OBAMA’S GREAT ASIAN DAWDLE
strategicstudyindia : Aug 28, 2013
WASHINGTON – The
more assertive Beijing has become, the more reluctant U.S. President
Barack Obama has been to take sides in Asian territorial disputes,
although they center on a combative China’s efforts to change the
territorial status quo with America’s strategic allies or partners.
Washington’s feckless Asia policy has helped deepen the security dilemma
of several Asian states on how to protect their territorial and
economic rights against China’s power grab.
Washington
has made it amply clear that despite its “pivot” toward Asia, it will
not put American lives at risk to defend its allies’ territorial claims
against Beijing or act in ways detrimental to its close engagement with
China.
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel even said in an Aug. 28 BBC interview
that the U.S. does not look at China’s military buildup as a threat.
Indeed,
there has been a course correction in the Obama administration’s
“pivot” policy. After initially raising Asian expectations about a
robust U.S. response to China’s assertiveness, Washington has tamped
down the military aspects of its “pivot,” lest it puts it on the path of
taking on Beijing. Instead it has been laying emphasis on the economic
aspects.
Obama’s Asia policy has treaded a course of
neutrality on territorial disputes between China and its neighbors,
while seeking to reap the economic and strategic benefits of closer
engagement with Asian states.
Washington,
for example, is chary of getting drawn into Sino-Japanese territorial
disputes, although Tokyo is its close ally and U.S. forward military
deployments in Japan are a linchpin of America’s strategy to retain
primacy in Asia. In fact, the Japanese-controlled Senkaku Islands that
China claims are close to Okinawa, home to the largest U.S. military
presence in Asia.
Similarly,
even as China calculatedly badgers India along the Himalayan frontier,
Washington has shied away from cautioning Beijing against any attempt to
change the territorial status quo by force. In fact, on a host of Asian
disputes, including China’s claim since 2006 to India’s
Austria-size Arunachal Pradesh state, Washington has chosen not to
antagonize Beijing by staying neutral.
Even
in a case when China has forcibly changed the status quo — by taking
effective control since last year of the Scarborough Shoal, located in
the South China Sea within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone —
the Obama team has done little more than counsel restraint and talks.
With Chinese vessels this year present near the Second Thomas
Shoal, the
lesson the Philippines is learning that might remains right in
international relations and that its security dependence on Washington
is no check on the intruding colossus.
The
paradox is that China’s rising assertiveness has helped the U.S. to
return to Asia’s center stage, yet Obama is wary of taking sides in the
territorial disputes. The only
issue on which Washington has spoken up is freedom of navigation in the
South China Sea. The China factor, which has allowed the U.S. to
strengthen its existing military relationships and build new strategic
partnerships in Asia, can remain useful for America only if it is seen
by its allies and partners as a credible guarantor of stability and
security in Asia. That is a function not of its military strength but of
its political will.
To
be sure,
Washington has an interest in preventing the emergence of a
Sino-centric Asia. But it has no interest in getting entangled in Asia’s
territorial feuds. If it can, it would like to find a way to support
its allies and partners in their disputes with China, but without
alienating Beijing — a tough balancing act.
For
example, the Obama administration has said the U.S. security treaty
with Japan covers
the Senkaku Islands because they “are under Japanese jurisdiction,” yet
“we also stress that we don’t take a position on the sovereignty of the
Senkaku Islands.” How reassured can Japan be with such doublespeak?
Washington
indeed has advised Tokyo and Beijing repeatedly to sort out their
dispute peacefully. Some U.S. analysts who have served in the government
have urged Washington not to issue a “blank check” to an uncompromising
Japan that refuses to
negotiate with Beijing on the dispute.
If
China were to employ military force in the dispute, would the U.S. take
all necessary actions, including the use of its military capability, to
repulse a Chinese action that was confined to the 7 square-km disputed
real estate in the East China Sea? The Obama administration has simply
said that despite China’s increasing intrusions into the Senkaku waters,
“we do not envision that this current tension will rise to that level
in any foreseeable scenario.”
Tokyo,
skeptical that the U.S. will go to war with China to back Japan’s
territorial rights, wants a clear U.S. defense guarantee. The Obama
administration, however, has balked at Tokyo’s November 2012 proposal
that the U.S.-Japan alliance’s defense guidelines be updated to
specifically include the Senkakus.
America’s
larger chariness has seemingly encouraged China to up the ante against
several neighbors. For example, after gradually increasing the frequency
of its incursions into Senkaku waters since September 2012, China
is now focusing on increasing their duration. Similarly, China’s land
incursions into India’s Ladakh region, after going up in frequency, are
this year being staged intermittently for longer duration.
This
pattern appears designed to pressure an opponent to cut a deal on
Chinese terms, in keeping with Beijing’s stratagem on territorial
disputes — what is ours is ours and what is yours is negotiable.
China,
despite its bluster, is unlikely to wage open war against a determined,
well-armed opponent for fear it may get a bloody nose, as happened in
1979 when it invaded Vietnam. Yet the possibility of an overt war
resulting from mistake or miscalculation cannot be ruled out.
Even if no open war flares,
Japan and several other Asian states already face China’s war by stealth. Through
a clever strategy of furtive, incremental encroachments, China is
actually undercutting the value of its opponents’ security relationships
with Washington. Compounding this situation is Washington’s signal to
its allies and partners that it is their own responsibility to safeguard
territories that China covets.
Given
Washington’s hands-off
approach and Beijing’s creeping, covert warfare — designed to change
facts on the ground slowly without having to fire a single shot —
the relevance of U.S. security assurances to China’s neighbors risks
becoming largely symbolic. In fact, the U.S. has sent out a
contradictory message: It wants its allies to do more for their own
security, yet it has scowled at Japan’s interest in acquiring offensive
capability to deter aggression, asking Tokyo to consider the plan’s
potential negative fallout in East Asia.
China’s
aggressive stance thus poses difficult challenges for America’s allies
and partners. For these states, the logical response to their security
predicament would be to bolster defenses; build partnerships with each
other to create a web of interlocking strategic relationships; and
deepen their strategic engagement with Washington but without expecting
the U.S. to come to their aid in a military contingency in which
American interests are not at stake directly.
Brahma Chellaney is a geostrategist and the author, most recently, of “Water, Peace, and War” (Rowman & Littlefield, 2013).
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