Creative diplomacy is urgently needed for a face-saving solution
THIS is how wars usually start: with a steadily escalating
stand-off over something intrinsically worthless. So don't be too surprised if
the US and Japan go to war with China next year over the uninhabited rocks that
Japan calls the Senkakus and China calls the Diaoyu islands. And don't assume
the war would be contained and short.
Of course we should all hope that common sense prevails.
It seems almost laughably unthinkable that the world's three
richest countries - two of them nuclear-armed - would go to war over something
so trivial. But that is to confuse what starts a war with what causes it. The
Greek historian Thucydides first explained the difference almost 2500 years
ago. He wrote that the catastrophic Peloponnesian War started from a spat
between Athens and one of Sparta's allies over a relatively insignificant
dispute. But what caused the war was something much graver: the growing wealth
and power of Athens, and the fear this caused in Sparta.
The analogy with Asia today is uncomfortably close and not
at all reassuring. No one in 431BC really wanted a war, but when Athens threatened
one of Sparta's allies over a disputed colony, the Spartans felt they had to
intervene. They feared that to step back in the face of Athens' growing power
would fatally compromise Sparta's position in the Greek world, and concede
supremacy to Athens.
The Senkakus issue is likewise a symptom of tensions whose
cause lies elsewhere, in China's growing challenge to America's long-standing
leadership in Asia, and America's response. In the past few years China has
become both markedly stronger and notably more assertive. America has countered
with the strategic pivot to Asia. Now, China is pushing back against President
Barack Obama's pivot by targeting Japan in the Senkakus.
The Japanese themselves genuinely fear that China will
become even more overbearing as its strength grows, and they depend on America
to protect them. But they also worry whether they can rely on Washington as
China becomes more formidable. China's ratcheting pressure over the Senkakus
strikes at both these anxieties.
The push and shove over the islands has been escalating for
months. Just before Japan's recent election, China flew surveillance aircraft
over the islands for the first time, and since the election both sides have
reiterated their tough talk.
Where will it end? The risk is that, without a clear
circuit-breaker, the escalation will continue until at some point shots are
exchanged, and a spiral to war begins that no one can stop. Neither side could
win such a war, and it would be devastating not just for them but for the rest
of us.
No one wants this, but the crisis will not stop by itself.
One side or other, or both, will have to take positive steps to break the cycle
of action and reaction. This will be difficult, because any concession by
either side would so easily be seen as a backdown, with huge domestic political
costs and international implications.
It would therefore need real political strength and skill,
which is in short supply all round - especially in Tokyo and Beijing, which
both have new and untested leaders. And each side apparently hopes that they
will not have to face this test, because they expect the other side will back
down first.
Beijing apparently believes that if it keeps pushing,
Washington will persuade Tokyo to make concessions over the disputed islands in
order to avoid being dragged into a war with China, which would be a big win
for them. Tokyo on the other hand fervently hopes that, faced with firm US
support for Japan, China will have no choice but to back down.
And in Washington, too, most people seem to think China will
back off. They argue that China needs America more than America needs China,
and that Beijing will back down rather than risk a break with the US which
would devastate China's economy.
Unfortunately, the Chinese seem to see things differently.
They believe America will not risk a break with China because America's economy
would suffer so much.
These mutual misconceptions carry the seeds of a terrible
miscalculation, as each side underestimates how much is at stake for the other.
For Japan, bowing to Chinese pressure would feel like acknowledging China's
right to push them around, and accepting that America can't help them. For
Washington, not supporting Tokyo would not only fatally damage the alliance
with Japan, it would amount to an acknowledgment America is no longer Asia's
leading power, and that the ''pivot'' is just posturing. And for Beijing, a
backdown would mean that instead of proving its growing power, its foray into
the Senkakus would simply have demonstrated America's continued primacy. So for
all of them, the largest issues of power and status are at stake. These are
exactly the kind of issues that great powers have often gone to war over.
So how do we all get out of this bind? Perhaps creative
diplomacy can find a face-saving formula that defuses the situation by allowing
each side to claim that it has given way less than the other. That would be
wonderful. But it would still leave the deeper causes of the problem - China's
growing power and the need to find a peaceful way to accommodate it -
unresolved. That remains the greatest challenge.
Hugh White is professor of strategic
studies at ANU and a visiting fellow at the Lowy Institute.
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