A virtual alliance for Asian security

Orbis

Volumn 43, Issue 2, 1999, Pages 237-256

  Saunders, Phillip C ^a  

^a PRINCETON UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 22244479397     PISSN: 00304387     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1016/s0030-4387(99)80069-6     Document Type: Article

References (49)

1. See Worid Bank, China 2020: Development Challenges in the New Century (Washington, D.C.: World Bank, 1997);
2. Charles Wolf, Jr., et al., Long-Tem Economic and Military Trends 1994-2015: The United States and Asia (Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND, 1995).
3. Council on Foreign Relations, Redressing the Balance: American Engagement with Asia (New York: Council on Foreign Relations Press, 1996), p. 3. Quote from Japanese official on p. 19.
4. Two other debates have important strategic implications: the debate about whether China's impressive economic performance will continue (especially in the midst of the Asian crisis) and whether devolution of power to the provinces and increasing cross-border trade is likely to cause China to break up. On China's economic problems and prospects, see World Bank, China 2020;
5. Neil C. Hughes, "Smashing the Iron Rice Bowl," Foreign Affairs, July/Aug. 1998, pp. 67-77;
6. Nicholas R. Lardy, China's Unfinished Economic Revolution (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 1998).
7. On the impact of regionalism, see Gerald Segal, "The Muddle Kingdom? China's Changing Shape," Foreign Affairs, May/June 1994, p. 43;
8. Richard Hornik, "Bursting China's Bubble," Foreign Affairs, May/June 1994, p. 29;
9. Gerald Segal and David S. G. Goodman, eds., China Deconstructs: Politics, Trade, and Regionalism (New York: Routledge, 1994);
10. Dali L. Yang, Beyond Beijing: Liberalization and the Regions in China (New York: Routledge, 1997).
11. Balanced assessments of military modernization may be found in David Shambaugh, "China's Military: Real or Paper Tiger?" Washington Quarterly, Spring 1996, pp. 19-23;
12. Avery Goldstein, "Great Expectations: Interpreting China's Arrival," International Security, Winter 1997/98, pp. 36-73.
13. Also see the special military issue of China Quarterly, June 1996.
14. For these three analyses, see respectively, Richard Bernstein and Ross H. Munro, The Coming Conflict with China (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997);
15. Andrew J. Nathan and Robert S. Ross, The Great Wall and the Empty Fortress: China's Search for Security (New York: W. W. Norton, 1997);
16. John W. Garver, "China's Push Through the South China Sea: The Interaction of Bureaucratic and National Interests," China Quarterly, December 1992, pp. 999-1028.
17. See Goldstein, "Great Expectations."
18. See Robert G. Sutter with Seong-Eun Choi, Shaping China's Future in World Affairs: The Role of the United States (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1996), pp. 74-82.
19. For an effort to move beyond the "containment versus engagement" framework and outline alternative policy options, see Roger Cliff and Daniel Byman with Phillip Saunders, "Policy Options for an Emerging China," Pacific Review, forthcoming.
20. One exception is the "conditional engagement" strategy presented in James Shinn, ed., Weaving the Net: Conditional Engagement with China (New York: Council on Foreign Relations Press, 1996), which attempts to cope with ambiguity by defining objective benchmarks to evaluate China's strategic direction.
21. Audrey Kurth Cronin and Patrick M. Cronin also define "litmus tests" for Chinese behavior in "The Realistic Engagement of China," Washington Quarterly, Winter 1996, pp. 151-58.
22. See Peter Hopkirk, The Great Game: The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia (New York: Kodansha International, 1994).
23. For an illustration of the problems ambiguous behavior poses in assessing Chinese intentions, see William J. Dobson and M. Taylor Fravel, "Red Herring Hegemon: China in the South China Sea," Current History, Sept. 1997, pp. 258-63.
24. See Assistant Secretary of State Stanley Roth's May 12, 1998, speech to the American Enterprise Institute, Federal News Service, May 12, 1998, in Lexis-Nexis.
25. See Robert G. Sutter, "China Policy: Crisis over Taiwan, 1995 - A Post-Mortem," Congressional Research Service Report 95-1173 F, Dec. 5, 1995;
26. Phillip C. Saunders, "China's America Watchers: Changing Attitudes towards the United States," China Quarterly, forthcoming.
27. "Virtual" is used in two senses: to denote that the proposed security structure is less institutionalized than a traditional military alliance (i.e., a virtual alliance would not be an Asian NATO) and to highlight that although decision making and implementation are distributed rather than centralized, the resulting security structure still functions as a coherent system.
28. The five principles are: (1) mutual respect for territorial integrity and sovereignty, (2) mutual nonaggression, (3) mutual noninterference in internal affairs, (4) equality and mutual benefit, and (5) peaceful coexistence. See John W. Garver, Foreign Relations of the People's Republic of China (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, Inc. 1993), pp. 122-24.
29. Author's interview in Beijing, Sept. 1996.
30. For a formal presentation of current U.S. strategy in Asia, see Department of Defense, Office of International Security Affairs, United States Security Strategy for the East Asia-Pacific Region (Washington, D.C.: Office of the Secretary of Defense, Feb. 1995). Stanley Roth's May 12, 1998, speech amplifies the formal statement and draws a distinction between goals, strategy, and tactics. An updated East Asian Security Strategy report released in November 1998 reaffirms the strategy in the 1995 report. References in this article are to the 1995 report.
31. United States Security Strategy, p. 1.
32. The most plausible theoretical interpretations of the link between military presence and stability are that military forces allow the dominant power to intervene in other countries' internal affairs to maintain regional stability (imperialism) or that regional stability is an "accidental" byproduct of an alliance bloc formed to defend against a major military threat.
33. United States Security Strategy, p. 29.
34. For an overview of U.S. strategy and military activities in the Pacific, see the May 7, 1998, testimony of Assistant Secretary of State Stanley Roth, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Walter Slocombe, and Pacific Command CINC Admiral Joseph Prueher before the House Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific, in Lexis-Nexis.
35. The strategy of conditional engagement emerged from a Council on Foreign Relations study group on U.S. security relations with Asia, especially in an Asia Project working paper by Jonathan D. Pollack. The strategy is explained in more detail in chaps. 1-6 of Shinn, Weaving the Net.
36. Some groups in China (especially the military) interpret current U.S. policy as aimed at containing China. See Sutter, "China Policy,"
37. Saunders, "China's America Watchers." The virtual alliance concept would tend to confirm their fears, but would also seek to limit their policy influence by demonstrating clearly that aggressive military actions would decrease China's security. This is an unavoidable cost of any tougher responses to Chinese aggression. Because of the conditional nature of the strategy, the additional costs might be less than those incurred following the 1996 carrier deployment.
38. Author's interview with a senior analyst at the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations, July 1997.
39. This does not mean other Asian countries would be willing to defend Taiwan or to be dragged into a conflict with China over Taiwan. But Chinese threats would increase their sense of vulnerability, desire to improve their military capabilities, and willingness to cooperate with the United States. The virtual alliance would serve as a means of encouraging and coordinating these responses, thereby raising the indirect costs of Chinese military actions against Taiwan.
40. Redressing the Balance, p. 26.
41. The Asian economic crisis obviously reduces the willingness of many Asian states to increase defense spending. This is not a crippling flaw because (1) economic conditions will likely be more favorable if a future administration tried to implement the strategy and (2) the graduated nature of the virtual alliance can initially emphasize less costly measures that build political and military ties rather than major infrastructure improvements and arms purchases.
42. A partial U.S. withdrawal from Korea after reunification would leave both military infrastructure and room for improvements in military cooperation in response to Chinese actions.
43. In practice, most planning and coordination would take place through U.S. military attachés or advisory missions stationed in Asian capitals and Asian liaison officers attached to Pacific Command headquarters.
44. The United States has carefully avoided explicit statements of support for these claims, though Secretary of Defense William Cohen recently suggested that the U.S.-Philippines mutual defense treaty might apply to Philippine forces in the Spratry Islands. There is a strong argument for proactive efforts to resolve some territorial disputes (such as the Spratty Islands) now in order to remove pretexts for future Chinese expansionism.
45. Current Defense Department and Pacific Command efforts to gain access to military facilities in Asia by emphasizing "places not bases" are compatible with this strategy.
46. One example is Singapore's recent announcement that it will give the U.S. Navy access to a new pier being built at Changi Naval Base that will accommodate the U.S. Navy's largest aircraft carriers.
47. The need for rapid, automatic responses would impose new demands on Pacific Command. Contingency plans and force packages would need to be ready for short-notice deployments. Preapproved congressional budget authorizations for a certain number of deployments per year would also be necessary so that exercises could be laid on quickly without the need to wait for specific congressional approval in a crisis.
48. This logic explains China's more restrained military posture since March 1996.
49. See Thomas Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1980), pp. 187-203.