US pivot a 'flexible bamboo wall'

William Choong

THE American 'pivot' to the Asia-Pacific has attracted a fair number of detractors. Chinese analysts have warned about America's new attempt to contain China's 'peaceful rise'. To them, the location of 2,500 US Marines in northern Australia and Washington's pushing of the nine-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership are ploys to constrain Chinese ambitions.

This thesis is shared by Professor Hugh White, a former Australian defence official. His recent Wall Street Journal commentary, reprinted in these pages, argued that the US pivot to Asia constituted Cold War-era containment of China ('Contain China'', Nov 26). Such a contemporary update to the Truman Doctrine is dangerous, he wrote, adding that China could 'push back', and thus lead to 'escalating strategic competition' between the US and China.

Prof White is overstating the point. (Disclosure: He was one of my professors at the Australian National University where I finished my PhD studies in 2009.)

The American pivot to Asia should not be alarming. Rather, it represents an astute blend of short-term opportunism and long-term vision to manage China's rise. Having been long distracted by wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Washington is re-focusing on Asia after a season of Chinese assertiveness (and nervousness among many Asian states). In the long term, such a tweaking of strategy makes sense, given that the 21st century will most likely be an Asian one.

Prof White contends that containment of China is dangerous. But the American pivot does not constitute containment.

The Obama Doctrine, as he calls it, is not like the cordon that the West threw up against communist expansion, which at times included a roll-back of Soviet ambitions. Rather, the Obama Doctrine is singularly fashioned for Asia. It is like a flexible bamboo wall - China's influence can expand if Beijing plays by the rules, and be limited if it doesn't.

If there is really a containment doctrine vis-a-vis China, it looks 'unusually warm' or friendly, writes Dr Joseph Nye, a former US assistant secretary of defence. Now a Harvard professor, he argues that only China can contain China. American strategy merely serves to 'shape' China's future environment.

Dr Nye's argument is supported by some Chinese analysts. 'Many of us believe that what America is doing is somewhere between engagement and hedging, but not containment,' Professor Jin Canrong (Kim Xán Vinh) of Renmin University told The Economist.

The terms 'shaping' and 'hedging' are two sides of the same coin. Specifically, they are politically correct terms to describe a contemporary update to old-style coercion. American soft power will be used in emerging multilateral structures such as the East Asia Summit to engage China. If China's behaviour turns out to be undesirable, America's hard power in the form of its defence alliances would prove useful.

It is worth noting that in their decades-long interactions, both the US and China have had an implicit understanding that disagreements - even amid conflict - should not jeopardise overall stability. In the late 1960s, when China supported North Vietnam against US-led forces in South Vietnam, both sides learnt to stick to limits beyond which conflict would not escalate. During the 1995-1996 Taiwan Strait crisis, both sides sought to limit escalation.

Unlike the Cold War, when Soviet and American interests diverged substantially, the US and China now share many interests - for example, peace across the Taiwan Strait, climate change and global financial stability.

Such stability in the Sino-American relationship, however, does not mean the American pivot to Asia is entirely risk-free.

Washington's pivot to Asia will be challenged by another pivot back home - growing inclinations to withdraw from overseas engagements so as to focus on economic problems at home. If offshore balancing emerges in the long term - that is, the US gradually withdraws from Asia, leaving major powers like China and Japan to manage regional order - the outcome would be worrying.

More importantly, miscalculation and misperceptions remain the biggest bugbears bedevilling Sino-American relations. This is the classic security dilemma - one country's bid to augment its security leads another state to do likewise, leading to tensions that lead to conflict.

Indeed, the problem with the American pivot is that the Chinese might construe it as outright containment (even when it is not), and carry out actions to pre-empt the potential threat.

Worries about American withdrawal and miscalculation have always been around, and will remain for some time yet.

But as Professor Robert Ayson at the Victoria University of Wellington notes, Beijing and Washington are overcompensating: China out of recognition that it has been too assertive, and the US out of the feeling that it has ignored Asia. The situation now essentially marks a reversion to the status quo in Asia - where a re-engaged America will have to contend with managing China's rise.

In the end, the style of Sino-American inter-actions might have changed with Mr Barack Obama's recalibration of US strategy in Asia, but the substance remains the same. This might not make headline news, but it is certainly a basis for optimism.