of integration or globalisation, why has this been the case for so long? One has to ask. The answer is not necessarily an easy one.
I don’t attempt to provide an answer to that question here because I am not qualified to do it that I know that for sure. What I would like to venture, however, is to try to contribute constructively to the future. This is because I was born in Asia (in its true meaning) and had lived there for more than half of my current life long. I must say that I am now a Chinese Australian, not far from Asia in its true meaning. Further Mr Gareth Evans, former Australian foreign minister, had tried very hard to put Australia into the map of Asia during his time as the minister, that is, to join Asia.
I think Asians should establish an Asian Union as a community for Asians to look after the affairs including the security of Asia and advance the wellbeing of Asians. The membership of such a union should be open to any countries in Asia. In that, it should include countries which have part of their land in Asia, such as Russia, if that is what they want to do. It could potentially include Australia and Oceania, but that should be a matter for the Asian Union to decide.
What governing structure should such an Asian Union have? It should have permanent annual summit of heads of government/country to decide the priority agenda for the next year. This is an assembly of Asians. The Union should have a permanent secretariat organisation, similar to that of the UN Security Council. Such a secretariat may have a number of permanent members and a group of rotating members to be effective. Its president / secretary general should be rotated among the members or representatives of groups of members with much smaller populations of each.
The permanent members of the secretariat should ideally be a small odd number, such as 5 or 7. They may come from a combination of the most populous countries and the largest economies in Asia. Instead of each of the permanent members having a veto right, the majority of the permanent members can veto on any matters of draft resolutions. This will make the secretariat more representative and effective than UN’s current governing structure.
I think such an Asian Union will be the next step in Asia development in its long history. It is badly needed now, given the development of the other continents. Those large Asian countries should put aside their historical issues aside and take the leadership of Asia. The simply matter of fact is this: if you don’t want to be strong and look after your own affairs, you will not be strong and your interests have to be looked after by others who may or may not put your interests first in their agenda, and why should they?
More realistically, I think the existing platform of ASEAN plus three could form the impetus of an organisation of the Asian Union. Alternatively, it would be better if India could be included in such a formation process, given its share of the Asian population.
There should be plenty of important and urgent Asian regional issues to be addressed by the Asian Union, not only the economic development, trade and investment, but issues such as the North Korea nuclear issue, the conflict in Afghanistan, the instability in Pakistan and some other regions in Asia. If the Asian Union is created and operates effectively, issues such as the increase in regional military expenditures, regional territorial dispute can all be on the agenda. It could also contribute to the resolution of the Middle East conflicts.
A true and more transparent Asian Union that is not in the shadow of any other world powers will be in the long term interests of all Asians. I look forward to its creation in the not so distant future.