As US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice completed her first official visit to Indonesia as the US' top diplomat last week, the issue of regaining US influence in the region in response to China's perceived inroads in the last few years was very much the focus of media analyses.
Indeed, the conventional wisdom is that ever since the 1997 Asian financial crisis, Beijing has made significant gains in a region that only a few years before had harbored strong suspicion of Chinese intentions and ambitions, which had been amply demonstrated by the construction of a "fishermens' shelter" on Mischief Reef in the South China Sea, and the People's Liberation Army's missile exercises adjacent to Taiwan. The "China threat" was then a real concern.
What a difference a decade has made. Beijing's leadership has since put forward its New Security Concept and become an active participant in the region's only multilateral security arrangement -- the ASEAN Regional Forum. ASEAN was something that China had shunned in the early 1990s, considering it a thinly veiled attempt by the region's states to gang up against it.
Not only has China embraced ASEAN's multilateralism, but Beijing now actively promotes its virtues as a preferred alternative for a regional security architecture, replacing the US-led bilateral military alliances it considers relics of the Cold War era.
Beijing has also significantly softened its approaches to territorial disputes by signing a declaration on the code of conduct in the South China Sea that commits it, in principle at least, to a peaceful resolution of the issue. It has also acceded to the ASEAN Treaty of Amity and Cooperation, the first major power to do so, effectively accepting the organization's principles of respect for sovereignty, non-interference in domestic affairs and the code of consensus in reaching decisions.
At least as important as the political gains that China has secured are the increasing economic ties between it and its Southeast Asian neighbors. Bilateral trade has been growing at 20 percent per year over the last decade and is now worth more than US$100 billion annually.
There is also growing economic interdependence and major initiatives such as the Mekong River Project further promote economic cooperation. Even greater economic integration is projected with the signing of the China-ASEAN free trade area agreement planned for some time between 2010 and 2015.
These are all significant achievements. But they are not necessarily at the US' expense. The US remains the major market and the source of investment and technology transfers for both China and ASEAN. Indeed, in all economic indicators, the US remains unsurpassed, while China and ASEAN, respectively, rank fifth as each other's major trading partners.
Even in the politico-diplomatic arena where Washington seems to have lost ground, the reversal may be more apparent than real. Indeed, US influence remains strong and deep rooted, as are its institutional arrangements with the region in terms of alliances, base access and visiting forces agreements. Such ties are both historical and deliberate hedging strategies that ASEAN member states have adopted in securing their own vital interests in a region that is drawing growing attention from major powers -- both because of its strategic location in the path of vital sea lanes and due to its rising importance in the global war on terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
But Washington does need to be more proactive and go beyond the rhetoric in truly recognizing ASEAN's critical place in US foreign policy.
Specifically, it needs to change its current approach. First, it should treat ASEAN as an important multilateral organization and de-emphasize its distinctly bilateral approach. This requires a positive attitude toward multilateralism and greater patience in accepting the "ASEAN way" of gradualism, consensus and non-confrontational ways of settling disputes. The multilateral approach is equally applicable in developing and expanding US-ASEAN economic ties.
Second, the Washington should avoid seeing Southeast Asian diplomacy as a zero-sum game in which Beijing's gains must been seen as the US' loss. China certainly does not have the capability to develop its own Monroe Doctrine in Southeast Asia. It is therefore particularly unhelpful, and indeed could be highly counter-productive, to present ASEAN member states with a choice between the US and China -- a choice that they would find very difficult to make. Most of all, the US should be aware that it can be quite embarrassing for Southeast Asian countries when US officials publicly chastise China on their turf.
Third, the US needs to learn to apply non-military, non-confrontational means to address the challenges that the region is facing: fragile democracy, lack of good governance and accountability, uneven distribution of wealth and poverty, and other social problems that could provide fertile ground for ethnic and religious intolerance and terrorist activities. Indeed, US responses to the tsunami disaster last year have won widespread good will in the region. On the other hand, too much emphasis on preemption, penchant for unilateralism and threat of force only heighten concerns among Southeast Asian states and could fan anti-US sentiments.
Perhaps the US should start by taking a page from Beijing's book of charm diplomacy. This should be something that is easily achieved and at a relatively low cost. Washington should make better use of its forgotten ability to exert soft power.
Yuan Jing-dong is research director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies, and associate professor of international policy studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies.
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