US Rebalance to Asia – An Assessment

Dr Harinder Sekhon, 

Senior Fellow, VIF

US President Barack Obama landed in Beijing on Monday for the APEC summit, the first of a series of summit and bilateral meetings with regional and world leaders. This visit comes at a time when a majority of Americans are despondent that the country's competitors around the world are swelling while the country's defence resources and the capacity to respond to global challenges shrink. US defence budgetary cuts to the tune of a trillion dollars for this fiscal further add to this mood. This gloom is not confined to the US alone but extends to the Asia Pacific as well where serious doubts exist about Obama’s commitment to his Doctrine of 2012 directing a strategic “pivot” or Re Balance to Asia as an important element of his grand strategy for the region.

While host China seeks to allay the fears of regional countries by organizing the APEC agenda around a “series of initiatives to nurture regional economic growth and connectivity, long-term progress in these areas will not be possible if China continues to assert unilateral claims to international waters and airspace in the South and East China seas -- and to back these claims up with the threat of force” by seeking to create “a sphere of influence that erodes the security and sovereignty of Japan and other neighbours”. There is apprehension that in East Asia, China seeks “to overturn the existing, pluralistic regional order and replace it with a Sino sphere imposed at least partly through force of arms”,¹ as the US has been more occupied with developments in Ukraine and the Middle East. While those are serious issues that required immediate attention, the US must not lose sight of its long term and more serious challenge posed by a rising China in East Asia.

Strategic power plays in the Asia-Pacific region and the role of the two main players, the US and China, has emerged as one of the major drivers of international relations in the twenty first century. China’s rapid economic rise over the past two decades has “made it possible for China to increase its military capacity and ramp up its political role in the region and beyond.” While China has been at pains to insist that its rise will be peaceful, and “poses no threat to its neighbours or the existing international, political and economic order”, its rising assertiveness, more visible since 2010, is a matter of concern and compelled the US to re orient its policy towards the Asia-Pacific. In November 2011, Obama attended the East Asia Summit in Bali, Indonesia, the first for a US President, signifying a major shift in US policy to protect its strategic interests in Asia. Also in November 2011, US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton published an article in Foreign Policy Journal titled, ‘America’s Pacific Century,’ clearly laying out the importance America attaches to Asia-Pacific. She wrote:

Harnessing Asia's growth and dynamism is central to American economic and strategic interests and a key priority for President Obama. Open markets in Asia provide the United States with unprecedented opportunities for investment, trade, and access to cutting-edge technology. Our economic recovery at home will depend on exports and the ability of American firms to tap into the vast and growing consumer base of Asia. Strategically, maintaining peace and security across the Asia-Pacific is increasingly crucial to global progress, whether through defending freedom of navigation in the South China Sea, countering the proliferation efforts of North Korea, or ensuring transparency in the military activities of the region's key players.

This reaffirmation of its attention towards the Asia-Pacific led to a strategic pronouncement of US policy in the form of the “pivot” or “rebalance” to Asia. While this policy was not new and was mainly a continuation and expansion of policies already undertaken by previous US administrations, Obama’s Doctrine had two distinct features. First, it was more comprehensive and included “all the necessary components of a strategy, namely, military, political, economic and ideological.” The second feature of Obama’s pivot strategy was that it extended the scope of Asia Pacific to include South Asia, particularly India, and linked the Pacific and Indian Oceans as one continuum in US grand strategy for Asia.²

The main objectives of the “Asia Pivot” were:

(a) Re-assertion of US interest in maintaining stability in the region through the prevention of regional conflict and flaring up of inter-state antagonisms.

(b) Maintain security of the global commons, especially the sea-lanes through which more that 50% of global trade and 70% of ship-borne oil transits.

(c) Create an enabling environment for further expansion of trade between the United States and East Asia and among regional states through bilateral free-trade agreements and the facilitation of a Trans Pacific Partnership.

(d) Though not explicitly stated, to keep a watch on Chinese activities and managing its role in the region by influencing the “terms of its admission and full integration within those regional and international regimes where the US is still the dominant actor.”

(e) To play the role of a benign and indispensable hegemon and thereby “acquire the leverage necessary to influence regional actors and their choices.”³

The US hoped to achieve its aims through a three - pronged policy of stepped up military deployment in Guam and Australia, trade and diplomacy. But the pivot’s emphasis on making the US military presence in the region more flexible, and putting measures in place for its rapid deployment caused concern amongst the Chinese. While the US insists that its strategic rebalance only seeks to “enhance regional stability for the benefit of all, rather than to contain or threaten China,” the Chinese see this move by the USA as an attempt to maintain its “hegemonic dominance, thwarting China’s rise and keeping it vulnerable”. This has further exacerbated regional tensions in East Asia where China has been more aggressive in recent months while the US has been busy elsewhere. These tensions focus on the Korean peninsula, the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea, and have an important maritime dimension, leading to a high probability of war in the region. Besides Japan, Vietnam and the Philippines too feel vulnerable and have joined the effort to draw American attention back to Asia-Pacific.

Most countries view the US pivot strategy as more rhetoric than substance. Some nations feel there has been a significant change in US priority to Asia from the rebalance, though not necessarily much in the way of increased military presence, and that the signal sent in the region had been vital in reassuring some and, hopefully, deterring others. Others feel that there had been much less to it than meets the eye and that whatever steam it had originally has now dissipated (e.g. Obama’s West Point speech had omitted it altogether). But there could also be an important gap between reality and perception — whatever the actual substance, it has been seen in some quarters, notably in Beijing, as an exercise in US hard power, and even provocative, and produced a counter-reaction accordingly.

At a time when friends and allies of the US are expressing doubts about its commitment to its re-balance strategy, US Secretary of State, John Kerry sought to allay such fears and apprehensions. In a recent statement, he said, “The Asia Pacific is one of the most promising places on the planet, and America’s future and security and prosperity are closely and increasingly linked to that region.” Elaborating further, Kerry said, “President Obama’s rebalance towards the Asia Pacific and the enormous value that we place on longstanding alliances with Japan, South Korea, Australia, Thailand, and the Philippines and our bourgeoning relationships with ASEAN and countries in Southeast Asia”⁴ would be a priority.

Kerry outlined four main aspects of the rebalance strategy: First, the opportunity to create sustainable economic growth, which includes finalizing the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which should not be viewed through the narrow confines of a trade agreement but also as a strategic opportunity for the United States and other Pacific nations to come together and prosper together. Second, powering a clean energy revolution that will help address climate change while simultaneously jumpstarting economies around the world. Third, reducing tensions and promoting regional cooperation by strengthening the institutions and reinforcing the norms that contribute to a rules-based, stable region. Fourth, create an environment that will empower people throughout the Asia Pacific to live with dignity, security, and opportunity.⁵

There is no doubt that US economic and political interests in the Asia-Pacific region are huge, and there is a demand for an increased US presence in, and strategic priority given to the region from many Asian countries. But the long-term question is whether the US has the will and the resources to keep up its effort against the background of the continuing rise of China and its own domestic compulsions. China has the potential to easily focus on dominating the region, without worrying too much about the rest of the world beyond its direct trade, investments and resource needs. The US would always have other priorities elsewhere and this is what worries many of China’s neighbours and why they are so hard to satisfy and reassure.

In this context, while China and the US are unlikely to be real friends and close allies for the foreseeable future, they could nevertheless work together closely on many issues, for example North Korea, climate and the environment, securing the global commons, etc. The US could view Chinese proposals for an inclusive economic agenda with a positive attitude as the alternative of constant competition and potential confrontation would be detrimental for everyone. According to the New York Times, “last month 51 top American business leaders, led by the U.S.-China Business Council, urged Mr. Obama to make the conclusion of a bilateral investment treaty by 2016 a priority in his meetings with Mr. Xi.”⁶ They propose that such a treaty would be beneficial for both countries. The US also needs to play a more positive role in improving the multilateral system, since ultimately a rules-based co-operative approach is in US interests as is a revitalized G-20.

Despite speculation in some quarters about US decline, it should not be viewed in absolute terms. The US possesses inherent strengths and great influence, which give it the ability to do worthwhile work globally. US soft power remains enormous though investing more in tools like diplomacy and overseas information capability, would be well worthwhile. The world still looks to the US to assume a leadership role but this should be exercised more as a team player and through partnerships and consultative leadership where possible, not from a “sole super-power” perspective. For this strategic perspective and strategic patience are needed more than ever. The US needs to think long-term and build the right fundamentals through clearer guiding concepts, principles, strategic priorities and goals.

The US should be bolder in its readiness to reform institutions, its own and the international ones. US consultative leadership is needed not only in the obvious political and economic areas, but on the major cross-cutting issues where progress remains so difficult, but equally important: climate change, cyber security, non-proliferation, macro imbalance. The rebalance to Asia remains vital, and should be pursued as a long-term goal. Helping respond to Chinese assertiveness in the region is necessary, but so is a co-operative US/China relationship. These are all challenging issues, as the US, has not been able to build a strong and dependable network of regional institutions and alliances in Asia as it has in Europe in the post World War – II period.

While the US should not hesitate to promote its values and principles, it has to ensure its own behaviour does not depart too much from those values and rules. To remain influential and relevant in the region, the US will have to naturally remain engaged with East Asian and South East Asian powers. But it will have to resist the temptation to claim for itself economic privileges, exemptions and political authority to act in an arbitrary manner just because it is the chief security provider. Ideas of US exceptionalism and lecturing others would need to be avoided while continuing with the effort to preserve a wide liberal, democratic base in the world.

The US referred to India as the "linchpin" of its rebalance strategy; and by virtue of its own strategic and economic interests in the region, India cannot remain unmindful of developments taking place in East Asia. While India is pragmatic and more inclined to safeguarding its national interest by following an interest-based policy rather than getting drawn into a strategic competition with China or become a security provider on behalf of the US, India will have to devise a long-term and effective strategy in order to emerge as a relevant player in East Asia. In recent months, India has strengthened its Look East Policy through bilateral and multilateral engagements with the smaller regional powers and ASEAN countries, thereby insulating itself from the risks of strategic competition or complicity between China and the United States, but a sustained involvement with this region is required.

Endnotes

1. Daniel Twining, “An Asian post-election checklist for Obama, Nikkei Asian Review,
   November 5, 2014.
2. SD Muni, Vivek Chadha, editors, Asian Strategic Review 2014 - US Pivot and Asian
   Security, IDSA and Pentagon Press, New Delhi, 2014. p. 7
3. For details see, Congressional Research Service, Pivot to the Pacific? The Obama Administration’s Re-balancing Toward Asia, March 28, 2012,
   http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/R42448.pdf and Mario Del Pero, US: Which Grand
   Strategy for Asia and China? ISPI Analysis No. 187, July 2013.
4. Remarks on US-China Relations by John Kerry, US Secretary of State, at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, Washington, DC, November 4, 2014
5. Ibid.
6. Wang Dong, Robert A Kapp and Bernard Loeffke, Resetting US-China Relations, The New York Times, November 10, 2014. Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/11/opinion/resetting-us-china-relations.h...

---

Published in Vivek: Issues & Options, September - October 2014

(Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Vivekananda International Foundation)

India-China Ties: Need for a Balanced Policy

Kanwal Sibal, 

Dean, Centre for International Relations and Diplomacy, VIF

China constitutes by far our most difficult diplomatic challenge as its rise impacts us directly in view of its territorial claims on us, the unsettled Tibetan situation, the potential impact of China’s upstream river projects, its “more precious than gold” relationship with “iron brother” Pakistan, its strategic penetration in other neighbouring countries as well as in the Indian Ocean. The imbalance in our bilateral trade ties is also becoming unsustainable.

Chinese power is challenging us in Central Asia, the Gulf and Africa, aided by its much larger financial reservoir which it uses for gaining access to energy and mineral resources for its future growth under State direction that India cannot equal. The India-China equation is getting progressively tilted in China’s favour globally. Politically, this draws countries of interest to us into the Chinese orbit; economically, it affects the direction of international trade and investment flows in Asia to our disadvantage.

Yet, we reach out to China as if it is a partner-in-waiting and project congruence of interests bilaterally and multilaterally even where they are in conflict. There is a palpable disconnect between how we see China in private and how we treat it in public.

We justified our nuclear tests in 1998 because of the China threat. Subsequently, we gave China satisfaction by declaring that we did not view it either as a threat or an adversary. We have established a strategic partnership with China even when it has long countered us strategically. We say glibly that China is not a competitor and that the world is big enough to accommodate the rise of both countries. On the heels of the Ladakh incident, we have affirmed that our relationship is a model of co-existence between big neighbouring countries. We say we support our respective friendships with common neighbours, contrary to reality. We are open to maritime cooperation with China in the Indian Ocean when its increasing presence there causes us concern. Even on the nuclear issue, where China has been the source of our biggest strategic challenge, we talk about civilian nuclear cooperation with it. We are consciously letting China off the hook on every issue of concern to us and attributing a benign air to its policies.

Perhaps we judge that any perception of mounting India-China differences reduces our capacity to bargain with other power centres. We probably want to give less room to those who would prefer China and India to be pitted against each other as such a conflict in Asia’s heart would suit their interests. We might be reasoning that those seeking to incorporate us into their anti- China strategy cannot themselves ignore the reality of China, and that with the already achieved integration of its huge economy with the global one, any scope for confrontation is limited. Moreover, our role in the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the East Asia Summit, our participation in the emerging Asian security architecture, our BRICS dialogue and collaboration with China on the World Trade Organization and climate change issues, would be strained by India-China wrangles.

Such thinking has merit up to a point, but between exaggerating levels of understanding with China to ward off external exploitation of our underlying differences and constantly ceding ground politically to it bilaterally on contentious issues and helping it to present an accommodative face to an anxious international community by being receptive to its tactical grandstanding in India during Li Keqiang’s visit, we have room to craft a more balanced policy.

Just when wariness of China is growing, we make a show of bonhomie with it. When Myanmar wants to dilute its dependence on China and the United States of America and Japan courts it, we advocate an economic corridor between China, Myanmar, Bangladesh and India that would promote Chinese influence in this region. We are ready to allow our North East to move economically into China’s orbit, as if that would help us to better integrate it with the rest of India and Arunachal Pradesh can be insulated from Chinese inroads there. If China was visibly moderating its policies in our periphery and on our territorial differences, our postures would make better sense. But then, The Global Times has just reminded us that “India must accept and adapt to the enviable friendship between China and Pakistan. China cannot scale down this partnership merely because of India’s feelings!”

Under its Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, Japan is reaching out to India as never before with the shared threat from a muscle-flexing China in mind. China has tried to queer this pitch with the prime minister, Li Keqiang, landing in India before our Prime Minister travelled to Japan in late May and wooing us with rhetoric and smiles, an exercise in which we willingly participated. This contrived show of friendship and harmony lacked diplomatic finesse, as signalling to the Japanese that our relations with them and China followed matching tracks weakens our playing hand with both. Buoyed by the success of Li Keqiang’s visit, Chinese commentators have lectured Japanese politicians — described as “petty burglars” — on the manner in which India and China managed to “properly” solve their border stand-off quickly. Such contemptuous rhetoric towards Japan should caution us not to take China’s engaging tone towards us too seriously.

If China wants full freedom to calibrate the level of its relations with our neighbours, it cannot question India’s freedom to boost its ties with Japan. It is significant that the Sri Lankan President’s visit to China (May 27-30) overlapped with that of Manmohan Singh’s to Japan (May 27-29), with the Chinese Prime Minister announcing during the visit that China-Sri Lanka ties had reached the stage of “strategic cooperation”. Given its own policies to balance us strategically in our own region, China cannot object to the stated intention of India and Japan to strengthen their strategic partnership, including defence ties, with more frequent bilateral naval exercises.

Nothing in our Prime Minister’s visit to Japan was prejudicial to China’s legitimate interests. The formulation in the joint statement on South and East China Seas — a subject of acute sensitivity for China — was a standard one supporting freedom of navigation and unimpeded commerce in accordance with international law. The reaffirmation of the importance of the East Asia Summit forum for building an open, inclusive and transparent architecture of regional cooperation in the Asia-Pacific was standard fare too.

The Prime Minister’s reference to India and Japan as natural and indispensable partners for mutual prosperity and a peaceful and stable future for the Asia Pacific and Indian Ocean regions was unexceptionable. The Global Times nevertheless warned in an article titled, “India gets close to Japan at its own peril” that “overheated strategic cooperation with the Abe administration can only bring trouble to India and threaten its relationships with the relevant East Asian countries”— implying China too. Such finger-wagging predictably ignored the India-China joint statement that unrealistically mentioned that “the two sides are committed to taking a positive view of and support each other’s friendship with other countries”. Such bullying attitudes encouraged by our appeasement of China need to be decried as we forge a durable strategic and global relationship with Japan and others, to circumscribe China’s challenge.

A Good Product To Sell

Kanwal Sibal
Member Advisory Board, VIF

The relationship between democracy and international security is frequently debated in international circles. It is also said that more prosperity at the international level is conducive for global security. How true are these propositions, in fact?

There is no accepted definition of democracy. The world’s most liberal countries call themselves democracies and so do the world’s most authoritarian regimes. Who then lays down authoritatively universally applicable norms of democracy?

Any country’s political system, in reality, cannot be divorced from its history, tradition and culture. That is why even Western democracies are not identical. Many non-Western countries believe their systems respond better to the needs of their societies. The issue is how to balance community interests and individualism. Who will decide on a definitive answer to this old debate?

There is a crusading spirit behind the Western advocacy of democracy. Its yardsticks for democracy are prescriptive. Whereas in the West democratic systems took long decades to evolve, non-Western countries are expected to move quickly towards the Western version of democracy. In their case, the process is sought to be accelerated through external political interference and pressure, and in some cases by military means.

The selective application by the West of the weapon of democracy by targeting political adversaries and sparing allies and friends makes the international debate on democracy and international security even more controversial.

The West’s hubris about its democratic vocation is such that after the collapse of the Soviet Union, history had ended for some with the definitive triumph of democracy. This has not happened. Early Russian experience of democracy has, on the contrary, been unsatisfactory. The coloured revolutions in former Soviet space held up great democratic promise, but that promise too has faded.

The “Arab Spring” hardly describes accurately the phenomenon of change that has affected this area. The ouster of dictators by the street was too quickly labelled as a grassroots democracy movement. The sceptics saw the Islamists stepping into the political breach created by social media activists. In Tunisia, the government with Islamist tendencies has come to power. In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafists have won a majority in parliament. The public in these countries has preferred to express its political aspirations not through secular parties but Islamic ones with no ideological roots in democracy, In Libya, the uprising against the dictator was tribal in nature with strong Islamic affiliations and not a movement for democracy. In Syria, too, the opposition to the Assad regime has less to do with democracy than a sectarian effort to create a situation that would invite foreign intervention on the Libyan pattern.

To some extent, the Egyptian example, whatever the complexion it has taken now, encourages the exercise of street power to overthrow entrenched dictators or regimes divorced from the aspirations of the people. Some nervousness about the fallout of the Arab Spring has been felt by the Chinese government. In Russia, too, street demonstrations against the fairness of the last parliamentary elections and later against Putin’s decision to stand again for election seemed to have been partially inspired by the Arab example. But the force of this example has been lost because its end result has been regressive in many ways. The limits of the so-called Arab Spring to threaten authoritarian regimes across the world are starkly exposed by the fact that it is the leading authoritarian Gulf states that are today the strongest backers of this phenomenon.

As regards international security, we use the term constantly as if its meaning is clear. It is not. No global security architecture exists as yet; nor does any mechanism to provide equal security to all nations. Some countries possess nuclear weapons or highly advanced conventional forces. The vast majority possesses neither. Whereas the regional powers have a smaller circle of security interests, the big powers see their security interests extending far beyond their immediate neighbourhood They conflate their national security interests with international security.

In this situation, who is responsible for international security? The United Nations Security Council? For the developing countries, the UNSC is not sufficiently representative as it no longer reflects the shifts in global power since 1945. Is it Nato with its out-of-area operations? Is it the defence alliances that exist in West Asia and the Asia Pacific? Did military action taken against Iraq or Libya, and potentially contemplated against Syria and Iran, have “international security” as a shared international objective? Was the intervention in Afghanistan to oust the Taliban for assuring such security? And if so, is the self-imposed deadline for withdrawal by 2014 by cutting a deal with the Taliban for “international security”?

Some would argue that the tendency to intervene in the internal affairs of countries, to not respect the sovereignty of States, to use human rights and democracy issues for allegedly geo-political reasons, to promote controversial doctrines such as the right to protect do not necessarily enhance international security, rather they create tensions and a sense of insecurity in many parts of the world. Power is even now so unequally distributed within the international system that the dominant West has the freedom to conceptualize and apply these new approaches to others.

The view that democracies do not fight with each other carries the implication that if democracy spreads across the globe the world will become peaceful. No doubt the trans-Atlantic space occupied by mature Western democracies is peaceful. But if the world’s foremost democracies do not fight each other they are quite prone to fight others. The Korean and Vietnam wars, the Falklands war, the Nato action against Yugoslavia, the wars against Iraq, the Nato action against Libya, the Afghanistan war — all involve Western democracies. Iran is being threatened with military action by them and Syria is in their cross-hairs, irrespective of the terrible human costs that follow all such interventions. The argument that such wars prevent dictators from committing even greater atrocities on their own populations may be defensible up to a point, but the geo-political calculations behind such regime change policies are evident. It would be naïve to believe that powerful countries are moved only by altruistic reasons.

The prosperity argument also does not bear scrutiny. The Cold War was not motivated by prosperity issues on either side. China’s claims to the South China sea, its aggressive posture on Taiwan, and its differences with India and Japan have nothing to do with difference in prosperity levels. Neither do India-Pakistan differences. Iran’s nuclear challenge does not stem from economic deprivation. The solution to Russia-West issues or Russia’s relations with its immediate neighbours do not lie in increased prosperity in these countries.

The West has a good product to sell in terms of its mature version of democracy. The problem is with its aggressive political salesmanship, to the point of relentlessly vaunting the qualities of its product and even thrusting it forcibly on others. The way India sees it, the case for democracy is strong and self-evident, but it has not been won as it is overlaid with geo-political calculations and aggressive political structuring at the international level without regard to human costs.