Posted By Daniel W. Drezner
Monday, November 21, 2011 - 1:40 PM
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Walter Russell Mead has not been the biggest fan of the current president, so it's worth quoting at length what he said in a recent blog post about Obama's Pacific Rim trip:
The cascade of statements, deployments, agreements and announcements from the United States and its regional associates in the last week has to be one of the most unpleasant shocks for China’s leadership — ever. The US is moving forces to Australia, Australia is selling uranium to India, Japan is stepping up military actions and coordinating more closely with the Philippines and Vietnam in the South China Sea, Myanmar is slipping out of China’s column and seeking to reintegrate itself into the region, Indonesia and the Philippines are deepening military ties with the the US: and all that in just one week. If that wasn’t enough, a critical mass of the region’s countries have agreed to work out a new trade group that does not include China, while the US, to applause, has proposed that China’s territorial disputes with its neighbors be settled at a forum like the East Asia Summit — rather than in the bilateral talks with its smaller, weaker neighbors that China prefers.
Rarely has a great power been so provoked and affronted. Rarely have so many red lines been crossed. Rarely has so much face been lost, so fast. It was a surprise diplomatic attack, aimed at reversing a decade of chit chat about American decline and disinterest in Asia, aimed also at nipping the myth of “China’s inexorable rise” in the bud....
[I]t was as decisive a diplomatic victory as anyone is likely to see. Congratulations should go to President Obama and his national security team. The State Department, the Department of Defense and the White House have clearly been working effectively together on an intensive and complex strategy. They avoided leaks, they coordinated effectively with half a dozen countries, they deployed a range of instruments of power. In the field of foreign policy, this was a coming of age of the Obama administration and it was conceived and executed about as flawlessly as these things ever can be.
You know it was a good foreign policy trip when Politico runs the "Obama will soon miss his foreign policy successes as he returns to the Washington mire" storyline upon his return.
The standard line among the press and expert analysts is that the combination of speeches and actions represents a dramatic foreign policy "pivot" to East Asia. This elides some prior speeches that suggested this was under way for some time, but still -- what does it mean?
I'd suggest three things. First, it's an interesting moment to highlight some macro trends that are relatively favorable to the United States. In comparison to, say, China or Europe, the United States looks to be in decent shape. Over the longer term, trends in both energy and manufacturing suggest that the United States will continue a time-honored tradition and emerge from a crisis of its own making in a stronger relative position than before. If the administration is smart, it will marry its recent successes to these longer-term trends as a way of constructing a more optimistic strategic narrative.
Second, China is likely to pursue a more accommodating posture in the short run. As Mead notes, the official Chinese reaction has been muted. The unofficial reaction has ranged from the hyperbolic to the inscrutable. Still, as I've pointed out repeatedly, China's behavior in 2009 and 2010 was a giant honking invitation for the rest of the Pacific Rim to cozy up to the United States. And that's what should worry Beijing. It's not that the United States is interested in maintaining its presence in East Asia -- that interest has not wavered. What has changed is the eagerness with which the countries in the region, ranging from Australia to Myanmar, have reciprocated.
Third, while the Obama administration deserves credit for this foreign policy swing -- and for some fun, compare and contrast coverage of this trip with Obama's Pac Rim swing from two years ago -- the "pivot" language is badly misplaced. A pivot implies that the United States will stop paying attention to Europe or the Middle East and start paying attention to East Asia. While I'm sure that's what the Obama administration wants to do, it can't. Europe is imploding, as are multiple countries in the Middle East. The United States can't afford to ignore these regions, since uncertainty there eventually translates into both global and domestic problems. A European financial meltdown or an Egyptian political meltdown will have ramifications that simply can't be ignored.
Talking about a United States "pivot" in foreign policy is meaningless. The US, like an overstuffed couch, is simply too big to pivot.
What do you think?
I think most intelligent people would agree that Obama's foreign policy is orders of magnitude better than the previous administration's, and assuming Europe does not drag us all into the abyss, the trend is clear that it will continue its slide into irelevancy (best case scenario is a long deep recession there, and since Europe only projects influence in two ways, through its finances and through multilateral institutions, this is going to make it very hard for them to have much of a say in the world).
That said, I do not get how otherwise intelligent people could vote for an administration that pursues 1970s economic policies with the same 1970s-type results. I mean Obama could solve Israel/Palestine, India/Pakistan, etc. and you are still voting for an economic return to the Carter years. I don't get it.
How China Can Defeat America by YAN XUETONG (NYT) Nov 20, 2011
"America enjoys much better relations with the rest of the world than China in terms of both quantity and quality. To shape a friendly international environment for its rise, Beijing needs to develop more high-quality diplomatic and military relationships than Washington. No leading power is able to have friendly relations with every country in the world, thus the core of competition between China and the United States will be to see who has more high-quality friends. And in order to achieve that goal, China has to provide higher-quality moral leadership than the United States."
Thank you AlanChristopher for showing me another viewpoint to the events that happened. I like hearing both sides of the story and sadly, the article above only presented one (the one most favorable to us). I had no idea China had taken such huge strides already in becoming a bigger global power...I had just kind of assumed they were quietly building up.
Shawn - Gout Symptoms
Wow, I have wonder why do so many writers on FP complain about China's "nationalism", when US writers are just as nationalistic if not more so when it comes to writing about topics such as China.
Also, I think China's response to all of this is to announce that the Yuan will be made "flexible" once more. US politicians are be fully expected to bash China over "currency manipulation" soon enough.
Denial isn't just a river in Egypt
I think you know more than you're letting on.
I personally think that nationalism is something good as long as it is expressed in normal limits. After all we should have some sense of natinality.
If ever there was such a thing as a pitiful, helpless giant...
I think the whole world is stuck in the mud. The US has done virtually nothing about global warming. The European Union appears to be in the slow implosion mold, and China is quickly heading for total environment disaster.
Other than for that -- everything's peachy keen!
What the commenters are forgetting is that money isn't everything. Great article Drezner.
This year, 2011,according to IMF, China’s normal GDP is 47% of US’ GDP,(73% in PPP terms) while China has already been the largest trade partner of ASEAN countries, Japan and many other countries. Based on Chinese domestic research, China will surpass US in 2017-18 by normal terms (or 2015-16 by PPP terms), while the TPP will enact in 2020, China’s GDP will be 1.3 times of US by normal terms, (1.6 times by PPP), I still cannot see any possibility that US can dominate the regional trade even TPP has a chance to become a reality.
On the other hand, motivated by political reason (especially domestic election reason) rather than economic reason, distort the natural economic inclination, TPP and US’ economic future may be harmed from this move. Drag LDCs like Vietnam and Peru into the TPP discussion but set a very high standard in order to exclude China, is it possible to reach an agreement within TPP members by 2012? I believe that TPP contract stands a very little chance even to be approved by the US congress.
China's GDP per capita is some measly USD $4,000 while in Japan and the United States it's almost USD $40,000. By both Quality of Life and Standard of Living Indices the CCP in Beijing cannot make 1 400 000 000 people rich nor can it make them middle class. In China they haven't ever heard of dishwashing machines. China's a loser freak of nature country from the get-go, along with India with its 1 000 000 000 plus population. China and India with their bizzare population burdens are in a category of their own among the world of nations. The United States is the 3rd most populous country and Indonesia the fourth, but neither comes anywhere near one billion population. China and India are too big to pivot and too huge to move off center in a hundred years.
Stronger Relative Position Than Before
I would like to see the argument for "...emerge ... in a stronger relative position than before.".
The US has serious economic problems and seems to lack the will to address them. This occurs at the same time that the US most important trading partner is in serious problems. Increasing debt, increasing trade deficit and weaker allies does not add up to a stronger relative position.
The only way that the US could grow stronger _relatively_ would be if India and China implodes.
And no the US isn't to big to pivot, just politically dead-locked. Maybe the US needs an extra brain like the big dino's ;)
In response to the Drezner question,
I think it's dopey to appear to threaten China.
I think it's even dopier to rejoice over it.
I think it's dopey to ignore the fact that other nations in the Asia Pacific don't like the American military augmentation in Australia. Indonesia, a close and friendly Australian neighbor, was first to express its disquiet.
I think few Australians other than local small businesspersons close to the base where the Marines will be posted, like the idea much.
I think the plan for Australia is likely a simple waste of money
I think we can't form any sensible views about its merit until we see what else is going to be cut from the defense budget to pay for it.
I think anybody who thinks that China will early forget any perceived insults from any foreigners, is kidding him(her) self. There is a statue in, I think, Shanghai of somebody who supported foreigners nine centuries ago. Modern Chinese, iPads in hand, spit on it daily, just like their forebears.
I think the tone of much of the Drezner piece is like a high school student's enjoyment of a prank.
Nowhere does anyone hold a vengeful gruge better than in the thousands years old culture of China, and no Chinese have ever been better at schemeing vengeance than are the CCP in Beijing. The Chinese have always spat a lot, so your news report from the statue in Shanghai isn't of any significance.
The Chinese have signed bilateral agreements with states in the South China Sea disputes to solve their disputes peacefully, so a new forum will add nothing. China has signed new economic agreements with South Korea, Japan, the Philippines, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, and Chile. In addition, China canoneos already has a free trade area with ASEAN, four of whose members met with Obama at the APEC summit, so Chinese products could enter the US with no tariffs at all.
Daniel W. Drezner is professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.
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