Stephan and Ben address three important issues in their latest post about my Quarterly Essay. First, they raise the question of who is driving strategic tension in East Asia. They say I blame the US.
This is most definitely not my view. But nor do I share what seems to be their inclination to blame China. In fact, I do not 'blame' either Beijing or Washington for the rising level of strategic competition; or rather, I blame both equally for not working together to reduce the risks. I see their situations as essentially symmetrical.
This seems to surprise many people, because it is China that challenges to status quo, and the status quo suits us. That leads us to think China is at fault because its ambition for more power threatens the current order. But I do not think it is inherently wrong for China to seek more power as its strategic weight grows. Nor is it wrong for America to try to maintain as much power as possible. It would be wrong for either of them to pursue power to the point that it threatens regional stability; both have a responsibility to balance their desire for power with the imperative for peace.
That means it is legitimate for China to seek a new order which accords it more power, as long as that order preserves peace. To do that, the new order will have to establish and enforce clear limits on how China’s power is used – broadly those of the UN Charter – but those limits will apply to the US and other great powers equally.
Both Beijing and Washington will have to compromise to build this kind of order, and that will not be easy on either side. However, to be fair to Stephan and Ben, in the Quarterly Essay I do focus more on America’s choices than China's, for two reasons. First, I think America's choices are harder, simply because it must relinquish some of the power it now has to build this new order. China need only moderate its ambitions for more power, which is much easier.
Second, America is our ally. Of course we should urge compromise on both sides, but it is much harder for us to ask America to relinquish some of the power on which our own security has been built for many decades. I therefore devote more time to this aspect of the question.
Second, Stephan and Ben suggest that the key cause of tension in the region is America's relatively modest military response to China's growing power. That all depends what America is trying to do with its armed force. I'm not sure whether they are suggesting that America should contest China's challenge and try to maintain primacy with armed force. This would be a hard position to support, unless they assume that China would back down, and stay backed down, in the face of a determined US military response.
It is very unlikely that, as its economic power grows, China could be compelled to accept US primacy by the force of American arms. Already the US is losing the assured superiority in conventional and nuclear options required to make this work, and over coming decades, the balance of force is much more likely to move against the US than in favour of it. More broadly, why assume that it would be better for the region, for Australia, or indeed for America to sacrifice peace in Asia to preserve US primacy in this way?
On the other hand, if Stephan and Ben mean that regional countries' confidence in a new order in Asia would be bolstered by a strong US presence to ensure that China does accept the limits imposed by that new order, then I would agree with them. I'm not sure I agree that America is doing too little to maintain their confidence.
Third, Ben and Stephan raise some questions about the kind of regional order I think would best keep Asia peaceful in future. I say we need an Asian order in which power is shared among the strongest states, and suggest the European order of the nineteenth century as an example of such a system. My German colleagues disagree with my use of the term 'Concert of Europe' to describe this order, and I won't argue the toss with them on the point of historical nomenclature.
But more substantively, they prefer a 'balance of power' system to what I call a concert. They think Europe's nineteenth century was rougher than I do, and they prefer something that looks a lot like the Cold War – Asia divided into two systemic blocs – which they say is much like it is today.
I cannot agree with them here. Asia today — or at least, over the past four decades — has not been divided into blocs, but united under US primacy. Moving from that to an Asia divided into Cold War style US- and China-led camps seems very dangerous. How confident can we be that these blocs would remain, as they hope, 'much less clearly organised' that the Cold War blocs? How confident can we be that they would not go to war with one another?
This seems a recipe for a poorer and more violent Asia, and I cannot see how this model of Asia's future is preferable to one in which power is shared equally. I fear it is more likely. So perhaps I’d better make myself clear here: my purpose is not to say what I expect to happen, but to say what I think we should want to happen.
