National overview
Build US-Asian Teamwork Against China
New administrations that differ in partisan orientation from their predecessors have the habit of reorienting U.S. foreign policy. George W. Bush planned until September 11, 2001, to shift America’s focus back to superpower competition, and even send Donald Rumsfeld, at that time the most prominent statesman, to Moscow to negotiate with Putin. It was a clear break from mr. Clinton’s liberal intervention. Mr. Obama reversed virtually every major foreign policy choice of the previous eight years and immediately followed a “reset” with Russia, a decline in Iraq, a major tour of the Arab world, and shortly after a tent with Iran. Mr. Trump withdrew from the Paris Climate Agreement and the Iran Agreement. He also made significant changes to a four-decade-long U.S. effort to make China an “interested party” in the international order. Even more striking on a biased level was the variation in commitment to ‘anti-war’ matters. Democratic support for the anti-war movement virtually evaporated in 2009 despite, not to mention, multiple attempts to accuse Bush of his conduct in the war in Iraq. Republicans are equally guilty: Challenges against the constitutionality of Mr. Obama’s military action in Syria and Iraq disappeared on January 20, 2017. If the recent Syria strike of Mr. Biden shows something, it is the politics that have remained remarkably normal. Apart from fringe progressive figures – Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her vanguard group – Democrats will have no opposition to executive military action. However, it is encouraging to see an emerging continuity between Mr. Biden and his predecessor to identify. Biden’s government appears to be committed to maintaining ‘the Quad’ – the Asian security forum that includes the US, Japan, Australia and India. The Quad stemmed from efforts to coordinate relief after the 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean. Although a formal security relationship was imminent in 2007, US, Indian and Australian policy changes buried the idea for almost a decade. The Trump administration revived the Quad through ASEAN in November 2017 and built up America’s joint naval exercises with the three potential members. The highlight of the Quad came in October 2020, when its four members participated in Exercise MALABAR, traditionally a bilateral Indo-American cause. Furthermore, other American allies began to recognize the connection between the Indo-Pacific balance and their own interests. In February, France deployed a nuclear-powered attack submarine to the South China Sea and planned to deploy an amphibious assault ship and frigate in preparation for the U.S. and Japanese military exercises in May. Germany will deploy a frigate to the Indo-Pacific this fall. The Royal Navy’s Carrier Strike Group will deploy to the Indo-Pacific this year, which is the first British capital ship deployment east of the Suez in a generation. Mr. Biden showed little interest in confronting China in his first week in office, but he indicated he was willing to maintain the Quad. In addition, there is talk of expanding the Quad by including South Korea as a ‘Quad Plus’ member. China, of course, indicated its displeasure with the Quad. As a spoiled child denies sweets, it finds it inconceivable that three of the regional powers that have lost the most to Chinese expansionism will find it reasonable to coordinate with the great power that is most against China’s hegemonic ambitions. However, China’s anger points to a critical truth: the Quad is not a framework for political coordination, intended to maintain a ‘Free and Open Indo-Pacific’ diplomatically. This is the beginning of a formal alliance aimed at curbing Chinese aggression and preserving the interests of America’s allies. This alliance, if formalized, would be long overdue. China has posed a demonstrable threat to the interests of virtually every Indo-Pacific government since at least the early 2010s, when it began building and militarizing islands in the South and East China Seas. Since then, he has consolidated internal control in Hong Kong and East Turkestan by moving from an incremental approach to the naked use of force, carrying out a coup in Hong Kong and genocide in East Turkestan. It has increased its pressure on India and incited three border incidents since 2017. And with the rise of Xi Jinping to the most important leadership, it has built up the most important potential of conventional weapons since before World War II. Given China’s goals, expanding the Quad to other regional partners would strengthen US interests and stability in the Indian Pacific by increasing the credibility of deterrence. China surpasses every individual Indo-Pacific opponent, even Japan with its sophisticated Western technology and India with its massive conventional ground forces. No nation wishes for a long war – at least no nation with a view to its political survival. But China is in a unique vulnerable position. It still relies on overseas petrochemical imports and critical raw materials for its industries. And while some of China support the party’s goal of ‘national rejuvenation’ (ie world power at all costs), it is likely that most of its citizens, with the memory of the Maoist madness, are still burning in their minds, the party’s rule in exchange for economic and social stability. A long war would destroy both benefits and expose the true state of the party state. An alliance that directly connects major Pacific powers directly with the United States and each other will eliminate the possibility that China could pursue an accomplished fact against an isolated government. By adding formal military cooperation to this partnership, it would further strengthen the deterrent by enabling smaller local players to maximize their capabilities while supporting the US Navy. South Korea is now torn between China and the United States. The robust economic ties with the VRC have made it possible for its elite to present North Korea as the only threat to its existence, leaving its population blind to the risks a Chinese-dominated Pacific would pose to any liberal government. . But South Korea will not be the direct target of China. The ROK’s industrial and technological capability makes it more valuable as a partner or subject than as a winning prize, especially if the reunification chimera can be captured. Its commitment to the Quad would be a diplomatic and strategic triumph: China would be deprived of a neutral potential partner, and its military capabilities could be merged with those of Japan in the northwestern Pacific. However, Taiwan is much more important. The party state is obsessed with it. The geographical location of Taiwan allows it to disrupt any power transfer between the northeast and southwest of the Pacific Ocean, preventing the PLA from concentrating its fighting force. This is the critical link in the ‘First Island Chain’, which runs from the Aleuts through Japan to the Philippines and impedes China’s unhindered access to the central Pacific. Its existence proves that the Chinese people do not have to sacrifice their freedom for their safety. Today’s Taiwan originated from the same political disaster as its communist counterpart. But it has successfully transitioned from a military dictatorship, full of despotism’s standard equipment – secret police, control over political expression and extreme involvement of the state in economic planning – to a multi-party capitalist democracy guaranteeing individual and political rights and its citizens a standard of equal to that of any Western European or North American. So China’s obsession with Taiwan. The increased investigation into Taiwanese airspace by the PLA is a prelude to escalation, just as the party’s gentle maneuvering in East Turkestan and Hong Kong preceded the use of force. The inclusion of Taiwan in the Quad, as an observer, an affiliated Quad Plus state, or as a full member, would bind the ROC to the other local opponents of China. China will no longer have to calculate whether the US will involve itself in a Taiwanese event. Instead, Japan, Australia and India could exert political pressure, with the assurance that US involvement would take place during any escalation. In addition, a non-Taiwanese flashpoint – for example in the South China Sea or along the Sino-Indian border – could now lead to a broader conflict in the Pacific. This is where a central issue arises. Is the Quad merely a forum for political security for forces committed to a ‘free and open Indo-Pacific’? No threat to the Pacific’s freedom and openness exists except China. But considering the Quad as a purely diplomatic / political instrument, rather than an explicit alliance designed to counter Chinese aggression, makes its potential benefits effective. It would be as if in 1955 the United States insisted that NATO be a political forum consisting of like-minded liberal regimes with no common interest, instead of being the backbone of a Soviet inclusion strategy. Seth Cropsey is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and director of the Center for American Seapower. He serves as Navy Officer and as Deputy Under-Secretary of the Navy. Harry Halem is a research assistant at the Hudson Institute and a graduate student at the London School of Economics.