by Kevin Placek

The United States has historically had three objectives in East Asia: to prevent any potentially hostile state from becoming a regional hegemon; to maintain a high degree of influence and power-projection capabilities in the region; and to promote democratic principles and political stability.

[1] To achieve these objectives, the United States established a network of bilateral alliances, known as the San Francisco System. It was also termed the hub-and-spoke framework, in which the U.S. (hub) acts at the centre of each bilateral partnership (spokes) with little interference or overlap. Most of these partnerships emerged at the onset of the Cold War, including with Australia (1951), New Zealand (1951), the Philippines (1951), South Korea (1953), Japan (1954), Thailand (1954), and the Republic of China (1954). With few exceptions, these alliances remain robust. According to the 2010 National Security Strategy, these alliances form “the bedrock of security in Asia and a foundation of prosperity in the Asia-Pacific region.”[2]

 

This is clearly not without its challenges, the most critical of which include nuclear proliferation and the spectre of state collapse in North Korea; the rise of China along with the unresolved Taiwan issue and volatile Sino-Japanese tensions; and long-standing territorial disputes in the South China Sea.[3] Such long-standing traditional security issues indicate that post-Cold War Asia still very much reflects the Cold War dynamic of security competition and strategic uncertainty.

This article argues, therefore, that the traditional bilateral alliance system is likely to remain central to the United States’ grand strategy in Asia insofar as it continues to provide an effective hedging strategy against the perceived threat of China’s rise, and is seen to be responsive to the traditional security concerns of America’s allies within the region. However, the San Francisco System will become less effective over time if China demonstrates that it is able and willing to become a more ‘responsible stakeholder’ in the international system, and if existing or new multilateral institutions prove more capable of resolving traditional security issues. Consequently, the U.S. should work in the long term towards achieving a collective security framework in East Asia; that is, a formal inter-governmental arrangement based on a strong mutual commitment to reducing tensions arising from traditional security disputes and working towards their peaceful resolution.

China’s Rise

Washington’s traditional alliance-oriented strategy in Asia is based on the desire to strengthen its security posture and improve power projection capabilities within the region, in part out of concern that China’s rapid increase in military capabilities tilt the regional power balance.[4] Should the United States be unable to defend or secure its interests within the region, then its allies may be compelled to align with China, depriving Washington of its geo-political role. Given the widespread uncertainty as to whether China’s rise actually poses a threat, the U.S. adopts a hedging strategy.[5] The United States thus cooperates with China by promoting economic and military exchanges and encouraging China’s active involvement in regional and global institutions, yet also competes with China by strengthening traditional alliances to maintain a favourable balance of power.[6] The underlying assumption here is that as long as the United States remains firmly committed to its allies, it is in a stronger position to deter China from acting aggressively towards other states. It is also assumed that by utilising bilateral alliances, as opposed to weak multilateral institutions, there is a lower risk of this strategy being weakened by partners that might otherwise be inclined to take a softer approach towards China.[7] This is abetted by the fact that Asia not only lacks strong multilateral political institutions comparable to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) or the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe,[8] but, with the notable exception of the U.S., also lacks a leading regional actor able to define the rules or norms of effective security arrangements.[9] The hub-and-spoke system, therefore, remains the most effective form of security architecture in Asia because, in providing private goods to alliance partners, the sum of these individual alliances provide clear public goods to the region as a whole in the form of peace and stability.[10]

These bilateral arrangements may appeal to China’s neighbours insofar as China’s behaviour persistently threatens to undermine the stability of the region. When Beijing launched a fierce diplomatic offensive against Tokyo in September 2010 following the arrest of the captain of a Chinese fishing trawler near the contested Senkaku/Diaoyutai Islands in the East China Sea, Japan received firm backing from the U.S., reaffirming its guarantee to protect all regions administered by Japan under the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty.[11] Similarly, after a North Korean submarine sunk the South Korean naval ship Cheonan in March 2010, China refused to review the evidence presented by an international commission and protected North Korea from any direct criticism in the UN Security Council.[12] Beijing similarly failed to do anything more than call for calm and warn against further escalation after North Korea shelled South Korea’s Yeonpyeong island in November 2010, later attempting to dissuade U.S. warships involved in joint U.S.-South Korean naval exercises from entering the Yellow Sea.[13] Such incidents have done much to strengthen Washington’s bilateral alliances with Japan and South Korea by dispelling the somewhat over-optimistic assumptions of China’s ‘peaceful rise,’ and that greater economic multilateralism would overcome the traditional security challenges in East Asia.

However, the repercussions of China’s behaviour have reached beyond Washington’s traditional partners. The redefinition of the term “core interests” by State Councillor Dai Bingguo in 2009 to include China’s national sovereignty claims has raised concern among China’s neighbours.[14] If upheld, this would clearly elevate the strategic importance of the South China Sea to the same level as Taiwan, Tibet and Xinjiang – territory regarded as integral to the Chinese nation.[15] Such actions (or even their possibility) may encourage Southeast Asian nations, many of which have long-standing claims to the Spratly and Paracel Island groups, to either strengthen formal alliances with the United States (Philippines, Thailand) or continue to provide military facilities and access to American naval and air forces (Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore): in a sense, borrowing U.S. military power as part of their broader attempt to enmesh both China and the U.S. into a stable regional order.[16] Therefore, supposing China’s military policies continue to resemble a deliberate strategy to, as Aaron L. Friedberg warns, “establish itself as Asia’s dominant power by eroding the credibility of America’s security guarantees”,[17] the U.S. and its allies may still be able to maintain an effective and favourable balance of power through a renewed San Francisco System.

Traditional Security Issues

An additional rationale for Washington’s alliance-oriented strategy in Asia stems from the perceived limitations of existing multilateral security mechanisms, notably the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), and East Asia Summit (EAS). Although each serves an important function in promoting long-term peace and stability, in most cases these initiatives have failed to respond to, or deal effectively with, traditional security challenges and, in the case of Taiwan, have systematically excluded one of the region’s greatest security challenges from the multilateral agenda, at China’s insistence.[18] Due to the preference for consensual-style decision-making in the ASEAN-led processes, the ARF in particular may continue to find it difficult to move beyond mere confidence-building measures to providing effective preventative diplomacy.[19] The fact that ASEAN remains an essentially ‘state-centric and sovereignty-bound group of nations’ poses an underlying contradiction between the institutions favoured by its members and the traditional security challenges they still face collectively.[20] Indeed, this may explain why China has largely preferred ASEAN-led institutions for regional cooperation: the ‘ASEAN Way’ – emphasising consultation, dialogue, consensus, and non-interference in the internal affairs of member states – effectively allows China to exclude contentious security issues from multilateral forums like the ARF.[21] This even extends to the exclusion of China’s contested territorial claims in the South China Sea, despite the fact that such disputes directly affect a number of ASEAN countries (Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam), and, as such, efforts to institutionalise conflict resolution at the multilateral level are seriously undermined.[22] What this suggests is that bilateral alliances are likely to remain useful to Washington’s partners as long as existing multilateral security mechanisms in Asia fail to effectively engage traditional security issues.

Though the United States supports Asia’s new regional architecture – described as “a patchwork of overlapping and interconnecting” bilateral, trilateral and multilateral institutions – given the centrality and adaptability of U.S. alliances in Asia, they will likely continue to play the most important role within this emerging architecture.[23] The quick and effective response of the United States and its allies (Australia, India, Japan) to the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami demonstrated this point, also helping bring about the resumption of military-to-military ties with Indonesia.[24] More recently, after Chinese vessels reportedly cut the cables of Vietnamese oil exploration ships earlier this year, Vietnam welcomed joint naval exercises with U.S. Navy ships along with an already growing number of high-level official exchanges.[25] One could argue that the United States has been able to maintain peace and security in the region precisely because it is able to carefully adjust its security policies towards its allies and security partners.[26] In the case of Taiwan, for instance, the United States has used its influence over Taipei to dissuade any moves towards a declaration of formal independence by withholding or limiting the sale of arms under the Taiwan Relations Act (1979), while also seeking to reduce the ongoing large-scale military build-up on the opposite side of the Taiwan Strait by demonstrating a clear willingness to respond to any use of military force by Beijing.[27] Such examples show that because the U.S. still retains the most political and military influence in East Asia and traditional security concerns remain prevalent in the region,[28] the traditional bilateral alliance system will likely remain the most effective framework for guaranteeing regional stability in the immediate future.

Limitations of the San Francisco System

Notwithstanding the system’s strengths, a number of limitations can be observed. Although the hub-and-spokes approach helps to maintain peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific region, it also only helps maintain the status quo.[29] In the case of China, the security dilemma is self-evident: as the United States and China both adopt purely defensive measures to secure their own respective geostrategic positions, uncertainty and miscommunication could result in each side taking counter-measures that potentially destabilise the region.[30] Efforts by the U.S. to strengthen its regional alliances and to expand its alliance network into South/Southeast Asia, for instance, will almost inevitably incite Chinese fears of encirclement and containment. Similarly, Washington is likely to interpret China’s overt criticism of America’s alliance system as further evidence of hostile behaviour and expansionist tendencies.[31] The fundamental contradiction, therefore, between cooperation and competition implicit within the hedging strategy towards China pervades the wider alliance system. Even if China finds it within its interest to act as a ‘responsible stakeholder’ in strict accordance with the prevailing norms and rules of the international system, Washington’s traditional bilateral alliances provide a somewhat counter-intuitive incentive for further strategic competition.[32]

Although Washington’s traditional bilateral alliance system still provides the most effective and credible method for securing regional stability, it also does little to advance an effective multilateral security framework. Cooperation is often quite limited among America’s allies, most notably between South Korea and Japan, despite each having separately articulated strategic objectives and operational plans with the United States that frequently overlap with each other.[33] In such cases, the potential gains in efficiency are limited due to the absence of greater functional cooperation and confidence-building among allies at the multilateral level. More importantly perhaps, an excessive reliance on bilateral alliances may dilute any additional incentives for the U.S. to play a more active role in creating or securing a new regional security structure in Asia.[34] To be fair, the United States has historically demonstrated a sustained commitment to multilateral cooperation within the region to the extent that it does not undermine its traditional bilateral alliance structure.[35] However, there is a real risk that if Washington is too focused on regional initiatives capable of addressing “nuclear proliferation, territorial disputes, and military competition” as Hilary Clinton identified,[36] it might not take sufficient advantage of the (less ambitious but still important) existing arrangements. As economic difficulties make it increasingly difficult for the United States to act as the sole provider of security as a public good in Asia, greater reliance on regional institutions would allow these costs and responsibilities to be spread more widely.[37]

Towards A Collective Security Framework

In light of the above reasons, there is a clear need to develop a collective security framework that allows for a greater degree of collaboration and cooperation than the San Francisco System can achieve. That is not to argue that a comprehensive security arrangement or NATO-type alliance aimed at responding to a specific threat is necessary for post-Cold War Asia.[38] Rather, a cooperative security arrangement that is “institutionally based, underwritten by mutually agreeable norms and values, and designed to confront effectively the region’s profoundly difficult security challenges”[39] would allow the United States to more effectively accommodate China’s ‘peaceful rise’, while still encouraging greater multilateral collaboration among its allies. Given the number of outstanding disputes within the region and the widespread uncertainty about China’s intentions, as mentioned earlier, it would be unwise for America to abandon its formal alliances in the short to medium term.[40] However, it is equally unwise for Washington to invest all of its resources, credibility, and influence in the traditional bilateral alliance system when it should be encouraging a more purposeful multilateralism that pools the collective efforts of those countries with the greatest capacities for long-term security and stability in the Asia-Pacific region.[41]

In order to be effective, however, there is an obvious need to either rework existing arrangements or use current multilateral institutions differently, in order to move towards a collective security framework in East Asia.[42] Any collective efforts to address security issues will likely work best when they build upon pre-existing patterns of cooperation, consultation and trust.[43] The most obvious of these pre-existing institutions would be the Five Party Talks (the United States, China, Japan, Russia, and South Korea) or an informal inter-governmental arrangement between the Northeast Asian members of ASEAN Plus Three (China, Japan, South Korea) and the United States (hence, the United States Plus Three). Although both may be difficult to manoeuvre, the former given potential opposition from North Korea and the latter in light of ASEAN fears that it will split the security agenda and undermine efforts at creating an ‘East Asian community’, either of these type of arrangements would be ideal for the following reasons.

First, these arrangements reflect that the region’s economic, military, and diplomatic power is overwhelmingly located in Northeast Asia, yet there currently exist no (other) multilateral forum in which the most important potential sources of major conflict – Taiwan, North Korea, the South China Sea, Senkaku/Diaoyutai – are adequately addressed.[44] As mentioned earlier, ASEAN-led initiatives tend to preclude resolving traditional security issues due to an overwhelming adherence to non-interference in each country’s internal affairs. Second, working within existing frameworks would avoid further exacerbating security dilemmas by discouraging potential competition over the creation of regional institutions, as seen in China’s reaction to the proposed U.S.-Japan-Australia-India quadrilateral initiative.[45] If successful, this might also allow for the United States and its allies to shift away from ad-hoc or quasi-multilateral arrangements towards more inclusive arrangements. Third, such efforts would provide a forum for China and the United States to move beyond regarding one another as strategic competitors. This could allow for China to gradually adopt a more prominent leadership role within the regional security architecture, contingent upon its ability to cooperate effectively in reducing security tensions and delivering a measure of stability to the region.

In this regard, the creation of a Northeast Asian security charter might be of use, binding member countries to a set of core security principles and norms that would include mutual respect for national sovereignty, a renewed commitment to resolving territorial disputes peacefully, and an obligation to meet in the event of any security challenges.[46] However, it has been argued that there is currently no basis for a collective security framework in East Asia precisely because America’s bilateral alliances dissuade its allies from security competition, and because there is as of yet no mutually satisfactory resolution to either the Taiwan issue or Korean reunification.[47] Nevertheless, it is equally difficult to imagine how traditional security issues will be resolved, given the predominance of Washington’s bilateral alliance system and the limitations of existing multilateral institutions. It is certainly true that a ‘concert of powers’ arrangement in Northeast Asia may not be immediately feasible or practical insofar as China’s behaviour continues to intermittently threaten the stability of the region and Washington’s allies find little immediate interest in challenging the status quo. However, it is also for this very reason that greater efforts should be made towards a collective security framework: it would not only engender a genuine commitment to move towards greater regional cooperation and trust in the long term, but could also prevent East Asian countries having to eventually choose between aligning themselves with either China or the United States.

Conclusion

Despite being a product of the Cold War period, the San Francisco System remains even today a central component of America’s grand strategy in East Asia. In light of the widespread uncertainty regarding the interests and actions of an increasingly assertive China and the absence of multilateral institutions truly capable of responding to traditional security issues, Washington’s traditional bilateral alliance system continues to play an important role in providing peace and stability to the region. But just how long this can continue is debatable. The United States’ hedging strategy towards China implicitly entails an irreconcilable preference for both competition and cooperation, and an excessive reliance on bilateral alliances only forgoes the benefits to be gained from deeper multilateral collaboration. It may also distract the U.S. from more proactively shaping the regional security architecture to respond to and accommodate the geopolitical changes taking place in East Asia. Although a collective security framework based on mutually agreed norms and values and designed specifically to confront the region’s more difficult security challenges might not be immediately achievable, it is clearly something the United States and its allies should work towards. Such an arrangement would help address many of the limitations and contradictions that are likely to impede the long-term ability of the United States to achieve its political and security objectives in East Asia.

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Kevin Placek is studying a Masters of International Relations degree at the University of Melbourne.

Photo: Flickr user U.S. Pacific Fleet - 100930-N-8273-068 - http://www.flickr.com/photos/compacflt/5039414823/

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^[1] Koga, Kei (2011) “The US and East Asian Regional Security Architecture: Building a Regional Security Nexus on Hub-and-Spoke,” Asian Perspective 35, p. 5.  

^[2] The White House (2010) “National Security Strategy,” Washington, May, p. 42.

^[3] O’Hanlon, Michael E. (2009) “Defense Issues and Asia’s Future Security Architecture,” in Asia’s New Multilateralism: Cooperation, Competition, and the Search for community, ed. Michael J. Green and Bates Gill, New York, Columbia University Press, p. 280.

^[4] Blumenthal, Dan, and Aaron Friedberg (2009) “An American Strategy for Asia,” American Enterprise Institute, January, p. 10.

^[5] Koga, “The US and East Asian Regional Security Architecture,” p. 7.

^[6] Yongtao, Gui (2010) “China-Japan-US Relations and Northeast Asia’s Evolving Security Architecture,” in Getting the Triangle Straight: Managing China-Japan-US Relations, ed. Gerald Curtis et. al, Tokyo, Japan Center for International Exchange, p. 77-80.

^[7] O’Hanlon, “Defense Issues and Asia’s Future Security Architecture,” p. 286-89.

^[8] Fukuyama, Francis (2005) “Re-Envisioning Asia,” Foreign Affairs 84, no. 1, January/February, p. 76.

^[9] Taylor, Brendan and William T. Tow (2009) “Challenges to Building an Effective Asia-Pacific Security Architecture,” in Asia’s New Multilateralism, p. 329-31.

^[10] Cha, Victor D. (2011) “Complex Patchworks: U.S. Alliances as Part of Asia’s Regional Architecture,” Asia Policy, no. 11, p. 41-44.

^[11] Godement, François (2011) “The United States and Asia in 2010,” Asian Survey 51, no. 1, January/February, p. 12-14.

^[12] Christensen, Thomas J. (2011) “The Advantages of an Assertive China: Responding to Beijing’s Abrasive Diplomacy,” Foreign Affairs 90, no. 2, March/April, p. 57-59.

^[13] Ibid.

^[14] Wong, Edward (2011) “China Hedges Over Whether South China Sea Is a ‘Core Interest’ Worth War,” The New York Times, March 30; Wei, Da (2010) “A Clear Signal of ‘Core Interests’ to the World,” China Daily, August 2.

^[15] Yoshihara, Toshi, and James R. Holmes (2011) “Can China Defend a “Core Interest” in the South China Sea?,” The Washington Quarterly 34, no. 2, Spring, p. 46.

^[16] Goh, Evelyn (2007/8) “Great Powers and Hierarchical Order in Southeast Asia Analyzing Regional Security Strategies,” International Security 32, no. 3, Winter, p. 134, 54.

^[17] Friedberg, Aaron L. (2011) “China’s Challenge at Sea,” The New York Times, September.

^[18] Cossa, Ralph A. (2009) “Evolving U.S. Views on Asia’s Future Institutional Architecture,” in Asia’s New Multilateralism, p. 47-48.

^[19] Taylor and Tow, “Challenges to Building an Effective Asia-Pacific Security Architecture,” p. 340-41.

^[20] Acharya, Amitav (2009) “The Strong in the World of the Weak: Southeast Asia in Asia’s Regional Architecture,” in Asia’s New Multilateralism, p. 186.

^[21] Zhao, Suisheng (2009) “Chinese Nationalism and Approaches toward East Asian Regional Cooperation,” Council on Foreign Relations, December, p. 9-10.

^[22] Ibid.

^[23] Cha, Victor D. (2007) “Winning Asia: Washington’s Untold Success Story,” Foreign Affairs 86, no. 6, November/December, p. 107-10.

^[24] Ibid.

^[25] The Associated Press (2011) “Vietnam: U.S. Ships to Join Exercises, Raising Objections from China,” The New York Times, July 15.

^[26] Christensen, Thomas J. (2011) Worse Than A Monolith: Alliance Politics and Problems of Coercive Diplomacy in Asia , Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, p. 242-48.

^[27] Ibid.

^[28] Koga, “The US and East Asian Regional Security Architecture,” p. 2.

^[29] Ibid.: 14-15.

^[30] Friedberg, Aaron L. (2005) “The Future of U.S.-China Relations Is Conflict Inevitable?,” International Security 30, no. 2, Fall, p. 22-24.

^[31] Ibid.

^[32] Yongtao, “China-Japan-US Relations and Northeast Asia’s Evolving Security Architecture,” p. 80-83.

^[33] Auslin, Michael, and Christopher Griffin (2008) “Time for Trilateralism?,” Asian Outlook, no. 2 March, p. 3-4.

^[34] Blumenthal and Friedberg, “An American Strategy for Asia,” p. 23.

^[35] Cossa, Ralph A. (April 2010) “Northeast Asia Regionalism: A (Possible) Means to an End for Washington,” Issues & Insights 10, no. 10, p. 11.

^[36] Clinton, Hillary R. (2010) “Remarks on Regional Architecture in Asia: Principles and Priorities,” Imin Center-Jefferson Hall, Honolulu, Hawaii, January 12.

^[37] Snyder, Scott (2009) “U.S. Domestic Politics and Multilateral Security Cooperation in Northeast Asia,” Council on Foreign Relations, December, p. 7.

^[38] Cossa, “Evolving U.S. Views on Asia’s Future Institutional Architecture,” p. 47-48.

^[39] Taylor and Tow, “Challenges to Building an Effective Asia-Pacific Security Architecture,” p. 341.

^[40] O’Hanlon, “Defense Issues and Asia’s Future Security Architecture,” p. 296-97.

^[41] Feigenbaum, Evan A., and Robert A. Manning (2009) “The United States in the New Asia,” Council Special Report no. 50, Council on Foreign Relations, November, p. 3-4.

^[42] O’Hanlon, “Defense Issues and Asia’s Future Security Architecture,” p. 301-02.

^[43] Cha, “Complex Patchworks: U.S. Alliances as Part of Asia’s Regional Architecture,” p. 41-44.

^[44] Feigenbaum and Manning, “The United States in the New Asia,” p. 5, 9.

^[45] Cha, “Complex Patchworks,” p. 33-35.

_[46] ______, “Winning Asia: Washington’s Untold Success Story,” p. 113.

^[47] Feigenbaum and Manning, “The United States in the New Asia,” p. 117-18.