Spotlight on Asia after Obama

BARACK Obama’s 10-day Asian tour and the consecutive meetings of the East Asian Summit (EAS), the G-20, and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) have helped shine a spotlight on Asia’s challenges at a time when tensions between an increasingly ambitious China and its neighbours permeate the region’s geopolitical landscape.
Significantly, the US president restricted his tour to Asia’s leading democracies – India, Indonesia, Japan and South Korea – which surround China and are central to managing its rise.
Yet, he spent all of last year assiduously courting the government in Beijing in the hope that he could make China a global partner on issues ranging from climate change to trade and financial regulation.
The catchphrase coined by US deputy secretary of state James Steinberg, in relation to China, “strategic reassurance”, actually signalled America’s intent to be more accommodating towards China’s ambitions.
Now, with his China strategy falling apart, Obama is seeking to do exactly what his predecessor attempted – to line up partners as an insurance policy in case China’s rising power slides into arrogance.
Other players on the grand chessboard of Asian geopolitics are also seeking to formulate new equations, as they concurrently pursue strategies of hedging, balancing, and bandwagoning.
A fast-rising Asia has, moreover, become the fulcrum of global geopolitical change. Asian policies and challenges now help shape the international economy and security environment.
But, major power shifts within Asia are challenging the continent’s own peace and stability.
With the specter of strategic disequilibrium looming large in Asia, investments to help build geopolitical stability have become imperative.
China’s lengthening shadow has prompted a number of Asian countries to start building security cooperation on a bilateral basis, thereby, laying the groundwork for a potential web of interlocking strategic partnerships.
Such cooperation reflects a quiet desire to influence China’s behaviour positively, so that it does not cross well-defined red lines or go against the self-touted gospel of its “peaceful rise”.
But, building genuine partnerships is a slow process, because it demands major accommodation and adjustment on both sides.
The US, for example, has worked hard in recent years to co-opt India in a “soft alliance” shorn of treaty obligations.
Yet, despite a rapidly warming bilateral rapport and Obama’s recent statement, calling India the “cornerstone of America’s engagement in Asia”, conflicting expectations and interests often surface.
The US is now courting Vietnam as well, and the two countries are even negotiating a civilian nuclear deal.
The Cold War legacy, however, continues to weigh down thinking in Hanoi and Washington to some extent.
Within Vietnam’s ruling Communist Party, there are deep divisions over the country’s relations with the US.
Even as Vietnam moves closer to the US as a hedge against China’s muscular strategy, some Vietnamese leaders fear that the Americans remain committed to regime change.
In fact, 2010 will be remembered as the year that Chinese leaders undercut their country’s own interests by kindling fears of an expansionist China, thereby, facilitating America’s return to centre stage in Asia. – Project Syndicate

 
*Brahma Chellaney, professor of strategic studies at the Centre for Policy Research in New Delhi,  is the author, most recently, of Asian Juggernaut: The Rise of China, India and Japan.