No need to worry about Obama's East Asia strategy
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But there is no need to exaggerate the negative consequences of greater US involvement. Southeast Asian nations want the U.S. to balance and moderate the centripetal force towards China. But they fear an escalation of tension that would undermine regional stability. After Hillary Clinton attacked China on the South China Sea issue, some ASEAN countries began to reevaluate US involvement. They were surprised by China's strong reaction and worried about cooling China-US relations, because if the situation takes a turn for the worse, they will be forced to take sides.
Vietnam wants the South China Sea issue to be tackled in an international, multilateral framework. By upgrading its relationship with the U.S. to a strategic partnership, Vietnam wants to improve its bargaining position with China. But it cannot afford to lose Chinese support for its economic development. Besides, China will always prove a staunch friend as long as the Vietnam authorities care about sticking to the socialist road and opposing "peaceful evolution."
The United States will never really become part of the Asian community, for reasons of ideology and identity. East Asian nations have an Asian consciousness and want to build political frameworks that facilitate development, harmony and stability. They avoid interfering in internal affairs and prefer to shelve differences. US goals, by contrast, are to retain its leading position in East Asia, preserve the geopolitical landscape left over from the Cold War, and ensure free access to markets.
The United States is a Pacific country with no territory in Asia, and its interests in the region mainly revolve around trade and investment. It is not in US interests to invest in transnational infrastructure that serves the long-term development of the region. The U.S. has no reason to construct a transcontinental logistics and transportation network, nor does it care about cultivating regional public goods, such as a regional currency that would mitigate losses caused by the volatility of the dollar. The U.S. remained a bystander during the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997. But China precisely has both the need and motivation to share the benefits of trade and investment and create public goods that serve common interests.
The US East Asia strategy lacks clarity and pertinence. There is no clear understanding on the future of multilateral mechanisms. What are the US plans? To encourage a shift from "10+3" to "10+8" so that the United States can take on more responsibility for regional cooperation projects, or to geopolitically cripple China's influence on ASEAN countries by modeling the "10+8" into a multilateral security summit dominated by the United States. Looked at on the surface, the US strategic readjustment is perhaps just about redressing the previous administration's neglect of Asia.
The core of the new US strategy is to weaken China's regional influence and preserve US alliances in the region. But cooperating with China on regional security and global politics, while simultaneously attempting to contain China militarily, are fundamentally incompatible goals. In any case, China has neither the intention nor the capability to compete with the United States at the strategic level.
On the South China Sea issue, the United States is trying to undermine China-ASEAN relations and China's ability to safeguard its sovereignty. This is being done under the guise of helping ASEAN. But the U.S. fails to recognize that ASEAN countries themselves are beset with conflicts. There is virtually no possibility that the disputes between Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Brunei will be solved in the foreseeable future. And US intervention will only make matters worse. In the long term this latest US strategic readjustment may prove unsustainable.
Given the change in US policy, China should psychologically prepare for an unfavorable environment and a protracted period of instability. But it should face the challenge calmly and eschew any concessions on the principle of territorial sovereignty. China's policies should not be geared to competing for influence with the United States, which would necessarily lead to zero-sum games. Instead, China should continue to engage its neighbors and implement its own strategies based on its national interests, capabilities, responsibilities, and national values.
The author is a columnist with China.org.cn. For more information please visit:
http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/node_7075401.htm
(The article was translated by Luo Huaiyu.)
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