Opinion & Commentary
We need more US influence in Asia, not less
Tensions between China and Japan over disputed islands in the East China Sea have again been ratcheted up.
Amid reports on Sunday that Beijing dealt a diplomatic snub to Tokyo by postponing celebrations of the 40th anniversary of normalised Japan-China relations, Monday saw three Chinese government ships stray into Japanese territorial waters.
These provocations follow a swift and hostile Chinese response to Japan’s purchase of the disputed islands earlier this month.
With waves of mass protests against Japan and attacks on Japanese businesses, Chinese state media warned trade relations between the two countries could be in jeopardy.
The latest flurry of territorial claims and counter-claims involving China comes on top of the ongoing dispute between China and five other nations over large tracts of the resource-rich South China Sea.
In light of increased Chinese assertiveness in Asian waters, it is no surprise the international affairs question du jour is whether the United States should give China more strategic space in Asia.
Before we rush to encourage the US to make way for a resurgent Middle Kingdom, it is worth recalling that US influence has been good for Asia.
To be sure, there have been some monumental failures of US foreign policy in the region.
The Vietnam War, which cost much in blood and treasure and achieved little, immediately comes to mind.
However, the crucial question is not whether US influence in Asia has always been positive but whether it is better than the alternatives. In the case of authoritarian China, the answer is clear.
Growing Chinese influence would admittedly not be bad for trade and economic growth in Asia.
China’s statist brand of capitalism, where state-owned enterprises (SOEs) control roughly 50 per cent of industrial assets, hardly conforms to the liberal economic orthodoxy.
Nevertheless, China has no interest in ending Asia’s trade-fuelled prosperity.
China benefited from $US116 billion of foreign direct investment (FDI) in 2011 and exported $US1.9 trillion worth of goods in the same year.
The more interesting question concerns the values a more influential China would support in Asia.
Sadly, the answer seems to be that Chinese interests would prevail over human rights and democracy.
Sri Lanka is one of China’s few friends in Asia and a potential strategic outpost for the rising giant in the Indian Ocean. Not surprisingly, China has sought to shield Sri Lanka from international war crimes investigations into the bloody conclusion of its civil war in 2009.
China has also long aided the junta in Burma through arms sales and investment in large-scale infrastructure projects. In return, China has received support from Burma at the United Nations and access to the country’s vast energy reserves.
Elsewhere in South-East Asia, China has overlooked accusations of corruption and increasing authoritarianism and developed close relations with Hun Sen’s Cambodia. Having received $US1.9 billion in Chinese investment in 2011 alone, host country Cambodia bowed to Chinese pressure and ensured the ASEAN foreign ministers’ meeting in July ended without a joint communiqué on the territorial dispute in the South China Sea.
In its own neighbourhood, China has kept the despotic and dysfunctional North Korean communist regime in power for well over half a century by both weighing in on its side during the Korean War and regularly providing food, fuel and arms. This ongoing support has secured China a buffer state between itself and US ally South Korea, where 29,000 or so US troops are stationed.
Like China, the US has at times been guilty of opportunistic Realpolitik in Asia.
The US overlooked endemic corruption and violent political repression during its decades of support for anti-communist Suharto in Indonesia.
Although the US has been an, at times, inconstant friend of human rights and democracy, we can be sure they would be much less welcome in a Chinese-led Asia.
The guiding principle of China’s foreign policy seems to be that Chinese interests should be advanced, even if that means supporting regimes that violate human rights and disregard democratic norms.
By contrast, examples like Suharto’s Indonesia are not typical of US foreign policy in Asia.
After defeating Imperial Japan in World War II, the US acted as a guarantor for democracy in North Asia.
The US turned former foe Japan into a stable parliamentary democracy, while the US security blanket protected South Korea and Taiwan, now two of Asia’s most successful liberal democracies, from communist dictatorships.
For all the benefits of US influence in Asia, China’s bullish economic and military outlook means the US is in relative decline.
Although growing Chinese influence is therefore almost inevitable, we should not encourage a premature changing of the guards.
The US preference for human rights and democracy and China’s pragmatic pursuit of national self-interest should chasten our embrace of an authoritarian corporate state’s rise to pre-eminence.
Benjamin Herscovitch is a policy analyst at The Centre for Independent Studies and was previously a desk officer at the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
