A week of meetings in Taipei recently revealed
real confusion and marked disagreements about the meaning and content of the US
‘rebalance’ to Asia. Significantly, the divisions were most evident among the
Americans visiting Taiwan, not the Taiwanese. Parsing the differences reveals a
critical feature of US thinking about Asia that will bedevil American
representatives no matter what they say: most observers, American or not, see
Asia as a cockpit of competition, a struggle for supremacy, between the United
States and China
Every discussion about the rebalance pivoted on two
concerns. First, is the United States genuinely committed to this policy and
will it be sustained in the face of tight budgets and crises elsewhere in the
world? Second, is the rebalance really designed to contain China and check its
rise? The answer to the first is an unequivocal yes; the second, an equally
strident no.
In both cases, time will tell, but logic supports each
answer. The rebalance reflects enduring national interests and changing
geopolitics. It is an attempt to more tightly couple the United States to the
most dynamic region in the world. US ties to Asia have to be maintained, a
position that makes even more sense given the 200-plus years of US engagement
with Asia.
Meanwhile, the United States has worked with China for more
than three decades, and has been instrumental in providing the capital, trade
and knowhow that has enabled China’s rise. The United States seeks to cooperate
with China across a range of endeavors. Its primary goal is the facilitation of
Beijing’s contribution to the maintenance of global order. By no definition
does hundreds of billions of dollars of investment and trade, and ongoing
diplomatic and military engagement across a range of institutions and
endeavors, constitute containment.
The common argument that Washington’s real goal is to check
China’s rise and protect its regional supremacy just doesn’t accord with
reality. That judgment reflects not naive faith in benign US intentions but the
content of almost every speech by US officials about the rebalance and US
policy since it was first articulated, conversations with policymakers
throughout the US foreign policy bureaucracy, and the implementation of that
policy over the last two years. Moreover, a policy of outright confrontation
would undermine US objectives by antagonising regional countries that don’t
wish to be forced to choose between Beijing or Washington and by antagonising
Beijing.
It is commonplace to insist that any uncertainty about US
policy toward Asia reflects poor communications by American officials. That’s
not right. The message could not be clearer. Instead, the problem is the
realist straitjacket that dominates thinking about foreign policy in both the
United States and China. (And, yes, Chinese realists are as numerous and as
fervent as their American counterparts.)
Curiously, I heard a good counter to that thinking in
Taipei, of all places. For the first time in many years, conversations there
were dominated not by the military balance but the opportunities afforded by
Taiwan’s energetic new economic diplomacy. Taiwanese were abuzz over the
signing of a new economic partnership agreement with New Zealand, Taiwan’s
first such deal with a developed economy. That pact is intended to open the
door to more such agreements. Sure enough, Taipei is in the last stages of
concluding a similar deal with Singapore and the government has said that it is
negotiating free-trade agreements with India and Indonesia, and has started a
feasibility study on a pact with the Philippines.
Some dismiss the deals as window dressing, too small to make
much difference. Supporters counter that their real significance is symbolic:
these agreements help reintegrate Taiwan into the global economy and remind the
world of its presence and potential. They help counter the view that the
reunification of China and Taiwan on Chinese terms is inevitable. Indeed, as
Taiwanese surveyed the cross-strait relationship, I was told that both sides
believe time is on their side. That was a first. In the past, the prevailing
line has been that it was only a matter of time before China swallowed Taiwan,
either by force or a diplomatic and economic panda hug. Many Taiwanese now
believe that they have options and that the rest of the world will see them as
a distinct entity, not a mere appendage or ‘rogue province’ of China.
This thinking parallels that of the US ‘rebalance’.
Washington has insisted that this policy is first diplomatic, then economic and
only finally military. That does not mean that the United States is merely
intensifying competition with China on other levels. Rather, the United States
is focusing on the ‘economic shelf’ in the toolbox of national assets. Taiwan
has embraced this logic and it is showing dividends, using economic deals to
create diplomatic elbow room. There is no reason the United States cannot be
equally successful using economic diplomacy to exercise power and influence
throughout Asia.
Brad Glosserman is Executive Director of Pacific Forum CSIS,
Honolulu.
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