What’s in the Pacific?

Robert D Kaplan (who I always get mixed up with Robert Kagan) thinks the South China Sea and it’s region at large will be ‘the 21st century’s defining battleground’ and ‘the world’s new center of naval activity’. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton similarly believes ‘the future of politics will be decided in Asia’ and:

One of the most important tasks of American statecraft over the next decade will therefore be to lock in a substantially increased investment — diplomatic, economic, strategic, and otherwise — in the Asia-Pacific region.

The Asia-Pacific has become a key driver of global politics. Stretching from the Indian subcontinent to the western shores of the Americas, the region spans two oceans — the Pacific and the Indian — that are increasingly linked by shipping and strategy. It boasts almost half the world’s population. It includes many of the key engines of the global economy, as well as the largest emitters of greenhouse gases. It is home to several of our key allies and important emerging powers like China, India, and Indonesia.

Ok, so the Pacific is important, what’s the problem? The problem is China and America. Kaplan hauntingly compares Europe’s war-torn landmass over the 20th century with the future of the waters of the Asia-Pacific in the 21st century. Huge White says ‘how likely is a US-China clash? Hard to say, of course, but I would give an intuitive estimate of between 5 percent and 10 percent over the next decade. If that seems too gloomy, bear in mind that preparing for a war with one another is now clearly the primary strategic priority for both countries’. Further:

 For it isn’t just China that is dramatically building its military; Southeast Asian countries are as well. Their defense budgets have increased by about a third in the past decade, even as European defense budgets have declined. Arms imports to Indonesia, Singapore, and Malaysia have gone up 84 percent, 146 percent, and 722 percent, respectively, since 2000. The spending is on naval and air platforms: surface warships, submarines with advanced missile systems, and long-range fighter jets. Vietnam recently spent $2 billion on six state-of-the-art Kilo-class Russian submarines and $1 billion on Russian fighter jets. Malaysia just opened a submarine base on Borneo. While the United States has been distracted by land wars in the greater Middle East, military power has been quietly shifting from Europe to Asia.

There is literal fuel for conflict with:

the oil transported through the Strait of Malacca from the Indian Ocean, en route to East Asia through the South China Sea, is more than six times the amount that passes through the Suez Canal and 17 times the amount that transits the Panama Canal. Roughly two-thirds of South Korea’s energy supplies, nearly 60 percent of Japan’s and Taiwan’s energy supplies, and about 80 percent of China’s crude-oil imports come through the South China Sea. What’s more, the South China Sea has proven oil reserves of 7 billion barrels and an estimated 900 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, a potentially huge bounty.

Enough of the block quotes (though I believe they are all money quotes, and there is tonnes of arising content important to this topic). What I see (and what Kaplan alludes to, though doesn’t expound fully) is China forming it’s own Monroe Doctrine, attempting to kick competitors out of ‘it’s’ place. The Monroe Doctrine, by the way, wasn’t properly hemispheric (when the US tried to get Europe out of the Western Hemisphere in the 19th century), and Beijing’s aspirations would be even more circumspect relative to the Eastern Hemisphere. But it should be noted that China is wooing much of Africa through trade (with ‘no political strings’, i.e. no questions about governance or human rights) and has some sturdy ties with Pakistan (strategically very well located for China). I believe China wants to follow the American model of superpower emergence of regional dominance and getting states in the region to go along, whilst getting the rest of the world to not put up a fight about it having it’s own way. The precise regional area China wants to dominate, to have supremacy over is undefined and uncertain, but China clearly wants a large sphere of influence, significantly larger than it has now. The problem with this is it pisses off just about everyone. In the epicentre of the South China Sea it pisses off the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia and Vietnam (all who will pretty immediately back the United States in a scuffle). This is exacerbated by the East China Sea, where South Korea, Japan and Taiwan effectively lock China out of the Pacific Ocean strategically.

So, the matters are China is trying to gain more regional influence and supremacy by shoving it’s way into the South China Sea, which hopefully means Taiwan is on the back-burner and no conflict is foreseeable, although it could mean that once China knows it can assert itself  it will go after Taiwan. Taiwan, it is important to underline, is the small, plucky neighbour which serves as a good bulwark against China, but because of it’s size could be put under extreme duress if China got serious. Taiwan, also, at least seen 1949 has been the target of many of a Chinese Communist’s hatred. While probably first being fueled by concerns to conquer the nationalists who were chased out of China to Taiwan there is also clearly a sense of righting the wrongs done by colonial expansion with China growing large and asserting itself (like it would through ‘reunification’ with Taiwan), exorcising the humiliating colonial carve up of the 19th and early twentieth centuries is clearly important as well. Undoubtedly many of the older and historical heads in the communist party see challenging the US as part of some single ongoing fight against ‘Western imperialists’.

America’s position is steadfast. America is waking up after it’s decade long stupor and the thoughts and policies of the country seem to be reorienting it towards the Asia-Pacific ‘as we move forward to set the stage for engagement in the Asia-Pacific over the next 60 years, we are mindful of the bipartisan legacy that has shaped our engagement for the past 60’ ‘I hear everywhere I go that the world still looks to the United States for leadership. Our military is by far the strongest, and our economy is by far the largest in the world. Our workers are the most productive. Our universities are renowned the world over. So there should be no doubt that America has the capacity to secure and sustain our global leadership in this century as we did in the last’. The problem is as clear as two forces heading directly for a head-on collision. Something’s got to give in this game of chicken. Either the US stops, as Kaplan puts it, with ‘its busybody morality’ and excessively caring about ‘the internal nature of the Chinese regime’ and lets China sets the rules and norms for the regional order (because in Kaplan’s quintessential realist argument ‘the balance of power itself, even more than the democratic values of the West, is often the best safeguard of freedom’) or China becomes a ‘responsible global stakeholder’ and falls into line with the international order of the Liberal Leviathan, the United States.

The effect of giving up values (which are interest as well) is, okay, say you don’t care about the politics of the Chinese regime, but what about the regime in Hong Kong? In Taiwan? In Vietnam? In Thailand? In Indonesia? In Pakistan? In Angola? In South Africa (‘The developing world was told that if it did not Westernize and change its political systems to mirror those of the West, they could forget about achieving economic growth and development. Now we are asking what we could learn from other political systems and cultures. Is the political discipline in China a recipe for economic success, for example?’ Words not from avowed communist, but from South African President Jacob Zuma in 2010. A visa for the Dalai Lama was refused from South Africa in late 2010 as well, which caused Desmond Tutu to say ‘our government is worse than the apartheid government because at least you would expect it with the apartheid government’ and ‘our government we expect to be sensitive to the sentiments of our constitution’ here)? My money is on the need for preserving the liberal international order, and I think the stability obsessives overlook that we can walk and chew gum at the same time. But China would clearly have to repent and not demand South Africa, not demand Angola, Not demand Pakistan, Thailand, Vietnam and I hope Taiwan act in specific ways. Trade yes, but truly with ‘no political strings’. The question is whether China is willing to play by the international rules or whether it harbors expectations to set the rules itself, especially non-interference (especially no criticism of human rights and governance, even most probably allowing for genocide) and state sovereignty (having countries emulate it, either due to internal or external motivation, either through sticks or carrots, clearly seems to be in China’s interest and possible intent).

I think the liberal order must be maintained by those who have established and maintained it, and history would veer in a dangerous direction if it were shaken up. The global order that’s been established in the past, roughly, few centuries must be maintained. Instead of the world trying to accommodate to China, China must accommodate and go along with the rest of the world.