China is no longer satisfied with its perceived political and strategic subordination to the US. The patterns and understandings of the global order that evolved in the post-Cold War period are now deeply contested, resulting in global and regional arrangements that are often overlapping and — at times — competing.
The end of the Cold War forced a major re-evaluation of the principles and institutions of the US-led Western liberal project, which aimed to transform society in accordance with liberal values and practices. A decade later, the shift in global power has led not only to a diffusion of power but also to a diffusion of principles, preferences, ideas and values that have implications for global and regional re-ordering. Hence, the liberal order is in a state of flux and great uncertainty, and an order based on US primacy no longer appears to be the exclusive framework it once was. There are claims that continued unipolarity will facilitate a transformation of the current order solely on US terms. Yet those views are far too cosy and ignore the deeply contested nature of the liberal project.
At the same time, US primacy is deeply entrenched in the Asia Pacific and will not easily fade, despite the global restructuring of power. The US is realigning its defence strategy to meet these new realities by recalibrating and concentrating American resources in the Asia Pacific. But US rebalancing creates a number of challenges that need to be addressed. First, rebalancing has reassured US followers in the region that they can still depend on American preponderance and the security umbrella that comes with it. Second, Asian countries do not seem to be satisfied with the prospect of a regional order based on Chinese primacy. And third, US rebalancing and Chinese assertiveness create an extremely volatile situation in the Asia Pacific that is neither an architecture nor an order. Instead, the region is still searching for both a vision and a design to manage relations among major powers on the one hand, and relations between major powers and weaker countries on the other.
Five principles may serve as signposts for creating a new regional security order in the Asia Pacific.
First, great-power management trumps institutional design. An effective security order requires political bargaining among key stakeholders on ‘the rules of the game’. Those rules precede international and regional institutional frameworks and help foster some degree of compliance with certain principles of conduct. A regional order in the Asia Pacific must be based on a grand bargain — centred around a Sino–US condominium — with the (tacit) approval of other major powers such as India, Japan and Australia.
Second, institutional form follows function. The form of regional institutions in the Asia Pacific must follow the function of the grand bargain among great powers. Otherwise, the institutions will not have the capacity to shape the relationships among Asia’s key stakeholders. Those who promote an ASEAN-centric regional ordering need to work out how to manage great-power relations in an era of deeply contested US primacy.
Third, multilateral pluralism trumps monism. There is no one-size-fits-all strategy for effective security re-ordering. Collective-action problem solving needs to take advantage of both formal and informal approaches to multilateralism. And those approaches are not mutually exclusive. There is a strong demand to create synergies between minilateral groups and formal international organisations.
Fourth, contestation is part and parcel of collective action. Effective security governance requires a strategy on how to promote a discourse that champions one path of collective action over another. This strategy needs to generate enough authority to enforce a particular collective-action outcome and to make the outcome acceptable to a wider audience.
Finally, power needs to be matched by accountability. In light of the contested and fluid nature of global and regional security re-ordering, accountability of those who wield power and military force is of paramount importance. Accountability is inextricably linked to justice and legitimacy, which constitutes the flipside of the great-power bargain.
While US primacy is deeply entrenched in the Asia Pacific, the shift in global power — and the rise of Chinese power — is transforming the regional order. A common understanding on the principles underlying the new security order for the region will assist in maintaining Asia’s peace and stability as these global shifts take place.
Jochen Prantl is Senior Research Fellow at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore.
Many thanks for this commentary; I commend the author on the five principles advanced here. While I endorse and appreciate these suggested steps towards attaining a peaceful transition to a new order in the Asia-Pacific region, I must express some scepticism over how realistic these would prove to be and, to that extent, how meaningful this intervention can be.
The steps Jochen Prantl suggests begin with ” A regional order in the Asia Pacific must be based on a grand bargain — centred around a Sino–US condominium — with the (tacit) approval of other major powers such as India, Japan and Australia.” This may appear to be eminently logical in the context of the processes of power-shift apparently under way.
However, judging by the present set of strategic and military-security trajectories being charted by the USA, India, Japan and Australia – underscored by the physical deployment of forces and operational-doctrinal discourses being revised to backstop these deployments, it is difficult to see how the USA and China can fashion a condominium and, even if they manage to do so, how realistic it may be for them to expect India, Japan and Australia to accept it and agree voluntarily to function within the framework of such a condominium.
This is particularly so because, since the second term of the Bush presidency and especially since the advent of the Obama Administration in Washington, the USA has reinforced its strategic ties with India, Japan and Australia (as well as others) both bilaterally and multilaterally, to hedge against a growing China, and balance its growing capacity to pursue its interests. To move from that well-established and shared position vis-a-vis China to one built around a Sino-US condominium would demand substantial costs which neither the USA (especially around elections) nor its allies might be willing or even able to pay.
So, in sum, excellent suggestions, but extremely unlikely to gather much traction in the Beltway and, therefore, elsewhere.
Kind regards
mahmud
Though the Five principles for a new security order in the Asia Pacific proposed by Jochen Prantl may sound rough justice, they are not too different from how post war establishment of the current international order and world major institutions, such UN, the IMF and world bank operate.
The question is whether the US is willing to accept that it is about time to recognise the unpleasant reality that the days of its complete dominance in the world in general and in Asia and the Pacific is numbered as the economic transformation in Asia continues.
The US should be rational and intelligent enough to make the right choice, although historical transitions of world powers have never been smooth.
I think you’re focusing only the US-China perspective. For most of the countries in Asia, I think the real issue is that they are feeling threatened by the often ‘unrefined’, ‘bluntly self-centered’ attitude that China has shown to its neighbors in the last few years. It is this uneasy feeling and the lack of trust felt by the rest of the Asian countries toward China that led to their calling for renewed alliance with the US to control China.