[Peace-discuss] The Collapse of the East Asian Order

[David Green]

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<https://www.counterpunch.org> -*The Collapse of the East Asian OrderPosted
By John Feffer On September 24, 2019 @ 1:58 am In articles 2015 | Comments
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Photograph Source: Man Ng – CC BY 2.0
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The United States is losing its status as a Pacific power. It can no longer
control developments in East Asia. It still maintains a large military
footprint in the region. But that military presence no longer translates
into an ability to achieve the outcomes that Washington wants.

For better or worse, the post-World War II order in East Asia is coming to
an end.

China has become the dominant economic player in East Asia, and it’s
acquiring a military commensurate with its economic strength. Japan has
been breaking out of the restraints of its “peace constitution” to build up
its own military power. South Korea recently canceled its
intelligence-sharing agreement with Japan, a cornerstone of the trilateral
cooperation that Washington has urged on its two East Asian allies.

In a last-ditch effort, the Obama administration tried with its much-hyped
Pacific pivot to reinsert the United States into the economic and security
environment of East Asia. But the pivot didn’t happen. The U.S. military
remained enmeshed in the conflicts of the greater Middle East. And the
Trump administration immediately canceled U.S. participation in the
Trans-Pacific Partnership, the free-trade agreement that was supposed to
hitch the United States to the powerful economies of the east.

Donald Trump has further hastened the end of the post-war order with his
pursuit of three primary goals in East Asia. He initiated a trade war with
China to force the country to accede to U.S. demands regarding market
access and other features of the Chinese economy. Beijing has not backed
down.

Trump’s second imperative is to press U.S. allies to pay more for hosting
U.S. troops. In early 2019, the United States and South Korea signed a
one-year agreement – rather than the usual five-year agreement – in which
Seoul agreed to raise its contribution by around 8 percent.  Last month, a
new round of negotiations began. On his visit to Korea in August, National
Security Advisor John Bolton reportedly demanded
<http://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/news/article/Article.aspx?aid=3066111>
that
Korea up its contributions to an astonishing $5 billion a year, a
quintupling of the current amount.

Meanwhile, Trump is pushing the Abe government to increase military
spending, in part to pay more for U.S. troops at bases in Japan but also
for Tokyo to buy even more high-priced U.S. weapons.

Finally, Trump wants a deal with North Korea. But such a deal is not
connected to any larger East Asian purpose. Trump simply wants to
demonstrate that he can achieve something that his predecessors couldn’t.

None of these goals – confronting China, more allied burdensharing, a deal
with North Korea – is new. All three policies have roots that go back to
the 1990s. But Trump is taking more risks to achieve these goals. He is
also paying little attention to the potentially high price of his actions.

The economic relationship between Beijing and Washington, for instance, may
not recover, as China looks for other sources of key imports like soybeans
and other markets for its exports. South Korea is not happy about the
increased monetary demands from the United States. One recent sign of that
unhappiness was the Blue House’s desire to expedite the return of 26 U.S.
military bases to Korea.

And Trump’s on-again, off-again approach to North Korea has also
complicated relations between Washington and Seoul. The cancellation of
joint exercises has reduced military cooperation while the lack of
sanctions relief for Pyongyang has blocked greater economic cooperation
between north and south.

The United States always billed itself as a stabilizing influence in East
Asia. In a region beset by longstanding rivalries, the United States
intended to contain Japan by restricting it to a largely defensive military
posture. Washington also worked hard to align the policies of Japan and
South Korea, despite the unresolved territorial and historical disputes
between the two countries. The U.S. military presence in the region was
designed to prevent the rise of another hegemon.

The U.S. military remains in the region, but it no longer fulfills those
goals. So, for instance, a

full-blown arms race is taking place in the region. Xi Jinping, determined
to build a world-class military, will increase Chinese military spending by 7.5
percent
<https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-05/china-s-military-spending-slows-as-economy-cools>
next
year. Combined with close trade relationships with the region, this
improved military capacity means that China has emerged as precisely the
hegemonic power that U.S. policy was intended to prevent.

Meanwhile, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures>,
South Korea is now the tenth biggest military spender in the world, with
Japan at number nine and China number two. Under Moon Jae-in, an otherwise
progressive leader, South Korea increased its military budget by 8.2
percent in 2019, the largest increase since 2008
<https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/rok/budget.htm>, and plans
increases of over 7 percent
<http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/905879.html> for
2020-2024.

Under Shinzo Abe, Japanese military spending has increased by 13 percent
since 2013. With the military budget likely to set a new record next year
<https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2019/08/30/purchases-of-american-weapons-drive-japans-defense-spending-hike/>,
Japan is devoting a huge chunk of expenditures on U.S. weapons systems,
like six new F35b, which each costs more than $130 million.

The United States, too, is increasing its military budget. But Trump seems
determined to draw down U.S. forces overseas. The current burdensharing
disputes may lead to a reduction of U.S. forces in Japan and South Korea.

True, the East Asian order that the United States helped build after World
War II was not peaceful. It was founded on two wars – the Korean War and
the Vietnam War. It relied on hundreds of military bases that increased the
amount of violence in the host communities. It maintained a Cold War divide
that is still strong and still justifies enormous outlays on the military.

But this order, for all of its obvious flaws, managed to keep a lid on the
worst excesses of nationalism (just as the internationalist Communist order
attempted to do the same on the other side of the Cold War divide).

The waning of U.S. influence in the region coincides with a powerful
resurgence in nationalism. The most obvious example is Japan, where what
had once been extremist views on Japan’s wartime conduct are now, thanks to
Shinzo Abe, in the very mainstream. China, too, has become a much more
explicitly nationalist country under Xi Jinping. South Korean nationalism
has largely been subsumed under the project of reunification. A case in
point is Moon Jae-in’s assertion
<https://www.ctvnews.ca/business/moon-calls-for-peace-economy-with-north-korea-slams-japan-1.4536947>
last
month that a united North and South Korean economy could leapfrog over
Japan in “one burst.”

Donald Trump’s “America first” policies are perhaps the most explicitly
nationalistic of them all. There wasn’t much any president could do to
prevent the loss of U.S. power in the Pacific. But Trump’s approach has
kindled nationalism and accelerated the arms race in the region.

As with Europe, U.S. withdrawal from Asia could have been accompanied by a
strengthening of regional institutions of peace and cooperation. Instead,
the collapse of the East Asian order has generated increased rivalry and
conflict. Europe has largely transcended its twentieth-century history of
war. Thanks in part to the short-sighted policies of the United States,
East Asia is on the verge of repeating some very unfortunate history.

*This article first appeared in Hankyoreh
<http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_editorial/909529.html>.*

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