When the Biden administration imposed export controls to limit the transfer of sensitive technology to China, it signaled that the United States was abandoning the once-popular political theory that China’s integration into the global economy would make it more free and friendly. Washington is proactively pursuing more aggressive policies to slow China’s rise to global supremacy. But it does not want to do this alone and has reached out to allies in Europe and elsewhere. The hardest sell, however, seems to be to neighboring China.
For the countries of the Indo-Pacific, this is a serious request, because choosing the side risks jeopardizing regional stability and economic growth. US officials want Asian countries to help contain China’s rise by withholding material support and cooperation or, better yet, by actively pushing back against China’s expansion. Most Pacific countries, from Vietnam to the Philippines, want to continue to enjoy trade with China, one of its largest economic partners, while receiving security protection, explicit or otherwise, and regional balance from the United States. This strategy allows them to maintain neutrality and avoid the power of either. Quiet coexistence and the continuation of the status quo is their best bet.
If this is a collective tendency, what level of support can the United States expect for its China policy? Since Asia is not a monolith, naturally, responses to US policy shifts will vary. But there are a number of strategic issues that cross borders and, for some of Asia’s major power players, the incentive to resist the region’s security hegemon may outweigh the call to fence in the region’s economic hegemon.
When the Biden administration imposed export controls to limit the transfer of sensitive technology to China, it signaled that the United States was abandoning the once-popular political theory that China’s integration into the global economy would make it more free and friendly. Washington is proactively pursuing more aggressive policies to slow China’s rise to global supremacy. But it does not want to do this alone and has reached out to allies in Europe and elsewhere. The hardest sell, however, seems to be to neighboring China.
For the countries of the Indo-Pacific, this is a serious request, because choosing the side risks jeopardizing regional stability and economic growth. US officials want Asian countries to help contain China’s rise by withholding material support and cooperation or, better yet, by actively pushing back against China’s expansion. Most Pacific countries, from Vietnam to the Philippines, want to continue to enjoy trade with China, one of its largest economic partners, while receiving security protection, explicit or otherwise, and regional balance from the United States. This strategy allows them to maintain neutrality and avoid the power of either. Quiet coexistence and the continuation of the status quo is their best bet.
If this is a collective tendency, what level of support can the United States expect for its China policy? Since Asia is not a monolith, naturally, responses to US policy shifts will vary. But there are a number of strategic issues that cross borders and, for some of Asia’s major power players, the incentive to resist the region’s security hegemon may outweigh the call to fence in the region’s economic hegemon.
There are three factors that could cause Asian countries to back away from the United States’ desire for a more aggressive stance toward China. First, China is economically strong. For 13 uninterrupted years, it has been the main trading partner of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Through the Belt and Road Initiative, Beijing has invested billions of dollars in infrastructure and manufacturing in countries across the region. China also imports billions of dollars in commodities and products. In 2020 alone, Japan and South Korea will export more than $130 billion to China.
The United States lacks a coherent economic response to China’s commercial power, despite trying to develop one under former President Barack Obama, when US diplomats led the initiative to establish the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). When former President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the TPP, he weakened the leverage of the US in the region mainly consisting of two types of countries: “developing” countries that are trying to get rich and “developed” ones that are trying to stay rich. But trade openness has hardly improved under President Joe Biden, who has yet to sign the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, the new TPP, or any other Asian free trade agreement. Biden tends to favor non-binding “unconventional” economic arrangements that leave tariff levels unchanged and do not expand market access. This is a huge turn for the market-hungry, export-dependent countries. In addition, the middle and minor Pacific powers see the free trade agreement as a powerful tool not only for promoting free trade but also for codifying the rules that will eventually regulate trade and investment. Underestimating the profit motive and ceding agenda-setting power is a bad strategy to win friends and influence allies.
Second, Pacific countries must keep an eye on China’s growing military power as Beijing is increasingly able to deny these countries air and maritime access to contested territories and seas. Take, for example, the geographical precarity of the most stalwart Asian allies of the United States, Japan and South Korea. They are essentially maritime states, heavily dependent on access to common waterways for trade and the importation of essential resources. Hardening their Chinese attitude can lead to strategic danger now that China is the largest naval power in the world and the United States’ military superiority is relatively declining. The United States is a distant friend, while China is a geographical reality.
But Japan’s security problems, like those of many other Pacific countries, do not cut only one way. The United States’ hawkish China policy is largely in line with Tokyo’s own interests in checking Beijing’s aggression. Earlier this month, Japan’s prime minister authorized a substantial increase in defense spending over the next five years, driven in part by wariness of Chinese Taiwanese provocations and in part to defend its territorial claim to the disputed Senkaku Islands, known in China as the Diaoyu Islands.
From a strategic perspective, China’s military hostility should encourage weak Pacific powers to join the United States’ counterbalancing initiatives. But Pacific nations have reason to worry about US commitment to the region. The United States has sometimes struggled to maintain a strategic focus on Asia. Such inconstancy led the former prime minister of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew, to criticize US policymakers for declaring a renewed relationship with Asia and, therefore, treating global politics as if it were a movie they could “pause” when they were distracted and simply press “play” when they are ready to reengage. Lee warned that the United States “cannot come and go” according to its will and still hope to “influence the strategic evolution of Asia.”
Three months before Biden declared that “America is back,” 15 Asia-Pacific countries went ahead and signed the world’s largest trade agreement – the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) – without the participation of the US, delivering a “coup for China.” Preoccupied with the war on terror, then-U.S. President George W. Bush abandoned dealings with China and failed to re-engage with the region until the year after the 9/11 attacks, which became “a tremendous geopolitical gift to China.” At that time Secretary of State Hillary Clinton proclaimed on a diplomatic trip to Asia “the United States is back” and ready to “[give] great importance to this region,” the emergence of China as a superpower has drastically changed the Asian security and economic landscape.
The United States is a dominant power in Asia, but it is also a chaotic power. The seriousness of US leadership and policymaking is complicated by competing commitments and world interests. As a self-proclaimed “indispensable nation,” US international policy has crept its way to include the foreign and domestic policies of most nations and all regions of the world, producing whiplash and policy instability. Obama’s “pivot” to Asia emphasizes strategic engagement and is welcomed as a reprieve from years of neglect. However, in 2016, Trump took the United States’ isolationist, nationalist tendencies to new lows. While his administration managed to direct and sustain a focus on the Pacific, his policies and especially his personal position showed a complete disregard for historical precedent and strategic prudence. It can be said that, during Trump’s time, the United States in Asia may have devolved into something worse than a chaotic power – it became an uninterested one. Now, bemused by the Trump years, many Asian leaders view with skepticism Biden’s efforts to undo the diplomatic damage, reaffirm the United States’ security commitments and persuade others to help China’s rise.
But Trump’s 2016 election not only shattered many preconceptions about the steadfastness of US commitment, it also sowed doubts about our nation’s political system. The United States’ dysfunctional response to COVID-19, along with shocking scenes of police brutality and election chaos, have pushed questions of institutional competence and democratic bona fides to the fore. Such problems do not speak to the decision of the United States, but to its capabilities. A house divided against itself cannot stand up to China. Under such circumstances, it makes little strategic sense for Asian countries to risk the wrath of their neighbors to support a troubled power with a record of loyalty. Russia’s war in Ukraine has done much to repair the United States’ image in Europe and demonstrate its military and economic power. However, Asian countries remain nervous about stirring up trouble in their own backyard.
To its credit, the Biden administration appears to recognize the need to avoid a maximum, zero-sum China policy and not adopt an with-us-or-against-us mentality that would alienate allies. In its latest National Security Strategy report, the administration said it “prioritized maintaining an enduring competitive advantage from [China] while deterring a still very dangerous Russia.” On paper, the administration has refused to conflate the dangers posed by China and Russia. The stated intention of the US is to limit the dangerous Russia while only competing in China. In practice, the attention of D.C. we remain in Beijing as Moscow, even if the conflict is less intense – and Asian countries can read the language out of Washington, from senators to the FBI, as well as anyone.
While Asian countries cannot escape the reality of Sino-American rivalry, they are still wary of directly aligning with the United States and the issues involved. They have no desire to be pushed to the front of the stage by an untrustworthy ally. To win and preserve the support of the Pacific countries, the United States must demonstrate that it is willing to fulfill its obligations and promises, that it can fulfill its obligations and promises, and that it intends to concentrate its attention on the Indo-Pacific. long term.
