I’d like to thank the conference organizers, especially Yukio Satoh, John Chipman and Mark Fitzpatrick, for inviting me to Tokyo.
This afternoon I’ve been asked to talk, from an American perspective, for about 10-15 minutes about the possibility of developing a common security agenda among the major powers in Asia, which for our purposes means Japan, China, Russia, India and the United States.
Let me start with five observations. First, there is the difficulty of bounding the problem – what or where is Asia? For many, it is more a shorthand reference point, a concept, than a defined geographical area that can assume institutional identity. Does it include Pakistan and Afghanistan? Iran? Australia and New Zealand? The Central Asian states of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Kyrgyzstan? Or, to reprise Henry Kissinger’s famous question: If you want to contact Asia, who do you call?
Second, I think this grouping of states would strike many American strategists as a little odd. There is no doubt that India is a rising power, but it is still quite poor in per capita terms (with more people living on a $1 a day than all of Africa), is beset by serious domestic troubles, and has only recently evidenced much desire to “look east” and reach out beyond South Asia. Russia, of course, has an Asian presence by virtue of its coastline on the north Pacific, but cannot really be characterized as an Asian power. Forgetting the fact that Russia’s population is already far less than that of Pakistan and that it will shrink by a further one-third by the middle of this century, on the one issue where Russia is an institutionalized member of an Asian security organization, the Six Party Talks with North Korea, it is mostly an afterthought. And most Americans, especially Defense Department officials, would want to include South Korea, Australia, Singapore and New Zealand as well, in any discussion of Asian security.
Third, these countries, and others in Asia, already cooperate on a host of security, immigration, health, customs and other issues. The background paper outlines some of these bilateral relationships and multilateral arrangements. The Asian Development Bank, ASEAN, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the East Asia Summit, the Chang Mai initiative, and the Six Party Talks are just some of the institutional expressions of cooperation in the region. And while there is no single, overarching security agenda, the countries in the region have already adopted multiple, overlapping security agendas.
Fourth, the absence of a single, common security agenda is also due to factors in the region that lessen tensions, offer stability and suggest predictable patterns of behavior. Sheer distance that reduces friction between countries, the isolationist preferences of some states, the American security umbrella and its system of bilateral alliances, nuclear deterrence among China, India, Russia and the United States, growing coordination among Asian financial markets, and economic interdependence from rapidly growing intra-Asian trade –these factors, and others, contribute to stability in Asia. The Asian security environment may not be as parlous as some fear.
Finally, the classic reasons for establishing security organizations are well-known – they reduce transaction costs, they provide a forum for regularized contact and information exchange, and they institutionalize a cadre of professional expertise. The gold standard is NATO, whose utility has been deemed so great that it has even outlasted its original mission – which was memorably expressed by Lord Ismay as “keeping the Americans in, the Soviets out, and the Germans down.”
NATO’s success has led to repeated calls, over many years, for an equivalent organization for East Asia or even all of Asia. Many have attempted to clone the transatlantic experience and project it onto the map of Asia. Yet it seems as if most of these calls have come from American or European officials, academics and security experts; curiously, far fewer Asian voices express this sentiment.
Now it is certainly possible that us Anglo-Saxons know better, can see farther, and have greater insight as to what security arrangements are needed here than our Asian colleagues. But I suspect it may also be true that Asian security experts have solid reasons for not worrying overly much about the absence of a comprehensive security arrangement or common security agenda. If a common security agenda for Asia has not emerged, if APEC and ASEAN have not transformed themselves after all these years into becoming more than just talking shops (witness ASEAN’s feckless response to the recent humanitarian crisis in Burma), if the region has not expressed much interest in creating an Asian NATO, then this may be less an analytical shortcoming than a strongly held and well-grounded policy preference, expressed over many years and by many different Asian officials and leaders.
In short, there appears little desire among Asians for the region to adopt a common security agenda. After all, which countries does Asia want to “keep in, keep out, and keep down”? Which country among the major powers would adopt the leadership role the United States performed after World War II, mobilizing and organizing others to develop such a common agenda? And if such a country emerged, would others follow?
Further, common interests only partially account for NATO’s success and longevity – it is also common values such as representative democracy, individual freedoms, and respect for the rule of law. Are these values sufficiently shared among enough like-minded states in Asia to allow for a common security arrangement?
I suspect that there are few good answers to these questions and certainly no common ones. For a start, there would be no consensus among our five major powers – China, Japan, India, Russia and the United States – assuming they answered honestly. Indeed, this explains, at least in part, why a common security agenda has not yet emerged. Although there are a number of security threats in the region, there is no threat of sufficient gravity, urgency and ubiquity to compel the major powers, not to mention a broader coalition of Asian states, to join together into a formal alliance with a common security agenda. In sum, there is no issue that provides the requisite “glue” to bind Asian states to each other. Not yet at least and, I would argue, not for the foreseeable future.
The greatest security challenge for Asia for the foreseeable future is managing great power relations between and among a rising China, a more “normal” Japan and a United States that wants to remain a western Pacific power. Together, this trio can effectively tackle two immediate security threats in East Asia – North Korea’s nuclear weapons program (as they are currently attempting) and cross-strait tensions – as well as all lesser included threats such as piracy, counterfeiting, smuggling and the like.
So far, intra-regional balancing does not appear to be taking place – against the United States, China or any of the other major powers. So far, there is no hegemonic rivalry between China and United States or between China and Japan. Indeed, Hu Jintao’s successful visit to Japan last month and Beijing’s request to Tokyo last week to airlift tents and relief supplies to earthquake victims suggests that historic changes in the bilateral relationship may be afoot.
Others are less sanguine. “Asia is divided,” Bill Emmott writes in his new book, Rivals: How the Power Struggle Between China, India, and Japan Will Shape Our Next Decade. “The rise of Asia is going to pit Asians against Asians.” Emmott warns that “A new power game is underway…All are maneuvering to strengthen their own positions and maximize their own long-term advantages.” This pattern, he argues, resembles classic 19th century, balance-of-power European politics, hardly the stuff of common security agendas.
Under either scenario, cooperation or confrontation, Asia will be dominated by a three-player game that will not include India (for a few more decades at least) and Russia.
I’d like to outline the more traditional threats to security in Asia and then look at some of the newer, transnational threats that have arisen in recent years. None of these threats, either old or new, has aroused anxieties to the point where Asian countries have felt the need to devise a common security agenda.
Traditional Sources of Instability in Asia
Traditionally, conflicts have been due to religious or messianic reasons, to glorify a deity or a dictator, or due to the desire to capture territory, whether to subjugate the local population or to seize scarce resources such as food, water or oil.
Over the centuries, Asia has seen its share of millenarian leaders who have invoked a higher power or believed that they alone embody the will of God. Fortunately, those leaders are today absent from the scene (with the possible exception of a certain Korean-speaking individual who wears Mao suits, aviator sunglasses and elevator shoes). Likewise, the desire of outsiders to subjugate “the natives” has mercifully gone out of fashion since World War II and the end of colonial rule.
Today, a competition exists for scarce resources, mainly energy, but this competition has not increased tensions or spilled over to open conflict. The energy-consuming countries in Asia, with China in the lead, have largely adopted a mercantilist- and market-based approach to energy consumption, even as they attempt to diversify their sources of energy, primarily by building coal-fired power plants.
The greatest risk for conflict among Asian countries arises from territorial disputes. Among a number of irredentist claims, the more prominent include:
· The Takeshima/Tokdo islets in the Sea of Japan claimed by both Japan and South Korea;
· Japan’s claims to four Kuril Islands currently controlled by Russia;
· Multiple claims to the Spratley islands in the East China Sea, including a dispute between China and the Philippines over Mischief Reef;
· Aksai Chin, a region located at the juncture of China, Pakistan, and India, is administered by China and claimed by India; and
· Arunachal Pradesh is the easternmost state of India , but portions are claimed by China as South Tibet
The possibility of hidden oil or natural gas reserves has dramatically raised the stakes of some of these rival claims. Yet these disputes, some of which have existed for decades, have rarely erupted into open conflict, nor have they prevented the interested parties from establishing formal diplomatic and commercial relations. Instead, they have been ignored, downplayed or negotiated (if not quite resolved).
The three largest historical grievances in Asia also involve competing claims to territory: Kashmir, the division of the Korean peninsula and the status of Taiwan. In each case, an uneasy modus vivendi has evolved, backstopped by an American security commitment (albeit one that is far less formalized in the case of Taiwan) in the latter two cases.
There is no need here to revisit the entire history of each dispute. Suffice to say, that since the flare up of tensions in 2001-2002 along the Line of Control, India and Pakistan have quietly lowered the temperature by engaging in negotiations and by Pakistan limiting incursions into Kashmir from camps inside Pakistan.
Although North Korea possesses nuclear devices, ballistic missiles and a million men under arms, the ROK-US alliance has successfully deterred North Korea from launching a second Korean War for over fifty years. Few analysts believe Pyongyang is intent on launching an invasion of South Korea. Further, the Six Party Talks now provide a diplomatic framework for negotiating an end to Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons programs, ending the Korean War and easing North Korea’s diplomatic and economic integration into the Northeast Asian community.
Taiwan is a more likely flashpoint for great power confrontation. In the past few years, tensions have increased with mainland China, due largely to the stridently nationalistic approach adopted by Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian. With the recent election of KMT party leader Ma Ying-jeou, however, tensions between Taiwan and mainland China may diminish. In his inaugural address a few weeks ago, Ma charted a more conciliatory path, calling for a resumption of high-level dialogue with the PRC. "Taiwan and China in 1992 reached a guideline for bilateral talks,” Ma said. “I hope we can resume dialogue as soon as possible on the 1992 consensus."
These grievances are being handled not by a pan-Asian organization, but by the countries most directly affected in either bilateral talks or in a sub-regional grouping like the Six Party Talks. The other major powers and Asian states have successfully restrained their enthusiasm to intervene.
New Sources of Instability in Asia
More recently, a host of transnational threats has arisen that would appear to require states to collaborate with each other, share information, devise effective remedies and implement common stategies.
Topping the list, from an American perspective, is terrorism. Although few Asian countries view terrorism in the same manner as the United States -- as an existential threat – they have likewise suffered from terrorist attacks since 9/11, and in some cases, from well before 9/11. All of the other major powers, as well as other important Asian countries like Indonesia, have home-grown terrorist groups that have attacked and killed their citizens.
The rise and spread of infectious diseases have also afflicted a number of Asian countries. Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), Avian influenza, and HIV/AIDS have been present in more than a dozen Asian countries. In many cases, ignorance and cultural taboos make it awkward for individuals to come forward and seek treatment or report their disease to medical authorities. The resulting domestic information deficit is often duplicated at the state-to-state level, where there are few institutionalized means of communication among government agencies, medical authorities, transportation officials and customs officers. There is also an understandable, if irresponsible, reluctance to share information if it means economic hardship for a country’s tourist trade or segment of its beef or agricultural industry. (If SARS or Avian flu is detected in Beijing this summer before the Olympics, the pressure not to alert the international community would be immense.)
Third, environmental degradation is reaching a scale where it cannot always be contained inside a single country’s borders, as Katherine Morton’s paper highlights. For example, the downstream effects of China’s pollution on the forests of Korea and Northern Japan, the deterioration of water quality in the Bohai and Yellow Seas, and the “yellow sand” which rains down on the region in the early spring – these are transnational challenges.
Other challenges, including narcotics and human trafficking, piracy, corruption and counterfeiting, round out the list of threats to regional stability and prosperity.
As serious as these threats may be, none presents the type of menace that could galvanize and unify all the major powers. To be sure, the major powers, and other Asian countries as well, engage on some of these issues, some of the time; they are involved episodically, on an ad hoc basis. But there is no Asian-wide, common security agenda that encompasses any of all of these transnational threats. Each country approaches security challenges on the basis of its localized impact – on whether it occurs “only in my backyard.”
Does Asia Really Need a Common Security Agenda?
If the major powers in Asia truly wanted a common security agenda, it is likely we would have seen some evidence of it by now -- in the form of a condominium of major powers, an institutionalized headquarters with staff and real authority and, not least, a common agenda for action. None of these exist.
But they are conceivable. What threats could, in theory, so disrupt Asian security that they would provide the “glue” by which the major powers would join together?
One possibility is the United States retreating from Asia. (And not just Asia. Recent opinion polls in the United States reveal a preference for isolationism not seen since the end of the Vietnam War.) The majority of the problems the United States faces overseas today are located in the greater Middle East, a region stretching roughly from Marrakesh to Bangladesh. They include Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This region will remain the strategic focus of U.S. foreign policy for the coming decades. America’s ability to act as a stabilizing force in Asia, as security “oxygen” in the words of Joseph Nye, would be diminished, perhaps severely. Allies and friends would instead need to rely on their own diplomatic and military capabilities to defend their national interests – which could result either in bandwagoning with larger powers (i.e., appeasement) or balancing against larger powers (i.e., deterrence based on indigenous nuclear weapons capabilities).
Another possibility is that China’s “peaceful rise” turns out to be not so peaceful. The passage of legislation that openly threatens Taiwan, a January 2007 anti-satellite missile test, the refusal to allow the USS Kitty Hawk to visit Hong Kong, a crackdown against protest in Tibet, and an opaque military budget and substantial arms buildup all suggest the possibility that China’s path may turn hostile. A more aggressive China could cause the same reactions in the region as a more isolationist America – bandwagoning and balancing.
Under either scenario, however, a key major power – either the United States or China -- would be absent from shaping a common security agenda.
For a common security agenda to emerge in the future among all the major powers, one or more of the current transnational threats in Asia would have to become much more threatening. The most likely candidate is a particularly virulent and indiscriminate terrorist group, perhaps with a particularly virulent and indiscriminate virus running a close second. But after the Bali bombings, it is clear that hundreds of lives lost are not sufficient to prompt an Asian-wide response. Would thousands of Asian lives need to be lost before action was taken? Tens of thousands? Hundreds of thousands? That over 130,000 people in Myanmar perished after the May 2008 cyclone, with little response from its neighbors in the region, suggests the death toll may have to be far higher. Or would the major powers only act in concert if their own citizens, even in small numbers, were victimized? Or perhaps we are using the wrong metric. Perhaps it is not the number of lives lost, but the amount of lost dollars or yen or Euros or yuan that would spur governments to take action?
Conclusion
A common security agenda among the major Asian powers is like the old joke that starts: “I have some good news and I have some bad news.” The bad news is that there is not likely to be a common security agenda among the major powers in Asia during the next few decades. The good news is that it isn’t necessary. In its place are bilateral arrangements and sub-regional groupings of states that have formed and re-formed to address discreet security challenges. This multi-layered security architecture – consisting of formal treaty partnerships in some cases and ad hoc coalitions of convenience in others -- has seemed to work pretty well so far.
Admittedly, the future may not look like the past. When looking forward over the next ten to twenty years, there is a natural temptation to extrapolate from current trends, to assume that countries progress and decline in linear fashion, almost according to a mathematical formula. The rise of China and India therefore seems preordained; the relative decline of the United States and Japan even more so. Non-linear dislocations, disruptions and disorders that would upset this schedule are difficult to anticipate, by their very nature, and so are discounted or ignored.
So it is always possible that a common security agenda among the major Asian powers may emerge in the coming years. But the event or combination of events that would trigger its emergence would have to be extraordinary, and would likely also disrupt economic growth, spur arms races (including nuclear proliferation), raise tensions and jeopardize stability. Even with a common security agenda, chances are that Asia would be less, not more, secure.
It is useful, therefore, to remember that one should be careful for what one wishes. Some things are far worse than not having a common security agenda.
