The Troubled Triangle

Economic and Security Concerns for The United States, Japan, and China

T. Inoguchi, G. Ikenberry, T. Inoguchi, G. Ikenberry

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781137316851
• Topic: Política y relaciones internacionales
• Subtopic: Relaciones internacionales

The US, China, and Japan form a 'troubled triangle, ' with each country negotiating its foreign policy toward the other two in response to economic and security pressures that operate as an interrelated duality. Written by international relations experts, this book examines how the three countries respond to this set of pressures and to each other.

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East Asia and Liberal International Order: Hegemony, Balance, and Consent in the Shaping of East Asian Regional Order*

G. John Ikenberry

Introduction

For over half a century, the United States has played a role in shaping order in East Asia. This East Asian order has been organized around “hard” bilateral security ties and “soft” multilateral groupings and American military and economic dominance, anchored in the US system of alliances with Japan, South Korea, and other partners across Asia. Over the decades, the United States found itself playing a hegemonic role in the region—providing security, underwriting stability, promoting open markets, and fostering alliance and political partnerships. In the background, the United States exported security and imported goods. Stability, prosperity, and security took hold. Today, this old order is giving way to something new, transformed by the rise of China, the shifting position of the United States, the normalization of Japan, the crisis on the Korean peninsula, and the emergence of old-style rivalry for great power and security competition.

How will this power transition in Asia and the global system work its way out? What sort of regional order—and global order—is likely to emerge? What are the sources of continuity and stability that will help shape the flow of change? What are the sources of conflict and instability? Will China and the United States find themselves increasingly in grand conflict, competing for allies, influence, and leadership? To what extent will American hegemonic leadership and its longstanding system of alliances and regional partnerships remain critical to the shape and stability of Asia? What can the United States and other countries do to shape and direct the way India and China rise up in the global system?

The “old order” in Asia was a partially hegemonic system organized around American-led bilateral alliances. It was partial in the sense that China was largely outside this hub-and-spoke system. It was a hierarchical order that connected the United States to the region. It was built around security and political and economic bargains. Of course, this old set of arrangements is not disappearing, but the region is expanding and more complex relations are emerging. Paradoxically, there is both more growth in multilateral cooperation across the region and new signs of balance of power politics.

In this new regional order, the United States will not exercise hegemony as it has in the past. At the same time, however, the future will not be a simple story of China rising up and pushing the United States out. The opposite is more likely. The rise of China is actually serving to draw the United States into the region in new ways—particularly Southeast Asia. The recent American entrance into the Asian Summit and the closer ties between ASEAN and the United States on issues relating to the South China Sea reflect this growing American involvement.¹ At the same time, East Asia is increasingly divided between its two spheres—economics and security. China is the dominant economic power in the region while the United States is the dominant security power. How these divergent spheres interact will also help shape the long-term character of the region.

In this chapter, I seek to identify these various aspects of East Asia’s evolving regional order and America’s role in it. I do so in several steps. First, I look at the alternative logics of regional and global order. Order can be organized around three mechanisms—balance, command, and consent. The resulting orders—at least as ideal types—have different sources of stable relations. Balance of power systems are based on a stable equilibrium of power. Command systems are based on hierarchical relations of leaders and followers. Consent-based systems are based on consensual rules and institutions. We can chart the pathway of East Asian regional order by focusing on the changing mix of these ideal-typical features of order.

Second, I explore the logic of the “old” regional order, organized around American-led hegemonic leadership. This old order has proved to be—perhaps surprisingly—a quite stable and mutually agreeable regional system. The US-led alliance system has done more “work” within the region than is often recognized. The bilateral array of alliances has provided security to states and dampened security dilemmas within the region. It has also provided political architecture that has facilitated consultation and cooperation and a framework around which the United States and other countries in the region can engage in continuous diplomatic exchange and cooperation. This framework has facilitated trade expansion, economic growth, political liberalization, and democratic transitions. The ability of this American-led alliance system to foster cooperation and progressive change has created constituencies that seek to preserve aspects of it, even in the face of power transitions and regional integration.

Third, I sketch alternative regional futures. One possibility is the emergence of a multipolar balance of power system. This is a future where a great power order emerges. China, India, Russia, Japan, and the United States become both more equal and more independent as geopolitical players. A second possibility is the rise of an autocratic-democratic divide. Here the United States builds a coalition of democracies and China and Russia leads a rival coalition that divides Asia. Third, there is the possibility of a China-American cohegemony. Here the United States and China share leadership in the region and build a stable working system. Finally, there is the possibility of the continuation of American security hegemony and alliance cooperation. This is a future in which the changes in the region are mediated and accommodated within the old regional framework. India integrates into this order and China accommodates itself to it. In each of these possibilities there are both more or less conflict-prone variations. A grand transition from order built on hegemony to order built on the balance of power can involve the movement from one equilibrium point to another. Or it can lead to a breakdown of norms and understandings of great power cooperation, ushering in rivalry, arms competition, and instability.

Regarding these alternative futures, a great deal depends on whether the American-led alliance system continues to play a dominant role as a framework for security cooperation in the region. Will that alliance system be extended, updated, and integrated with other transregional security groupings, or will it gradually erode and give way to a more traditional great power system? The future also depends on China and how it adopts strategies for its peaceful rise. The danger for China is that as its power increases it will trigger a balancing response from the United States and other countries in the region. This is the problem of self-encirclement. Will China come to believe that its engagement and integration into regional and global institutions are necessary for its peaceful rise? Will it see the old American-led institutions as an impingement on its rise and influence or as tools for signaling restraint and accommodation? In this sense, the United States and China both hold the keys to the future. A more free-wheeling balance of power system does seem to be emerging in the region. If the region is to become defined in terms of great power relations—China, India, Japan, Russia, and the United States—will it evolve into a cooperative concert of powers or be marked by the traditional patterns of competition and rivalry?

In this chapter, I argue that there are aspects of all four of these potential “futures” unfolding in the region. But I am skeptical that the region will take on the classic patterns of a power transition. To be sure, the region is evolving toward a more decentralized and shifting great power system. China, India, Japan, and other middle powers in the region will increasingly become regional players in their own right. But this order will also retain traces of the logic and character of the American-led global system. Security competition and conflict associated with the ongoing power transitions is not inevitable. This is because of three reasons. First, the old American-led order—at the regional and global level—is still a formidable presence. China is still dwarfed by the scale and scope of the American security order and the liberal capitalist system. Rising states in Asia still have reasons to engage and integrate into this order. Second, the old order has both realist-oriented and liberal-oriented institutions and practices that make it possible for great powers to operate in more cooperative ways than in the danger old days of great power balancing and security competition. Third, possibilities for great power cooperation are also reinforced by the unusually large array of strategic interests that these states share, including the United States and China. Fourth, the countries in the region do not want a Cold War–style struggle between democracies and authoritarian states.

Overall, my argument is that power shifts and full-blown power transitions do not necessarily lead to the collapse and transformation of regional and international order. In the past, regional and international orders have risen and fallen in the wake of great power war. This prospect does not exist today, not only because of nuclear deterrence, but also the primacy of the liberal democracies and world capitalist system. So there will be an evolution in the order and not sharp discontinuities. This is good for stability and peace.

Logics of International and Regional Order

East Asia is an order in transition, but how do we describe the logic and features of regional order—old and new? We can start by discussing what precisely we mean by order, regional or international. After this, we can identify more specifically the mechanisms that allow states to establish stable, ordered relations. For these considerations, we can make some general observations the salient features of order in East Asia.²

International order refers to the settled arrangements between states that define and guide their interaction. Order exists in the patterned relations between states. States operate according to a set of organizational principles that define roles and the terms of their interaction.³ It is manifest in the rules and institutions that embody and guide interstate relations. Order breaks down or enters into crisis when the settled rules and arrangements are thrown into dispute or when the forces that perpetuate order no longer operate. Order is established—or reestablished—when rules and settled expectations fall into place once again.

International orders come in many sizes and forms. Some orders are regional, others global; some are independent of an international order, others fall within its parameters; some are highly institutionalized or hierarchical, others are not; and power distribution can be centralized or decentralized. All these factors can distinguish international orders and provide a means of comparison. Some of these attributes are evident in the two selected regions of comparison: Europe and Asia. The European order when featured against the Asian order is more institutionalized but less hierarchical in its security arrangement with the United States. Power distribution, another distinguishing quality of international orders, can exhibit different “poles” of power, that is, multipolar, bipolar, or unipolar.

Another useful comparison of types of international or regional order is how the order maintains stability. Three different mechanisms—balance, command, or consent—or a combination of these three can establish and maintain an order. Different times and places have called forth a particular mechanism or logic.

An order maintained by balance promotes an equilibrium of power among major states. An order characterized by balance has no single dominant state. States seek power, build alliances, and make decisions to block other states from gathering too much power. In other words, it is a stalemate of power. By ensuring that power remains somewhat evenly distributed among states, an international order of stability is created. Historical examples of balance of power include eighteenth-century Europe; post-Congress of Vienna in Europe in 1815; and bipolar balance of power during the Cold War. Distinctive to each example is the equilibrium of power among states and the resulting order. In each instance, counterbalancing poles of power among key states or coalitions of states limited and controlled the action of the other.

Command-based order is hierarchical in nature and is enforced by a powerful state through coercion or some degree of bargaining and reciprocity. Dominance by a single state creates superordinate and subordinate positions for the integration of other states. History and the modern world are full of examples of great empires that employed various strategies of rule to impose hierarchical orders. International orders of late, the British- and US-led global orders, used a combination of imperial and liberal qualities to enforce their hierarchical order.

The third organizing mechanism for an international order is consent-based. The rules and institutions used to embody this arrangement provide a framework for international relations that places limits on power and outlines state rights. State power is not eliminated, but it is harnessed. Strong states and weaker states still exist in this order. The critical difference is that the agreements between states are reciprocal and negotiated and, more importantly, are supported and enforced by agreed-upon institutions. The British- and US-led liberal orders forge consent in key areas to construct authoritative arrangements. The regional order of the European Union (EU) takes a similar consensual approach.

In describing and comparing orders, it is useful to make a distinction between the distribution of power and the character of the political formation that exists “on top” of the distribution of power. The distribution of material capabilities may be highly centralized or dispersed. The global system may be unipolar or multipolar, but these characteristics of the distribution of power do not, in as of themselves, tell us about the character of the “political formation” that exists between states. A unipolar system of power can be more or less based on coercive hierarchical relations, and a multipolar system of power can be more or less based on cooperative ties among the leading states.

In the case of East Asia, the regional order has been based on a mix of these mechanisms. As we will note in the next section, the defining feature of the “old” regional order has been a partially hegemonic one, organized around American-led bilateral security alliances. The United Stat...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Figures and Tables
• Preface
• Introduction The Troubled Triangle: Economic and Security Concerns for the United States, Japan, and China
• 1   East Asia and Liberal International Order: Hegemony, Balance, and Consent in the Shaping of East Asian Regional Order
• 2   Japan’s Foreign Policy Line after the Cold War
• 3   Peaceful Rise, Multipolarity, and China’s Foreign Policy Line
• 4   Japan’s US Policy under DPJ and Its Domestic Background: Still Recovering from the Unarticulated “Changes”
• 5   China’s US Policy and Its Domestic Background
• 6   Sibling Rivalry? Domestic Politics and the US-Japan Alliance
• 7   China’s Japan Policy and Its Domestic Background
• 8   Japan, China, Russia, and the American “Pivot”: A Triangular Analysis
• 9   Japanese Policy toward China
• Bibliography
• Notes on Contributors
• Index