Komori on US China policy

Komori Yoshihisa, veteran correspondent and Washington-based editor of the Sankei Shimbun, was invited to speak to Nakagawa Shoichi's "True Conservative Policy Study Group" last Friday, where he explained the reality of US China policy and contemporary attitudes in Washington towards the US-Japan alliance.

He provides a summary of his remarks at his blog.

For the most part, they're innocuous. He notes that Congress and Washington in general are alarmed about China on a number of fronts: China's military modernization, trade practices, intellectual property violations, and human rights violations are causes for concern among US elites. (Indeed, according to Pew's November 2005 survey of public and elite foreign policy attitudes, US elites are far more concerned about China than the public at large. This may have changed after several years of media reports about shoddy Chinese imports, but I still expect that the US public as a whole remains more sanguine about China than Washington.) He reports that while the US-Japan alliance is rarely discussed in the media, it enjoys a solid bedrock of support from both the Republican and Democratic parties.

Broadly speaking, Mr. Komori's picture is accurate.

But there are a few problems. First, whatever the fears of US elites about a multi-dimensional Chinese "threat," I think US policymakers, especially in the executive branch, are willing to silence their fears and work with China when necessary. This is consistent with the enduring pattern of Sino-US relations since 1972. Congress has been obsessed with threats from China and aggressive in its criticism of human rights violations, threats against Taiwan, etc.; the White House, whatever its unease with China and regardless of the party affiliation of the president, has sought closer coordination with China. There is an enduring realism in US China policy that is entirely absent from Mr. Komori's remarks.

This realistic tendency will likely become even more pronounced in coming years, because — and this is my second qualm with Mr. Komori's remarks — the US obsession with Iraq and the Middle East more broadly will not abate anytime soon. Mr. Komori seemingly provides no context for US thinking about China, which for most of Washington remains of secondary importance to more urgent Middle Eastern questions, meaning the US will be ever more inclined to work with China on a range of regional and global problems.

While naturally there are China hawks in Washington who share the views of Mr. Komori's audience, it would be a mistake to suggest that their viewpoint is dominant and commonly accepted. Their viewpoint certainly hasn't been dominant under the Bush administration, despite early indications to the contrary, and the next administration will be forced to embrace a sort of "resigned realism." Even if a McCain administration were to talk about the importance of cooperation among democracies in Asia, such rhetoric would most likely not be backed by a decisive shift in how the US-Japan and US-Australia alliances interact with China.

I would add that Mr. Komori and other Japanese China hawks, much like their American compatriots, have nothing constructive to say about how the US and Japan should deal with China. Mr. Komori says that it is "appropriate to identify and criticize, frequently and clearly" China's military activities and human rights violations. Maybe so, but that cannot be the sum of a China policy, especially for Japan. As Fareed Zakaria argues, criticism and outrage can backfire if they promote a popular backlash among the Chinese people. A China policy that amounts to little more than jabbing China repeatedly with a pointy stick is no China policy at all.

Meanwhile, Mr. Komori has not been paying enough attention in Washington. He notes that he concluded his remarks saying that in other countries principles like "building a country in which the people have pride in their country" and "steadily defending the national interest" are not conservative at all: they are accepted by all as a matter of course. I wonder what country Mr. Komori has in mind. China maybe? Both examples cited by Mr. Komori are fiercely contested in US public discourse. Both the definition of the "national interest" and how to defend it are in constant flux. As for a country of which people can be proud, once again, "pride" means different things to different Americans. To some, including Senator Obama, being proud of the US means being proud of its ability to correct its own flaws; as Senator Obama said in Montana earlier this month, "I love this country not because it’s perfect, but because we’ve always been able to move it closer to perfection."

If anything, Japan needs more of this: more discussion about what its national interests and more discussion about how to secure those interests, but above all, more discussion about what it really means to be proud of one's country — and what it means for a Japanese to be proud of Japan.

A dangerous word

AEI's Michael Auslin, weighing in on the feud over China's denying US Navy ships access to Hong Kong at Contentions, argues that US credibility has suffered from a failure to respond to China's behavior other than by sending the USS Kitty Hawk back to Japan via the Taiwan Straits.

He says, "A number of my Asia-wonk acquaintances in Washington have expressed their concern that Washington is sending a signal of weakness by making no response to the Chinese provocations (sailing the fleet back through the Taiwan Straits doesn’t quite cut it)—even canceling some meetings would have been seen as something."

I would be more concerned if he was citing comments made by "our Asian allies" than by his "Asia-wonk acquaintances."

"Credibility" is a dangerous word, a word that led the US to overextend itself during the cold war, with disastrous consequences. Are US allies in Asia really worried about the US not standing up to China's unpredictable behavior over the past year? Do they really doubt that if China actually posed a threat to their security, the US would be unwilling to act? Do security treaties with Japan, Australia, and other countries in the region obligate the US to "stand up" to China, even if doing so might actually undermine the security of China's neighbors by deepening the PLA's paranoia and strengthening the hand of PLA elements in favor of more confrontational policies (not to mention potentially provoking China to retaliate in other fora)?

The emergence of China is one long, unpredictable, iterative game, and the US, as the prevailing maintainer of stability in East Asia, will not benefit from "defecting" and initiating a game of tit-for-tat that could go on for years. Indeed, as the leading power in the region, the US has an obligation to demonstrate forbearance, to refrain from retaliating against China's bewildering violations of diplomatic and maritime custom and continuing to find ways of coaxing China to play a more constructive regional and global role. To do otherwise could hasten the decline of the US as a regional power and make the neighborhood more dangerous for US allies, a perverse consequence of actions purportedly taken in the interests of US alliances in Asia.

Ozawa to China

Despite the extension of the Diet session, Ozawa Ichiro, DPJ president, will still be going to China with nearly fifty DPJ members of the Diet from 6 to 8 December. Mr. Ozawa will meet with Hu Jintao and mark the thirty-fifth anniversary of the normalization of Sino-Japanese relations.

Mr. Ozawa's visit comes just as turbulence in Sino-US relations continues following China's denying port visits to US Navy vessels. The Chinese government has evidently explained its reasoning for its decisions, suggesting that US arms sales to Taiwan led China to turn the warships away.

Foreign Minister Yang's purported explanation that the denial was the result of a "misunderstanding" has been dismissed, but I wonder whether Foreign Minister Yang was being sincere, in that the decision without the Foreign Ministry's input, leaving the foreign minister to try to explain it in Washington. In other words, the decision to welcome the Kitty Hawk, then the decision to turn it away, then the last-minute decision to permit its entry could reflect not Chinese inscrutability but infighting within the government and between the CCP and the PLA fueled by Chinese insecurity. Now, granted, it is reasonable to question whether Beijing's sense of insecurity is justified, but I still think it would be a mistake for the US (and Japan) to overreact to China's actions.

And so will Mr. Ozawa address this affair, which has drawn in Japan, when he meets with President Hu? Will Mr. Ozawa use the occasion to present a positive vision for Japanese Asia policy that aims to coax China to play a more responsible security role in the region? Perhaps Mr. Ozawa and Mr. Fukuda could work together on an Asia initiative, seeing as both see the value of reorienting Japan's foreign policy away from the US to some extent. In doing so, will he be able to strike the proper balance, approaching Mr. Hu not as a supplicant but as a fellow great power interested in the maintenance of order and stability in the region?

Hold steady on China

Following the ASAT test conducted in January of this year, the behavior of the PLA is once again providing China hawks in the US with reason to bang the war drums (or perhaps just the containment cymbals, not that those are any less distressing). The latest incident, of course, involves China's last-minute rejection of a planned visit by the USS Kitty Hawk to Hong Kong, where the crew would meet with family members for Thanksgiving. This followed on the heels China's denial of safe harbor to US Navy minesweepers that were seeking shelter from a storm, contravening centuries of maritime custom.

The Pentagon, reports the BBC, has protested to the Chinese government, which responded by claiming that the Kitty Hawk incident was the result of a "misunderstanding." The FT suggests that the two incidents could jeopardize ties between the two navies, which have matured in recent years. Remember earlier this year when Admiral Timothy Keating, the new commander of US Pacific Command, suggested that the US might help China develop aircraft carriers?

There are two separate but not mutually exclusive theories floating around to explain these incidents. Some suggest that Beijing is retaliating for the Dalai Lama's receiving the Congressional Gold Medal. Others talk darkly of the PLA's being beyond the control of the Communist Party (an argument I considered here).

If it's the former, there's nothing to worry about — the issue will have passed, and Sino-US relations will continue to be as positive as the People's Daily says in an article about a meeting between President Bush and Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi. Meanwhile, even if this incident is part of a pattern along with the ASAT test and reports of Chinese cyber raids on the Pentagon, that still should not preclude a deepening of defense ties between the US and China.

The US has no choice but to deal with China. A PLA unaccountable to any authority, while worrisome, does not change this fact. Indeed, the greater the independence enjoyed by the PLA, the greater the need for regularized interaction between the military officers and government officials not just from the US and China, but from the other countries in the region. Scaling back or cutting security ties with China and its military will simply make the PLA more hostile and less cooperative, reaffirming the impression surely common in certain circles within the PLA that the US and its allies seek to encircle China.

Yes, China's behavior is maddening and hard to understand. But the US, as the maintainer of stability and order in the region, has the duty to ignore the slight and focus on the task of coaxing China into acting as a pillar of order, not an unpredictable actor and potential menace. Clearly, the signals from China are mixed — interesting that this incident has unfolded just as a PLAN destroyer arrives in Japan for a historic visit. Decisions made by the US and its allies still have the ability to affect the direction of China's emergence for better or worse.

Here's hoping that cooler heads within the US Navy and the defense establishment prevail, despite those inside and outside the government who look for incidents like this to confirm their worst fears about China (like, say, Lou Dobbs, as mentioned by Tom Barnett).

Perhaps it's time for that Organization for Security and Cooperation in Asia.

Does the CCP still hold the gun?

The FT has reported on a significant break-in to Pentagon systems in June, with a recent DoD investigation finding that the incursion most likely originated from China's People's Liberation Army. This follows recent reports of break-ins to German government systems.

The Chinese defense ministry said nothing; the foreign ministry, meanwhile, said, "We have explicit laws and regulations in this regard...Hacking is a global issue and China is frequently a victim."

Readers know that I am relatively sanguine about the rise of China. At the same time, however, stories like this give me pause, because if the PLA is free to do what it wants, then all bets are off. If the civilian ministries are useful only to provide convenient cover for the PLA — such as the aforementioned foreign ministry statement — then it is impossible to plot China's trajectory, particularly in the event of a crisis.

It also means that if the US and its partners in the region are to avoid a hegemonic war with China, it will depend on not sending signals to the PLA that reinforce its paranoid world view; in short, forestalling crises at all costs.

For better or worse, the US, Japan, and others in the region are partners with civilians in the CCP in managing China's rise.

Bush talks sense on China

This week is the 2007 APEC summit in Sydney, and in advance of the week-long summitry, President Bush has been talking Asia — and saying the right things.

In a round table discussion with foreign journalists (hat tip: The Swamp), Mr. Bush spoke of the "complex relationship" between the US and China, but also noted, "...I view China as a positive opportunity." He did not hesitate to mention the economic friction or US concerns about human rights, but the overall picture suggests that as the Bush administration wanes, it increasingly recognizes the importance of China as a partner in the Asia-Pacific region, the single most important bilateral relationship in the region, judging by the time spent talking about it in this press conference. The days of Ambassador Mansfield's bar-none ranch are long gone.

Compare the above interview with an interview Mr. Bush had with NHK's Okushi Kensuke. The NHK interview focused on a couple of bilateral issues — the anti-terror special measures law and the six-party talks — before turning to US policy in Iraq. Both of the above-mentioned issues are trust issues: Washington's (overblown) concerns about the reliability of Japan's commitment to participate in Afghanistan, Tokyo's concerns about being abandoned in the six-party talks (and regarding Afghanistan, fears that the US security guarantee will weaken if Japan doesn't demonstrate its loyalty by contributing to US-led campaigns). The Sino-US relationship, for all the friction and feuding, is a relationship whose concerns are regional and global in scale. The US-Japan relationship, for all its significance for both countries, often amounts to the US doing heavy lifting for Japan on various security issues and occasionally cajoling Japan on trade and monetary issues.

When Mr. Bush meets with Hu Jintao, the agreements reached and decisions made have the potential to be hugely significant for the region, but can one say the same about the outcomes of the meeting between President Bush meets Prime Minister Abe this week?

This isn't to say that the US-Japan relationship is irrelevant or that the US and China are prepared to run the region in a sort of bilateral concert, but it does suggest that the US is increasingly seeing Asia policy through the prism of China policy (as opposed to seeing it through the prism of Japan policy), and that the value of a bilateral relationship to the US will increasingly be the value it has in contributing to "stability" (read a positive and mutually beneficial relationship with China).

China gazes into an American mirror

A commentator on my recent post on the China threat spoke of the "deliberate contamination of pet food," suggesting some kind of plot hatched in Beijing to flood the world market with dangerous goods. In other words, China's liberalization is a kind of trojan horse project by which China will undermine the global order and win without a fight.

Stepping back into reality, I found Joseph Kahn's article in the New York Times' Week in Review on Chinese regulatory reform interesting, because Kahn explicitly notes an idea that I have mentioned here before, namely that the best parallel for China's rise may in fact by the rise of the United States in the late nineteenth century.

To wit:

Phony fertilizer destroys crops. Stores shelves are filled with deodorized rotten eggs, and chemical glucose is passed off as honey. Exports slump when European regulators find dangerous bacteria in packaged meat.

More product safety scandals in China? Not this time. These quality problems prompted a sluggish United States government to tighten food and drug regulation 101 years ago, when President Theodore Roosevelt signed the act that created the Food and Drug Administration.

Like America’s industrializing economy a century ago, China’s is powered by zealous entrepreneurs who sometimes act like pirates. Both countries suffered epidemics of fatal fakes, and both have had regulators who were too inept, corrupt or hamstrung to do much about it.

While Americans and others are right to be concerned about products imported from China, it is not as if Chinese are not suffering from a woefully inadequate regulatory environment. Take the recent explosion at a karaoke bar that killed twenty-five people, another in a string of man-made catastrophes that has plagued China of late.

China is belatedly discovering that a liberal market economy is not simply a function of the state's stepping back and letting the market do its thing. The state must use its power not to pick winners and losers, but to ensure transparency and enforce proper conduct within the marketplace — punishing transgressions as necessary. The rule of law is, of course, an essential tool for fulfilling these roles. The question is whether the regulatory state outlined in Kahn's article is possible in a market in which all actors are not, in fact, equal: privileges of CCP membership and outright corruption by minor party officials are substantial obstacles standing in the way of an economy grounded in the rule of law.

Nevertheless, in domestic governance as in international affairs, China has much to learn from the rise of the superpower across the Pacific, and considerably less time in which to figure it all out.

Combating the China threat thesis

Japan's Ministry of Defense has issued its first white paper as the Ministry of Defense, and it seems that this year's edition is unique in its focus on China as a threat to Japan.

And it seems that the Yomiuri Shimbun is quite pleased by this, according to its editorial today. Citing America's debate on the same matter, Yomiuri notes the report's calling attention to China's pursuit of blue-water naval capabilities and long-range aviation capabilities. (Interestingly, Yomiuri published this editorial on the same day that Asahi devoted its entire editorial space to an editorial marking the seventieth anniversary of the Marco Polo Bridge incident, which is recognized as marking the beginning of the Second Sino-Japanese War — pointing at the need for Sino-Japanese reconciliation.)

Not having read the report yet, I will limit my judgments to Yomiuri's position, which blithely talks about the threat posed by China's rapid military modernization without actually bothering to note what threat China poses exactly. It seems fair for a reader to ask whether Yomiuri has specific scenarios in mind, or if it's just peddling the same hysteria found in some quarters of American policy debate. As I (and others) have argued before, the casual assumption that Chinese military modernization — especially at sea — is necessarily a threat to the region is inappropriate, and ought to be challenged by those interested in maintaining peace and order in the Asia-Pacific. Rather than issue the occasional alarmist report, the US, Japan, Australia, and other powers in the region should be thinking about how to co-opt China's military strength, not making self-fulfilling prophecies of military struggles to come.

Indeed, given the deepening mutual interdependence between China and the region's powers, none of them can afford to be too antagonistic. (Australia's recent publication of a defense report that peddles the same line as Japan's is baffling, given that Australia is, if anything, more dependent on maintaining a healthy relationship with China.) Washington, Canberra, and Tokyo surely don't need to be told that. So why these reports?

Arguably it has as much to do with the need to justify expensive defense programs (creating a budgetary enemy), as with the actual threat posed by China to their interests. Australia of late has been having an active debate about its future defense doctrine, rooted in having the ability to defend Australia alone if necessary (see this article at Defense Industry Daily on Australia's new airpower thinking). Hmm, defense of Australia — what country would Australia have to defend itself against, and what expensive technologies would it need to purchase in order to do so?

In Japan, meanwhile, the government has, despite a decade of falling defense expenditures, focused on enhancing its naval capabilities and airpower. Indeed, Prime Minister Abe has approached the US once again about purchasing F-22s as Japan's next air superiority fighter — despite oft-stated US doubts about selling. (These doubts can be found spelled out in a recent Congressional Research Service report, available for download here.) For the Japanese government, approaching the US about the F-22, it can't hurt to have a thick report in hand showing the threat posed by China to Japan (and a newspaper headline or two reinforcing the threat).

Level heads in these three governments must steadfastly resist the alarmist rhetoric emanating from China hawks and their allies in the media and the defense industry. The region is too complicated — and the stakes too important — to fall into simple fear-mongering.

A cure for Japan's fear of Democrats

While Asia has been largely absent from debates among Republican and Democratic candidates for their respective parties' presidential nominations — much to my chagrin — the Washington Post reports that John Hamre of CSIS organized a dinner for Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Dai Bingguo to meet with the foreign policy advisers of a number of leading presidential candidates, in response to Chinese interest in such a discussion.

This is a remarkably sound idea. Rather than waiting for the next administration to roll into the White House — and with it the inevitable "new course" in Sino-US relations — China has insinuated itself into the discussion, ensuring that its concerns have been laid on the table before candidates are even nominated. Hopefully this will forestall the appearance of a straw-man China (or a scapegoat China) in campaign debates.

One wonders why Japan hasn't tried to do this, instead of sitting in Tokyo shaking in fear that — gasp! — a Democrat might win the election and immediately begin bashing and/or passing Japan. What an idea, actually talking to candidates...

Ending US Navy dominance?

So suggests the headline on an FT article (subscription only) by Mure Dickie and Stephen Fidler on Chinese naval modernization that is actually more considered than the headline would suggest.

Acknowledging that China is "a big beneficiary of the “Pax Americana” enforced by the US Navy that keeps its sea lanes open," the article seeks to explore the means by which China seeks to take its maritime security into its own hands.

The conclusion? China, while en route to becoming a more significant regional naval power, has yet to decide just what that means. How far does the PLAN plan to be able to reach? Will the relatively localized "string of pearls" ultimately reach into the Persian Gulf and the African shore of the Indian Ocean?

They write:

Mr Wang [Xiangsui] of the University of Aeronautics says Chinese defence planners have themselves yet to achieve consensus either on what their naval strategic goals should be or how they should go about achieving them. Indeed, he hopes Beijing will end up agreeing with him that the navy’s aim should not be to oppose the US but to fit into a stable international security system.

“China has a need to guarantee access to maritime key points – but does not need to do this by confronting the US Navy,” he says, suggesting instead that the main aim should be to work alongside Washington.

Nonetheless, US defence planners are likely to continue to find it hard to take China’s good intentions on trust while the country remains an authoritarian and avowedly communist one-party state. Beijing meanwhile still shows little willingness to embrace the level of transparency that might allay their suspicions.

Given the different messages emanating from different corners of the US defense establishment on China, it may be premature to conclude that the US has made up its mind on how to interact with China.

And for that reason it is incredibly important the the candidates vying for the 2008 Republican and Democratic presidential nominations spend a great deal of time explaining how they would resolve the many paradoxes of China, and mold a security environment that will encourage China to opt for a navy development plan that upholds, not undermines regional order.

Building a new relationship in Shangri-La

Contrary to coverage of the Sino-US relationship that greeted the publication of the latest Pentagon report on Chinese military power, Secretary of Defense William Gates is in Singapore, setting out the terms of Sino-US security cooperation (and building on visits to China by General Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Admiral Timothy Keating, head of US Pacific Command).

At the Shangri-La Dialogue, convened annually by the International Institute of Strategic Studies in Singapore, Secretary Gates gave a speech that focuses mostly on trying to convince East Asia's powers that the fate of Central Asia is as much their interest as the interest of the US. But it concludes by summing up the US-China defense relationship for all in attendance:

The United States shares common interests with China on issues like terrorism, counter proliferation, and energy security. But we are concerned about the opaqueness of Beijing’s military spending and modernization programs issues described in the annual report on the Chinese armed forces recently released by the U.S. government. But as General Pete Pace, our Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, pointed out, there is some difference between capacity and intent. And I believe there is reason to be optimistic about the U.S.-China relationship.

We have increased military-to-military contacts between all levels of our militaries, most recently dramatized when General Pace sat in the cockpit of the top-of-the-line Chinese fighter during his last visit. We obviously have a huge economic and trade relationship. Indeed, I have been told that if just one American company Wal-Mart was a country, it would be China's eighth largest trading partner. The second meeting of the U.S.-China Strategic Economic Dialogue concluded last week in Washington, D.C. a process designed to improve our economic bilateral relationship. As we gain experience in dealing with each other, relationships can be forged that will build trust over time.

As the New York Times reports on Gates's speech, this supposedly contrasts with former Secretary Rumsfeld's speech at Shangri-La in 2005, when he essentially reiterated the contents of the Pentagon report on China's military modernization. But the Times is misleading: the new embrace of China by Washington has been a long time in coming, even if Rumsfeld's stance on China was ambivalent at best.

Reiterating his ideas in a press conference following his speech, Gates said in response to a question from a PLA colonel:

I’ve always believed that the years-long negotiations on strategic arms limitations may or may not have made much of a contribution in terms of limiting arms. But they played an extraordinarily valuable role in creating better understanding on both the Soviet and American sides about what the strategic intentions of each side were, what the strategic thinking was, what their motives were, where they were headed. That dialogue that continued intensively for something like twenty years built a cadre of people who were accustomed to working and talking with one another, who were on opposite sides of a major conflict, and I think that -- while we have no conflict at this point -- this kind of transparency, this kind of discussion is the kind of thing that prevents miscalculation and helps each side understand where the other is headed and what its intentions are.

This is by no means revolutionary change, but it suggests a Sino-US relationship cushioned from the thorny issues surrounding human rights, democracy, Tibet, Taiwan, etc. Whatever events shake the relationship, whatever outside actors (the US Congress, NGOs, etc.) do to raise issues of concern, the relationship will rest in the hands of a "cadre" (how funny that Gates used that word in the Sino-US context) that will keep things on an even keel. Come to think of it, not altogether unlike the US-Japan relationship for most of the cold war, in which alliance managers successfully cordoned off the security relationship from other concerns.

What will be the basis of security cooperation? This People's Daily article suggests that the PLA at least knows what the US wants to hear, with General Zhang Qinsheng, the PLA's deputy chief of staff telling the Shangri-La gathering that China is interested primarily in stability in the region. Zhang said, "International relations in the region are generally stable. Regional cooperation continues to deepen. Economic cooperation and trade is more active than ever. Multiple cultures prosper side by side. Security dialogues are increasingly pragmatic to maintain peace, avoid confrontation and promote development have become shared goals of the Asia-Pacific countries." While that might sound like pablum, for all the tension surrounding maritime claims and energy resources, Asia is shockingly peaceful — barring the Taiwan Straits — considering that the region is home to some of the most significant military and economic powers in the world. To date, Aaron Friedberg's "struggle for mastery in Asia" (PDF) has not quite come to pass.

And what of Japan? Japan was but a footnote in Secretary Gates's speech, grouped with South Korea in a passing reference to how the US is updating old alliances for the new security environment. I cannot help but wonder if that's increasingly how Japan looks to Washington: potentially useful if it gets its legal and constitutional act together (although constitution revision may not be an unmitigated boon for the alliance, as discussed here), but otherwise a distraction for the US as it considers the shape of the broader region and the world. Gates does not strike me as a man who has the time or the patience to indulge Japan's neuroses — and with no Japan hands in other senior positions in the Pentagon (or at State), it seems that Gates has plenty of company.

So military-military cooperation may continue, but as I have argued before, the strategic direction is withering, with the US no longer looking at Asia through a Japanese lens.

More retrograde thinking on China from Gertz

Bill Gertz of the Washington Times finally got around to commenting on Admiral Keating's offer to help the Chinese — which I have been told by someone who would know that it was more a "half-joke" and thought experiment than serious offer — develop aircraft carriers. Gertz noted, "Critics say the comments are a sign that the U.S.-China military exchange program is spinning out of control under Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Adm. Mike Mullen, the chief of naval operations."

Got to love that — "critics say."

I have written about Gertz's utterly blinkered Sinophobia before, but Tom Barnett lays into him here with far greater anger than I could ever muster, expertly smashing the thinking of Gertz and others who look at the rise of China as a replay of the rise of Germany, Imperial Japan, and the Soviet Union all rolled into one.

As for me, I like that Keating made the offer. I like that someone in a position of tremendous responsibility for US Asia policy has moved beyond the linear thinking that characterizes so much of how Washington views the world. Ours is a world marked by ambiguity and contradiction, and China hawks like Gertz, rather than embracing ambiguity, reject it, claiming that nothing has changed, that China is just trying to lull the US into passivity before it strikes.

Since when did the world have to make sense, neatly divided into friends and foes?

As Barnett notes, and as I've discussed before, outside of Taiwan, the chances of war with China are nil, and the more US policymakers come to recognize that and make policy accordingly, the greater the basis for Sino-US cooperation on the shared goal of maintaining regional stability.

Seeing the world through China's eyes

Susan Shirk, author of China: Fragile Superpower, noted in an interview at China Digital Times:

To get anywhere diplomatically you have to put yourself in the shoes of the person sitting across from you at the table. I traveled with Jiang Zemin and Zhu Rongji when they visited the U.S. and joined many meetings with them. I have met Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao as well. In their informal comments as well as their formal statements they make no secret of their worries about China's political stability. But the leaders do try to hide differences of opinion over foreign and domestic policy which undoubtedly exist.

I'm with Shirk. How the US, or any country, can make foreign policy without trying to understand how an interlocutor sees the world is beyond me. As such, I think that was the thinking behind Admiral Keating's offer of help on aircraft carrier development; looking through the eyes of the PLA Navy, Keating seemed to recognize that China might have legitimate reasons for wanting an aircraft carrier, and from there sought to provide practical advice from a navy that has been operating carrier groups for decades.

A recent article by Richard Halloran spells out Keating's thinking in more detail, and notes that among the five reasons why China might develop an aircraft carrier — international prestige, power projection, defending lifelines, regional rivalry, and relief operations — attacking Taiwan is not one of them. Indeed, there seems to be little in Halloran's list that would result in war. Rather, after decades of watching US carriers show the flag, especially in the Taiwan Straits, it should hardly be surprising that China wants a similar platform.

So China's reaction to the Pentagon report is understandable: the US report is drafted from the perspective that the decision by China to develop its conventional and nuclear forces is an insult, as well as a threat, to the US. Clearly we're not threatening you, it thinks, so why should you need to modernize your armed forces? (Ed. — How can a report think? Quiet, you.)

But is the Pentagon really incapable of appreciating the fact that China might have legitimate reasons for military modernization that have nothing to do with threatening the US directly? And, does the Pentagon realize that the US pursuit of military predominance can last only as long as other countries are deterred? Once a country decides to develop an advanced military the jig is up; the US needs to think of more creative approaches to a country with a sophisticated military, other than insisting, "From where we stand, you're not threatened." It seems that's what Admiral Keating is groping towards.

To connect Keating to Shirk, the admiral is trying look at the world through Beijing's eyes and alter the US Military's approach to China so that it acknowledges that China has legitimate interests that may require an advanced military. That does not mean acquiescing entirely — Keating clearly communicated American concerns, after all — it simply means acknowledging that the world looks different from Beijing than it does from Washington.

I should note that I do not think that the US will be helping China with aircraft carriers anytime soon — nor should it, at least not for now. But this is yet another sign of a new flexibility in US Asia policy; the old San Francisco system of bilateral alliances is simultaneously being agglomerated, as the US, Japan, and Australia seek to deepen trilateral ties, and de-prioritized, with the US less inclined — in practice, if not in rhetoric — to view the region as marked by stark, clear divisions.

China bulks up

The US Department of Defense has released its annual Congress-mandated report on Chinese military power, available for download here. (Hat tip: China Digital Times)

For a China hawk's take on this year's report, check out this article by Bill Gertz in the Washington Times. Gertz manages to spin a relatively tame report, the product of a committee and thus including something for everyone (a more accurate way of describing what Gertz calls the "subject of political fighting every year as part of pro-China officials' efforts to promote the Bush administration's pro-business agenda with Beijing") into a report of a more alarmist sort.

There is actually very little new in this report. There rarely is. The Pentagon's annual reports on China are useful compilations of information on the progress of China's military modernization, but they seem to do little more than provide journalists with a way to fill space.

As in previous reports, the Pentagon notes that preparations for conflict in the Taiwan Straits remains the primary focus of China's military activities, although as in earlier reports this year's edition suggests that there are signs that China is looking beyond Taiwan as it considers longer term defense acquisition plans. As before, the Pentagon reports that Chinese military doctrine emphasizes asymmetrical warfare and the development of capabilities that will enable the PLA to neutralize American advantages in the event of war.

One element that seems to have been given special emphasis this year is China's nuclear arsenal. As I noted yesterday, China is developing a new generation SSBN that will greatly enhance its nuclear deterrent. The Pentagon notes, "The addition of the DF-31 family of missiles and the JL-2 and JIN-class SSBNs will give China a more survivable and flexible nuclear force. New air- and ground-launched cruise missiles that could perform nuclear missions will similarly improve the survivability and flexibility of China’s nuclear forces." The report goes on to note that there is some ambiguity surrounding China's "first use" policy, particularly in the event of conflict in the Taiwan Straits.

But all in all, this report is pretty meager, in part because of the PLA's lack of transparency. While it is the job of Pentagon planners to consider that the lack of transparency is a cloak for a range of worst case scenarios, it is also the job of the media and opinion makers to question the plausibility of the Pentagon's worst-case scenarios.

One snippet that must be questioned is this: "Given the apparent absence of direct threats from other nations, the purposes to which China’s current and future military power will be applied remain unknown. It is certain, however, that these capabilities will increase Beijing’s options for military coercion to press diplomatic advantage, advance interests, or resolve disputes."

In other words, as China becomes more wealthy, it is directing its wealth to its military, which will enable it to secure "press diplomatic advantage, advance interests, or resolve disputes." Does anyone expect it to be otherwise? Even if China was a mature democracy, would it be any different? Once again, the comparison to the rise of the US is telling. As discussed in considerable detail by Robert Kagan in his Dangerous Nation, as the US grew wealthier over the course of the nineteenth century (with foreign trade no small part of US economic success), US interests abroad grew accordingly, and as interests grew, demands that the US have the military means to secure them grew accordingly (which led, of course, to a further expansion of US interests). China is not altogether different. Its interests are growing rapidly, and globally, leading it to desire a military to will be able to secure those growing interests.

But what does that mean in practical terms? China still does not possess a force capable of significant power projection, even in its near abroad, and the PLA is a long time away from being able to project power globally on the order of the US Military, if it will ever be capable of that. Is it not too early to be alarmed, particularly since there seems to be little the US can do to curtail China's military modernization?

Another question is, if China is starting to think in global terms, why should that alarm the US? A China interested in global order could just as well be a partner of the US as a rival. China's future is far from ordained, and much will depend on the decisions the US makes. As Joseph Nye and others have been saying for a long while, if the US acts rashly in the face of China's military modernization, it may well make fears of a hostile China a self-fulfilling prophecy.

And finally, I fail to see why the US should be surprised that China is seeking to strengthen its military despite "the apparent absence of direct threats from other nations." Again, going back to Kagan, what direct threats did the US face in 1889-1890, when it began a major naval modernization program? China's military thinking is consistent with every rising great power in history: even today, only military powers are taken seriously as great powers. Perhaps Beijing has looked at Brussels and Tokyo and concluded that to be a "civilian superpower" is to not be a superpower at all. After all, Russia was, by virtue of its nuclear arsenal, able to force its way into the elite chambers of the G7 despite being an economic basket case.

So while the US should continue to track China's progress closely, it should also not be particularly surprised by China's decision to develop an advanced military capable of power projection.

The naval arms race in Asia continues

Back in April, Paul Kennedy, professor of history at Yale best known for his The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, had an op-ed in the IHT in which he discussed the meaning of the growing naval arms race in Northeast Asia in terms of the center of balance of the international system, with a striking imbalance between Europe and Asia in terms of naval strength.

Today saw two more examples to support Professor Kennedy's point — and, thinking slightly less in terms of world history, to support the idea that the East Asian balance of power is becoming, despite US predominance, vigorously multipolar.

First, South Korea has reportedly become the fifth country in the world to deploy an Aegis-equipped warship (hat tip: Marmot's Hole).

Second, the FT reports that the US is concerned about Chinese plans to develop a new ballistic missile submarine. While SSBNs are not necessarily a factor in the naval balance, being more directly related to questions of nuclear deterrence between the US and China (and Japan, on some level), the development of more sophisticated SSBNs will likely put pressure on the US and Japan to improve their anti-submarine warfare capabilities, prompting other navies in the region to respond.

The dance of the powers continues: one week the US offers to help China with its aircraft carrier program, the next it expresses fears about Chinese SSBNs. All the while the US navy presence in the region continues to provide the maritime public goods that growing Asia desperately needs.

The story that wouldn't die

Bill Gertz, Washington Times reporter and leading proponent of the "China Threat" thesis, has published yet another item in his weekly "Inside the Ring" feature talking about how "pro-China officials" in the administration are undermining Japan's bid to purchase F-22 stealth fighters.

I previously discussed here that General Jeffrey Kohler, head of the Defense Department's Defense Cooperation Agency, quashed reports that the US was even thinking about taking the necessary steps to put the F-22 on the market, and before that I asked if the seemingly fragile F-22 was even the right choice for Japan.

And yet Gertz continues to bang the drum on the F-22 — wailing about a conspiracy in the administration to deprive Japan (and Australia and Israel and South Korea) of the advanced fighter.

Gertz is probably the most prominent example of an opinion maker inclined to ignore signs of Sino-US cooperation, such as this one discussed earlier today, and assume that the US and China and destined to come to blows. Anyone paying attention to the region, however, cannot ignore just how ambiguous the regional security environment has become, which is why prudent management of US Asia policy is more important than ever.

If the "China threat" thesis was true, if China was simply an unambiguous threat to American interests that had to be stopped immediately, US Asia policy would be simple: cut ties with China, round up our friends, and goad China into changing its behavior. The reality of the region is that no country can afford to take such a stance vis-a-vis China. The US (as well as every other country in the Asia-Pacific) and China have shared interests, and it is Washington's responsibility to find ways to secure those interests and minimizes the consequences of divergence in other areas.

I guess, as implied by Blake Hounshell in this post on Foreign Policy's Passport blog, people tend to see the China they want to see.

The Bush administration has left the building (in Asia, anyway)

South Korea's Dong-A Ilbo reports that the Asia team for the denouement of the Bush administration is complete...

Daniel Drezner could not have been more right when he said that the Bush administration is looking for "September call-ups" for its foreign policy team.

Look at the roster provided by Dong-A. While some, including Dr. Paul Heer and James Shinn, have publication records, suggesting that they have experience in and knowledge about the region, others show just how hard the administration had to work to find staff to fill positions.

Victor Cha's successor holding the Korea and Japan brief at the National Security Council is Katrin Fraser, indicated by Dong-A as a "professional diplomat" but in fact assistant to Assistant Secretary of State for International Organizations Kristin Silverberg (who is herself a former political adviser to Candidate Bush, not to mention an adviser to CPA viceroy Paul Bremer until October 2003). The only newsworthy bits about Fraser seem to be that she taught English in Korea as a Fulbright a few years ago, and that she wrote an article criticizing the Bush administration for insensitivity to Korea.

From Victor Cha, an accomplished expert on the region to a woman who only very recently taught English in Korea? I am sure that the Japanese government is thrilled with this choice.

Yep, this is the Asia policy team that will handle the continuation of the six-party talks, turbulent relations with China as the 2008 Olympics approach, and a Japan that is grappling with fundamental questions about its position in the region and the world. For nearly the next two years, this is the team that will handle Asia's becoming the global center of gravity.

"We would...help them"

Having previously written about the strategic and political questions surrounding China's rumored aircraft carrier program, I found this VOA article (hat tip: China Digital Times) on Admiral Keating's visit to China fascinating.

VOA reports that Keating discussed the operational difficulties of deploying and maintaining aircraft carriers with Vice Admiral Wu Shengli of the PLAN — but not necessarily as a way of dissuading China from developing aircraft carriers.

Rather, Keating apparently said that if China is determined to develop an aircraft carrier, the US will offer its assistance: "It is not an area where we would want any tension to arise unnecessarily...and we would, if they choose to develop [an aircraft carrier program] help them to the degree that they seek and the degree that we're capable, in developing their programs."

With the US offering help to the PLAN in developing aircraft carriers, does anyone still think that the region's security environment can be neatly summarized as the US seeking to build up a coalition to contain China?

I think Keating's suggestion contains a certain logic. US help in building a blue-water navy reinforces the idea that a Chinese blue-water navy need not be a threat to US interests, because the US and China share an interest in keeping maritime Asia stable and open.

I wonder, though, what Japan thinks about Keating's offer.

Idealism, realism, and US China policy

Over at Foreign Policy, China scholar David Lampton and journalist James Mann debate the argument presented in Mann's new book, The China Fantasy: How Our Leaders Explain Away Chinese Repression. (The subtitle really says it all.) (Hat tip: China Digital Times)

There is no love lost between Lampton and Mann in this debate, and its implications reach far beyond US China policy.

Lampton challenges the argument in Mann's book that politicians, academics, and corporate leaders are making excuses for Chinese authoritarianism to justify close engagement with Beijing. He argues that policymakers have no illusions about China, but emphasize engagement because "there are economic, security, and intellectual gains to be made from working together."

Mann reiterates his thesis in response to Lampton, saying that his purpose is not to propose a new framework for US China policy but to expose the rhetorical compromises made by American leaders.

Mann's point is well taken, although arguably this problem is a matter of cognitive dissonance: the interests of the US, as observed by Lampton, lead the US to favor engagement in one way