“I said to the German Ambassador that, as long as there was only a
dispute between Austria and Serbia alone, I did not feel entitled to intervene,
but that, directly it was a matter between Austria and Russia, it became a
question of the peace of Europe, which concerned us all”.
Sir Edward Grey, British Foreign Secretary, 1914
A trilogy of
tensions
Alphen,
Netherlands. 5 March. Is there a new Serbia in Asia? Three seemingly unrelated
but potentially critical events took place in Asia this past week, the world’s
new cockpit of Realpolitik. First,
south Asia’s two nuclear powers, India and Pakistan, exchanged fire and
fatalities over disputed Jammu-Kashmir. Second, the second nuclear disarmament
for sanctions relief summit between US President Donald J. Trump and North
Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jung-un collapsed. Third, on Friday last, US
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo assured the Philippines that if Manila’s forces
were attacked in the South China Sea American forces would come to their aid
under the 1951 US-Philippines Mutual Defence Treaty.
The dispute
over the status of Jammu-Kashmir is not merely between India and Pakistan.
China also occupies part of Kashmir following its victory in the 1962
Sino-Indian War and the establishment of a so-called Line of Actual
Control. China also acts as the
benefactor and de facto guarantor of Pakistan.
Since independence from Britain in 1947 and partition India and Pakistan
have fought four wars in 1947, 1965, 1971 and 1999. Relations between the two
powers remains tense, even if on this occasion both Islamabad and New Delhi
seem to have chosen to de-escalate the crisis. However, given New Delhi’s
concerns about what it regards as terrorist training camps in Pakistani-held
territory the threat of war remains.
The
implications of the failure of the US-North Korean summit in Hanoi are yet to
be understood. The distance between the two sides was evident. Pyongyang
appeared to want complete sanction relief for partial disarmament. The
Americans would only offer linkage between sanctions relief and disarmament. Supreme
Leader Kim Jung-un clearly has no intention of scrapping his current nuclear
programme. After talking with Beijing Pyongyang will be deciding this week
whether to seek renewed high-level talks with the Americans (lower level talks
will continue) or return to a policy of de facto nuclear blackmail of South
Korea and a stand-off with the Americans.
Then there is
the South China Sea. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was unequivocal during a
visit to Manila last Friday, “China’s island-building activities in the South
China Sea threaten your (Philippines) sovereignty, security and economic
livelihood as well as the United States”. He went on to say that in the event
Chinese forces attack Philippine forces the US would intervene militarily in
support of the latter. The specific source of friction between China and the
Philippines concerns the so-called ‘Nine-Dash Line’, a zone of self-declared
Chinese sovereignty over much of the South China Sea plus unrecognised Chinese claim
over all the islands and reefs therein.
In July 2016, China effectively lost a case brought before the UN by the
Philippines known as South China Sea Arbitration, although Beijing has consistently
refused to recognise the decision demanding instead such disputes are resolved
bilaterally. In other words, divide and rule.
In recent
years China has militarised a string of islands and reefs around the perimeter
South China Sea to enforce its claim for an Exclusive Economic Zone or EEZ
which covers much of region. With the Americans determined to enforce freedom
of navigation and China seemingly set on at some point closing the Sea to
outsiders the scene is being set for possibly the world’s first truly systemic
confrontation.
Asian
Realpolitik
In his
masterpiece Diplomacy Henry Kissinger
wrote, “By 1890, the concept of balance of power had reached the end of its
potential. It had been made necessary in the first place by the multitude of
states emerging from the ashes of of medieval aspirations to universal empire.
In the eighteenth century, its corollary of raison
d’etat had led to frequent wars whose primary function was to prevent the
emergence of a dominant power and the resurrection of a European empire. The
balance of power had preserved the liberties of states, not the peace of
Europe”. For nineteenth century Europe read twenty-first century Asia. European
communitarians might not like it but it is Chinese Machtpolitik and Realpolitik
in Asia (or what the Americans now call the Indo-Pacific) that is defining the
strategic map of both its region and the wider world.
Chinese power
is fast becoming a defining force that itself forces all other powers to react
to it, most notably the United States. Chinese power comes in many forms, not
just military. Beijing’s use of debt diplomacy in Europe is already beginning
to warp the strategic decisions of several European states in which China is
‘investing’ thus undermining the cohesion of NATO and the EU.
The broader
danger is that Asia is fast becoming to resemble pre-World War One Europe as it
divides between China and US-backed states with India a kind of freelancing
power within the broad orb a new ‘West’ that is defined not by place but by ideas.
This division is something I witnessed a few years ago during a visit to
Pakistan when I was briefed by their Inter-Services Intelligence. The closeness
between Beijing and Islamabad was already evident. In much the same way that
Europe divided into blocs around Imperial Germany, on the one hand, and
Britain, France and Russia, on the other, Asia is today a monument to the
enduring nature of balance of power politics. As in the Europe of old the
balance of power can be maintained for an extended period and, for the moment
at least, China seems to want to do precisely that, albeit insisting on
bilateral solutions to conflicts that are mainly of its own creation and to its
advantage. History suggests sooner or later such balance will collapse and with
it the peace of much of Asia, and quite possibly the world beyond.
China, power
and the rules-based order
Europe? If
Europeans really do want to help convince China to return to a rules-based
order they must invest in the real power that must underpin real rules.
Europeans must also help keep America strong where she needs to be strong. In
other words, like it or not, Europeans must invest in the global balance of
power even as they work to reform and uphold the rules-based global order. That
starts with an end to European strategic pretence and a proper commitment to
regenerate NATO in Europe’s own strategic neighbourhood. It also means the end
to empty European gestures. For example, the British have ‘threatened’ to send
one of their two new aircraft carriers to the South China Sea (even as rumours
persist that they will mothball the the other one) as a ‘gesture’ of solidarity
with the Americans. It is an empty gesture by a hollow power and the Chinese
know it.
The policy
aim? To convince the Chinese to obey rules Beijing is today leveraging to its
advantage by their persistent flouting. China is not the strategic spoiler that
is Putin’s Russia. Beijing is, rather, a strange mix of nationalist power
adolescent and sophisticated actor. Which direction China finally settles on is
still up for grabs. Whilst that issue is being settled in Beijing Chinese
assertiveness must be held in check by US-led power and further checks on
Chinese attempts to buy acquiescence, not least in Europe. In parallel, there
must be ongoing engagement with Beijing to convince it that Chinese interests
in the bipolar world it is now creating will be best served by a China that
invests in global norms for peaceful international relations.
The Chinese
century?
The danger
China poses is the implicit presumption behind much of contemporary Chinese
foreign and security policy that the twenty-first century will be shaped on
Chinese terms. Whilst it is couched in the language of maintaining peace and stability
much of the tone of such policy is ‘peace’ and ‘stability’ on Chinese terms.
There is also a Chinese assumption of a coming confrontation with the United
States, but only when the correlation of forces are so in China’s favour, and
at a time and place of China’s choosing, that Chinese power alone, and with it
the humiliation in Asia of the United States, will be the best guarantor of
peace. A Chinese world order? What is really spooky for those of us versed in
the strategic literature of the European century is how strikingly similar such
presumptions and assumptions of ‘inevitable’ Chinese superiority and dominance
are to their nineteenth century nationalist counterparts in Europe.
The lamps are
going out?
On the eve of
World War One a despairing Sir Edward Grey wrote, “The lamps are going out all
over Europe; we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime”. There is now a
growing possibility that the lamps will go out in Asia and if they do much of
the rest of the world. World War One was triggered by a regional dispute
between Austria-Hungary and Serbia. The system of blocs and alliances that had
formed in Europe prior to 1914 were meant to prevent a wider systemic war. In
the end they helped precipitate it. This
begs two questions; is there a new Serbia in Asia, and if so where?
Julian
Lindley-French
