The balance of power in E. Asia

Following is the last of a two-part article based on a modified version of a recent talk given by our Asia correspondent Harvey Stockwin at the Malaysian Institute of Strategic and International Studies (ISIS) on the Balance of Power in East Asia. The first part of the article appeared last Saturday.

KUALA LUMPUR (JP): U.S. power predominance is such a self- evident proposition it hardly needs explaining. In terms of military power, the U.S. is still supreme, particularly in naval and air force capability. In terms of technological power, while such power is more widely distributed around the globe than it once was, the US is still the clear leader in overall technological innovation.

The size of the U.S. economy has shrunk relative to other economies. The U.S. now takes a reduced proportion of East Asian exports relative to a few years ago. "Winning the Cold War" was definitely not cost-free for the U.S. economy, especially in terms of budget deficits. The U.S. had to seek hefty Japanese and Saudi Arabian subsidies for "winning" the Gulf War. Add up these and other minuses and the U.S. economy still remains the most powerful one. It still possesses a critical, if not crucial, ability to absorb East Asian exports and investments.

Earlier predictions that Japan would have overtaken the U.S. economically by now have proved illusory. Current predictions of a similar nature vis-a-vis China will probably suffer the same fate.

In the area of U.S. political power there are more question marks. There is, in theory, no possibility of a power balance emerging in East Asia because the U.S. is so strong. There is, in fact, a need for such a balance because the U.S. may be perceived as weak in the sense that it is seen to lack will and purpose.

Any nation that allows itself first to enter Somalia on a vague mission, and then to be pushed out of Somalia by local warlords, must expect some East Asians to suspect its endurance, if not its strength. Another reason for that perception is that the U.S., once again, believes a balance of power is unnecessary. The U.S. too easily takes its own supremacy too much for granted.

Again paradoxically, what keeps a sort of balance of power in being is that there are similar doubts about the strength and resolve of the other three major powers in East Asia.

There can be no question that Russia retains considerable military and technological power at its command. But the same economic and political weaknesses which brought down the Soviet Empire remain to haunt the Russian Empire. Dr. Henry Kissinger, anxious as ever to emphasize the importance of Sino-American relations, argues that after centuries of expansionism, the Russian leopard cannot change its spots.

After the protracted and costly struggle in Chechnya, that argument is probably far less relevant than it once may have been. The fact that the Russian military has been unable to sustain the Russian Federation with a brisk conclusive campaign against the secessionists will, now that Russia is a democracy, have as much, and maybe more impact on Russian public opinion as Somalia had on U.S. public opinion.

In power politics, Russia shares the same problem with the United States -- it has to worry that others may doubt its strength and resolve.

Ironically, Japan shares this same problem with Russia and the United States -- it has to worry that others may doubt its strength and resolve, too. No one doubts Japan's economic and technological strength. No one should doubt that its relatively small, but technologically advanced, self-defense forces do pack a hefty punch. The problem remains Article Nine of the Constitution, and the strong pacifist-inclined emotions which inhibit political parties from seeking to change the Constitution.

The reason Japanese rightist groups bother to put up small structures on the Senkaku Islands at the southwestern base of the Ryukyu chain relates to this enduring problem left over by Japan's World War II defeat: The rightists are probably hoping that China can be provoked into grabbing what they regard as their Diaoyu Islands, thereby in turn provoking Japanese nationalist sentiment -- and bringing closer change of the Constitution, and of Article Nine, in terms of practical politics within Japan.

In view of the doubts about Japanese, Russian and American resolve, it is hardly surprising that China tends to assert itself as a superpower-in-the-making, and strikes nationalist postures which, if China really was already a superpower, would be very worrying indeed. Behind those postures, however, China demonstrates a similar degree of weakness and lack of resolve that characterize the other three major powers.

What Chechnya is for Russia, Vietnam was for China. The leaders of China today are almost certainly still very well aware that the inconclusive 1979 border war with Vietnam caused serious political problems for Deng Xiaoping, even though he was then at the height of his powers. Another mistake like that might bring down the whole edifice of communist rule.

Faced with this risk, China's list of realpolitik priorities indicate prudent caution. Beijing asserts sovereignty over the whole of the South China Sea, no doubt thinking that this is a risk-free exercise, but modulates its stance when faced with ASEAN unity on the issue. In relation to Hong Kong and Macau China's propaganda plays up ending the era of imperialism, but China still carefully avoids trying to end the residual legacy of the era of unequal treaties, Russian sovereignty over the Maritime Provinces, which were acquired at the same time as Britain was annexing Kowloon. As China test fires ballistic missiles in the direction of Taiwan, it not only adopts an unusual way of attracting Taiwan and foreign investment. It also reminds that China does not yet possess the capability of militarily uniting Taiwan within One China.

Thus instead of charting a balance of power in East Asia today, the practical realities indicate something closer to a balance of weakness between and among the four major powers.

The proliferation of high-level contacts between Russia and China of late appears to be a clear signal that both Moscow and Beijing are unhappy with U.S. predominance. Dr. Kissinger writes as if this development demonstrates grave U.S. weakness in a resurrected strategic Sino-Russian-American triangle. Yet neither China nor Russia can escape the fact that U.S. pre-eminence serves their interest, too -- whether it is the financial and other support which the IMF gives to Russia's fragile finances, or the $30 to $40 billion trade surpluses which China accrues from the U.S. marketplace.

Seeking to put the U.S. and others on the defensive, Beijing attacks those who pursue the "containment" of China. Those huge and growing trade surpluses effectively rebut such assertions. When the U.S. did pursue a policy of containment against the Soviet Union, most-favored nation trading status was never conferred, and such surpluses were inconceivable.

The remarkable fact about the East Asian power balance is the overall lack of reaction to the U.S. predominance. Throughout history, dominance by one major power has called forth countervailing alliances. This is not so at the moment vis-a-vis the U.S. in East Asia.

Just imagine what would happen if Japan by itself, or Russia by itself, or China by itself possessed the same degree of overall superiority that the U.S. currently enjoys. It is reasonable to assume that there would be far more uncertainty and anxiety -- not to mention reaction and instability -- in both East and Southeast Asia.

But with the U.S. as the leading major power, Japan sees U.S. power as an insurance against wayward behavior by Russia and China. Russia sees U.S. power as an additional check against the other two, about whom it has deep historical fears. And China has, until recently, viewed the U.S.-Japan alliance as a restraint upon the likely development of Japanese nationalist assertiveness.

Recent Chinese propaganda attacks on both the U.S.-Japan and the U.S.-Australia alliances may be just posturing in the context of Chinese Communist Party factional politics. It could be yet another attempt to encourage the appeasement tendencies of the Clinton Administration. But it could also reflect growing Chinese concern that, with Sino-American relations at an uncertain stage, the current imbalance of power is not necessarily to Beijing's advantage.

The U.S. position is central to the current situation. The U.S. role will be crucial if, God forbid, civil war breaks out again between the two Koreas. The U.S. role is crucial if civil war is not to break out again across the Taiwan Straits. The fact remains that there is no issue in sight, not even Korea, upon which all four major powers are likely to take sides against each other.

At best, the other major powers tacitly accept the U.S. role in the power balance. At the worst, they have yet to make up their minds what they are going to do about it.