Reluctant guardian: the United States in East Asia.

Charles W. Freeman, jr

SINCE THE END OF THE COLD WAR, only the Asia Pacific region has seemed at peace and relatively free of change. The collapse of multiethnic states and empires has rocked Europe, Eurasia, and Africa. Anarchy and ethnic or religious strife have broken out in the former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, the trans-Caucasus, Liberia, Zaire, Somalia, and Rwanda. The Middle East has seen a brutal Iraqi attempt to annex Kuwait and the end of civic consensus in Algeria. Major changes have taken place in the relationships between Israelis, Palestinians, and other Arabs, and civil society has gradually reemerged in Lebanon. Confrontation with military regimes in Panama and Haiti and a border war between Peru and Ecuador has marked the advent of a new era in Latin America. Many of these situations have occasioned US military intervention or serious consideration of it--either in the name of the United States itself or under the banner of the United Nations.

At the same time, there have been major adjustments in US military spending and personnel levels. As a percentage of GNP, US military spending is now at the level of the mid- to late 1930s. The size of the US armed forces has shrunk to numbers last seen in 1939. Outside the Asia Pacific region, the United States has radically adjusted the pattern of its military deployments. The United States has built up its forces in the Persian Gulf, and the Atlantic Alliance, which France has now rejoined, is expanding eastward through the Partnership for Peace. The United States had withdrawn two-thirds of its forces from Europe by the time it joined the operation in the Balkans, the first military operation in NATO history.

In contrast, with US forces out of the Philippines, the United States seeks no further adjustments in the pattern of Asia Pacific alliances it developed during the Cold War. On the contrary, Washington affirms that the United States will keep the same number of soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen--about 100,000--in the Asia Pacific region that it has stationed there for the past decade or more. Few in Asia are confident that such a US presence will in fact be sustained. Southeast Asians and South Koreans hope that it will be. Increasingly, however, Chinese, and even some Japanese, question whether it should be. They are joined in their skepticism by some US citizens who espouse America-first policies. Others in the United States doubt the relevance of military alliances. Despite the mounting evidence from other regions, these Americans continue to expect the coming decades to be dominated by economic, rather than political or military contention. We must all hope they are right.

Beneath the surface calm, however, the Asia Pacific region is undergoing changes no less profound than those that are transforming other regions. These changes go well beyond the well-publicized economic miracle in the People's Republic of China (PRC) and adjacent areas that is making the region the center of gravity for global trade and investment. They include political and military trends that challenge both the existing strategic balance in the region and the US role in it. A February 1995 paper from the Pentagon's directorate for International Security Affairs defined the role preferred by the United States for its forces in the East Asia. The "United States Security Strategy for the East Asia Pacific Region" envisages maintenance of the existing US alliance structure and military presence "as a foundation of regional stability and a means of promoting American influence on key Asian issues." It posits continued cooperation with Asian allies and friends "to deter potential threats, counter regional aggression, ensure regional peace, monitor attempts at proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and help protect sea lines of communication both within the region and from the region to the Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf." In short, the United States sees its alliances and cooperative engagement with non-allies as enabling it to underwrite the Asia Pacific balance and the peaceful evolution of the status quo while facilitating the nonviolent resolution of disputes within the region.

For this strategy to work, a number of conditions must prevail. First, the US public must be prepared to support an indefinite military presence in the Western Pacific similar to the present commitment. Second, Japan must be prepared to support a continued, substantial US ground, air, and naval presence in Japan and to sustain the division of labor by which Japan's Self-Defense Forces defend their home islands while US forces manage the strategic defense of Japan and its more distant interests. Third, the United States must have a non-hostile relationship with China that includes dialogue and elements of military cooperation.

Also, Southeast Asian nations must continue to conduct military exercises with and afford access to US forces based in Japan and the United States, and the US-Australia alliance must remain close and strong. Major changes in subregions like the Korean peninsula and the Taiwan Strait, which have the potential to overthrow the existing military balance, must take place by peaceful means rather than war. Finally, East Asians must perceive the United States as a wise, reliable, and sympathetic partner in the management of the region's security problems.

Many of these conditions are now being challenged, and the outcome is far from clear. The most significant challenges emanate from domestic factors in the United States, the uncertain evolution of US-Japan relations, and the deteriorating US relationship with China. The United States cannot hope to manage either Korean or Southeast Asian security issues, such as disputes in the South China Sea, if the American people do not support active US military diplomacy in the region, if US-Japan security ties weaken, or if Sino-American suspicion blossoms into hostility.

The Home Front

Public support for a continued US military role in the Western Pacific cannot be taken for granted. Strong leadership will be needed to sustain it. The collapse of the Soviet Union ended any apparent threat to the survival and independence of the United States. Now that these supreme national interests are no longer at stake, the mood in the United States has turned selfish and inward-looking. This is reflected in the collapse of budgets for the traditional instruments of American statecraft--a global diplomatic and consular presence, direct and indirect economic aid to nations of strategic or commercial significance, cultural exchange and other forms of public diplomacy, contributions to international organizations, and subsidized transfers of weapons to allies to raise the threshold at which they must call for US intervention.

US embassies around the world are closing. The US Agency for International Development (AID) and the foreign assistance programs it administers are being drastically downsized and may even be abolished outright. The US Information Agency and its programs face a similar threat. US contributions to the World Bank and other international financial institutions are being cut or eliminated. The United States is now notoriously in arrears in its contributions to the United Nations Organization, and has begun to withdraw from several of the UN's subordinate agencies. US military assistance to allies and friends ended some years ago for all but Israel and its Camp David peace process partner, Egypt. The US public seems increasingly to define the appropriate international role for the United States solely in terms of trade and investment. Americans expect the United States to continue as the world's preeminent political and military power, but no longer seem prepared to pay the bills or sacrifice the lives that this role has traditionally entailed. Even popular issues, like non-proliferation and the environment, can no longer find much support for funding in Congress. More and more of what the United States attempts to do internationally must be done with other peoples' money.

This trend toward US withdrawal from a leading position in world affairs has yet to have much effect on the US presence in the Asia Pacific region, though AID missions are being closed and the diplomatic presence drawn down there as elsewhere. So far, with the exception of an unsuccessful challenge to the home porting of US Navy ships in Japan by West Coast shipyard interests, no real debate about the US military presence in the region has emerged. Nevertheless, with the exception of the long-standing US commitment to the defense of South Korea, the justification for continued US military presence in the Western Pacific is poorly understood and thinly supported by Americans. It remains to be seen whether that presence could withstand serious questioning. A compelling case can be made for continuing US military engagement in the region, but no US leader has yet been stimulated to make it.

The US-Japan Alliance

The cornerstone of the US presence in the Western Pacific, as well as of US power and reach in Asia and adjacent areas, is the US-Japan Alliance. Without Japanese bases and financial support, the United States would be hard pressed to project power in the region, let alone beyond it into the Indian Ocean and Arabian Peninsula theater. Japan's alliance with the United States has precluded any Japanese requirement to develop substantial military forces, power projection capability, or a nuclear deterrent of its own. By furnishing these capabilities to Japan, the United States has made the reemergence of Japan as a potential military rival in Asia unthinkable. It has prevented the possible outbreak of military rivalry and arms races between Japan and China and managed the emotionally charged Japan-Korea security relationship to the benefit of both sides. By maintaining bases in Japan, the United States has gained a relatively secure forward position from which to guarantee peace in Korea and the Taiwan Strait, project an ongoing presence in Southeast Asia, and secure sea lines of communication to the Indian Ocean. The United States has shared the financial burden of doing all this with Japanese taxpayers. The US-Japan alliance has been, and remains, the basis for the status of the United States as the dominant military power in the Western Pacific.

Smaller US forces, a more constrained defense budget, and reduced basing overseas have increased the importance of Japan to the United States. For the Japanese, however, the elimination--at least for the next decade or two--of Russia as an active strategic rival at once raised questions about the value of the US-Japan alliance and the US military presence that it authorizes. With the Soviet Union gone, many Japanese asked what enemy they now needed the United States to help them deter. Neither Americans nor Japanese wished to posit China as such an enemy. (No one in the region believes that containment is a necessary or appropriate response to growing Chinese power or wishes to foster hostility and confrontation between Japan, China, and the United States.) Before Japan's debate could gather steam, however, North Korea's nuclear and missile threat emerged to provide an apparent answer to the question of who might threaten Japan. The threat of attack or intimidation from North Korea has now been adopted officially by Japan as the organizing principle for its defense. Since North Korea, unlike the Soviet Union, cannot invade Japan, Tokyo is reducing the size of the Japanese land forces to reflect the diminished risk of ground combat in the home islands.

The new Japanese focus on the North Korean threat set aside the debate in Japan. North Korea alone, however, does not provide a long-term basis for US-Japan defense cooperation. Under some circumstances, North Korea might pose a direct threat to Japan. In the event of conflict on the Korean peninsula, Pyongyang would wish to deter active Japanese cooperation with Seoul and Washington. It would also wish to deny the United States a secure rear area in Japan from which US forces could act against North Korean forces and targets. Presumably, that is a major motivation for Pyongyang's nuclear and missile programs. By no measure, however, is North Korea as compelling a threat to Japan as the former Soviet Union was. Were Korea to be reunified or North Korea to renounce its nuclear weapons and missile programs, the United States would still wish to maintain forces in Japan. Washington would see this as serving common US and Japanese regional and global interests. Would Tokyo? The rationale for US-Japan security ties needs broadening, redefinition, and renewal. That is why the Pentagon, through former Assistant Secretary Joseph Nye, sought a security dialogue with Tokyo. Nye's sudden departure from office, however, raised doubts in Tokyo about how vigorously his successors will pursue this dialogue.

Meanwhile, the Japanese people's sense of diminished external threat has made them less willing than they once were to tolerate the inevitable frictions that arise from foreign bases and forces on their territory. The end of Liberal Democratic Party dominance in Japanese politics has weakened Tokyo vis-a-vis Japanese local authorities. The trend toward less centralized Japanese politics is likely to accelerate as a new election law, replacing proportional representation with geographic constituencies, takes hold. As local issues assume greater salience in Japanese politics, it will be harder for Tokyo to constrain local resentment and objections to the US military presence and for Washington to finesse complaints from local Japanese communities. The Okinawa child rape case has served to warn Tokyo and Washington of this problem. The incident has galvanized a long overdue dialogue about how to redeploy US forces to minimize friction between them and their Japanese hosts. This process, timely and necessary as it is, is likely to be protracted and contentious. Repeated eruptions in troubled US-Japan trade and investment relations will not ease its management.

US Presence in Korea

US forces in South Korea have been and continue to be an essential deterrent to efforts by the failing North Korean regime to solve its problems by conquering the South. The danger of such an attack is now cresting, as Pyongyang's military capabilities reach their apogee amidst economic bankruptcy and political uncertainty. North Korea cannot sustain its extraordinary burden of war preparations much longer. As its capabilities recede, attention will naturally turn to how to arrange a soft landing for the North Korean regime. Having seen the strain reunification placed on Germany, Koreans hope for a gradual rather than sudden disappearance of the border between North and South.

As long as US forces must deter North Korean attack, they are strategically immobilized. Their departure from the Korean peninsula would risk North Korean adventurism. Such adventurism could also be stimulated by an outbreak of major conflict elsewhere that could delay reinforcement of US forces in Korea. Should the threat from the North disappear, however, Washington and Seoul would have to consider whether to withdraw US forces from Korea.

Some in Seoul argue strongly that US forces should remain even after reunification. They see a continuing US presence as enabling Korea to play a pivotal role in Northeast Asia between China and Japan. They also see utility in a continuing US force presence in Japan to serve as a bridge between the Korean and Japanese military. Many Japanese wish US forces to remain in both countries for the same reason. Others see a continuing US presence in Korea as facilitating a US drawdown in Japan. After reunification, US forces would be available for regional or global missions outside the Korean peninsula. Popular attitudes in Korea are, however, increasingly hostile to the US military presence. Koreans might well prove responsive to a Chinese campaign arguing for US withdrawal, if the Chinese came to see a continuing US presence in Asia as threatening or adverse to China's interests.

The US-Chinese Relationship

Cooperative interaction between the United States and China is essential to any US role as balancer and facilitator in Asia Pacific security matters. How Beijing pursues adjustment of its multiple differences with other Asian capitals--territorial disputes with Japan, the Philippines, Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia, and India; seabed disputes with both Koreas and with Indonesia; and an undefined relationship with the democratically elected Chinese authorities in Taipei--will determine whether Asia remains at peace or drifts toward confrontation. Without an active dialogue with China, the United States cannot play a moderating role in these disputes. Nor can peace, stability, or proliferation issues in Korea and South Asia be easily managed. Asia Pacific transnational issues, such as drug trafficking and illegal migration, also are intractable without Beijing's help. Regional considerations alone furnish ample reason for the United States and China to cooperate. The Sino-US relationship is, however, increasingly troubled.

The collapse of a common enemy, the Soviet Union, at the end of the 1980s destroyed the strategic rationale for US-China relations. As the Washington-Moscow-Beijing strategic triangle vanished into history, so did the mutual tolerance of ideological differences and the patient problem-solving approach that the United States and China had made guiding principles of their relations. The catalytic event was the uprising in Tiananmen Square and the sharp US reaction to its brutal suppression. Since June 4, 1989, the Sino-US relationship has been dominated by US criticism of Chinese human rights practices and Chinese defiance of US efforts to coerce internal change in China through ostracism and economic pressure.

Mutual understanding between the United States and China on matters normally as remote from politics as, for example, the environment, has atrophied along with strategic dialogue. For US politicians, China is no longer "politically correct." For Chinese politicians, the United States is now a bully to be resisted. This atmosphere is not conducive to problem-solving, and differences between Washington and Beijing on issues as varied as territorial disputes, the rules for global trade, technology transfer, investment, and non-proliferation, and the regional balances in South Asia and the Persian Gulf have widened and deepened.

The most dangerous differences between the United States and China are those that have arisen over Taiwan. These differences have their roots in the domestic changes taking place in Taiwan. On the one hand, Taiwan's emergence as a prosperous, modernized, democratic Chinese society has attracted the admiration of many Chinese across the Strait as well as most Americans. Many on the mainland hope that Taiwan's evolution, in which economic liberalization preceded political liberalization, will be repeated in the rest of China. They see the gradual reunification of the two sides of the Taiwan Strait as central to the realization of this hope. On the other hand, Taiwan's politics have come to center on the island's identity crisis. The dream of reunification has steadily lost ground to the vision of a distinct Taiwanese national identity, expressed through Taiwan's achievement of status separate from China or outright independence.

For decades, Taipei sought US support in insisting at the United Nations and elsewhere that there was only one China and only one legitimate Chinese government, that Taiwan was part of China, and that the capital of China was Taipei, not Beijing. Now that Beijing is almost universally acknowledged as the capital of China, Taipei is seeking to enlist the United States in support of the contrary thesis that, whatever China may be, it consists of "two equal political entities" that should be recognized as such by the international community and should enjoy separate seats in the United Nations. Taipei's efforts to separate itself from the "One China" principle through "pragmatic diplomacy" have already generated serious friction between Beijing and Washington. Taiwanese separatist impulses now risk military action by Beijing against Taiwan itself.

On one level, the US position is clear. In 1979, the United States switched its diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing as the sole legal government of China. It acknowledged the Chinese position that Taiwan is part of China. Within this context, the United States traded the form of its relations with Taipei for their substance, undertaking to maintain only "economic, cultural and other unofficial relations with the people of Taiwan." On this "One China" basis, Washington's relations with Beijing were normalized while unofficial US ties with Taiwan flourished.

The end of the US military presence in Taiwan and of the US defense treaty with Taipei permitted Beijing to set aside threats to "liberate" Taiwan in favor of "a fundamental policy of striving for peaceful reunification." Continuing US arms sales to Taiwan, authorized by domestic US legislation (the "Taiwan Relations Act"), underscored the abiding American interest in a "peaceful settlement" of the Taiwan issue by the two sides and assured that Taiwan could maintain a formidable military deterrent against attack from the mainland and gave Taiwan's people the sense of security they needed to risk rapprochement with Chinese across the Strait. Taipei's and Beijing's common view that there was only one China removed any sense of urgency about reunification. This consensus was the basis for a tacit modus vivendi in the Taiwan Strait, which produced a remarkable relaxation of tensions and facilitated surprisingly rapid expansion of relationships and dialogue between the two sides. These developments, in turn, made possible the end of martial law in Taiwan and the island's transformation into a democratic society.

It is this tacit modus vivendi that has now broken down. Taipei's drive for international recognition as the capital of a state distinct from the rest of China found dramatic expression in the spring of 1995. Taiwan's president, Lee Teng-hui, made a private but highly political visit to the United States while Taiwanese premier Lien Chan was received officially in central Europe. On their return to Taipei, they offered the United Nations US$1 billion for a separate seat for Taiwan in the General Assembly. Beijing saw these actions as a frontal assault by Taipei on the "One China" principle that had undergirded the understanding in the Taiwan Strait. It saw the series of policy decisions in Washington that culminated in Lee Teng-hui's visit as signaling an American intention to abandon a "One China" policy. China believed the United States was complicitous in Taiwanese separatism.

The Chinese leadership concluded that the United States was attempting to divide China by permanently slicing off Taiwan, detaching Tibet, and subverting Chinese control of post-1997 Hong Kong; attempting to weaken China politically by supporting dissidents and fostering opposition to Communist Party rule; and attempting to retard China's modernization by restricting technology transfer and excluding China from the World Trade Organization. The subsequent US normalization of relations with Vietnam only strengthened perceptions in Beijing that Americans were moving to "contain" China in order to generate a Soviet-style collapse.

Beijing's first priority was to obtain renewed assurances that the United States would remain faithful to a "One China" policy. It withdrew its ambassador from Washington, withheld agreement for a new US ambassador, canceled high level defense and military exchanges, and broke off dialogue on issues of special concern to the United States until it obtained such assurances. Now that the United States has reaffirmed its commitment to the "One China" policy, Beijing has turned its attention to Taipei.

The PRC has not abandoned its policy of a negotiated settlement with Taipei. Rather than waiting patiently for negotiations to evolve from the past few years' informal "Ku-Wang talks," however, Beijing now seeks to compel Taipei either to desist from further efforts at achieving an identity separate from China or to agree to "reunification" on the very loose terms Beijing has proposed. According to Chinese officials, under reunification Taiwan would retain its armed forces and continue to buy arms abroad. No mainland officials would be stationed on Taiwan, which would maintain its own distinct political system and administration. Taiwanese officials would, however, be invited to participate in governing the mainland. Recently, Beijing has unofficially suggested that it might be prepared to negotiate a change in the PRC's name, flag, and anthem; that arrangements could be negotiated for Taiwan to take a seat at the United Nations; and that a division of diplomatic labor could be worked out by which Taipei's embassies could represent China in some foreign capitals.

Beijing has given military backing to its drive to replace the shattered tacit modus vivendi in the Taiwan Strait with an explicit one. For the first time in decades, it is mounting military operations against Taiwan. (Initially, these were called exercises, directed by the headquarters of a "military region." They are now called "operations" in a "war zone.") If Taipei shows no convincing sign of willingness to turn from "separatism" and open negotiations with Beijing, the People's Liberation Army vows that it is prepared for further escalation, including low intensity conflict and possibly direct missilestrikes on targets in Taiwan or other military actions to shake Taipei's recent complacency.

In addition to the breakdown of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait, such an outcome would also discredit long-standing US efforts to deter conflict over Taiwan. At some point, the United States would have to choose between combat support of Taiwan against the PRC and neutrality in the conflict. It is no exaggeration to say that the consequences of either choice to strategic stability in the Asia Pacific region would be dire, even catastrophic.

Given the strategic importance of Taiwan to Japan, a US decision to stand aside from conflict in the Taiwan Strait would be seen by Japanese as a default on the US responsibility to manage Japan's strategic defense. The Japanese reaction would be all the stronger because of the emotional links between Japanese and many Taiwanese. (Taiwanese are the only former subjects of the Japanese emperor who remain close to their ex-colonial masters.) No longer confident that the United States could be depended upon to do the job, Japan would have to reasume responsibility for its own strategic defense.

If the United States decided to intervene in support of Taiwan, it would have to use Japanese bases to do so. Tokyo would then have to decide between its policy of good relations with Beijing on the one hand, and its alliance with Washington and interests in Taiwan on the other. It would almost certainly opt for Washington and Taipei. No future Japanese government, however, would ever again be willing to be put in a position where foreigners made such fundamental choices for Japan. The result would be a slow resumption by Japan of responsibility for its own defense.

The strategic consequences of conflict in the Taiwan Strait therefore include not just the poisoning of US-China relations for decades and a setback for China's modernization, but also fundamental realignment of the Asian strategic balance. Japanese rearmament, in the context of hostility between Japan and China, would polarize the Asia Pacific region and marginalize the role of the United States. Japan might even, in time, turn to Russia, India, and Southeast Asia as partners in a strategy of containing the rising power of China.

These effects of the outbreak of war in the Taiwan Strait would unfold regardless of whether the United States intervened, and regardless of whether Beijing succeeded in regaining Taiwan for China. Beijing's arguments that the Taiwan issue is legally a matter of Chinese internal affairs may be right, but these arguments miss the most important point. Politically and strategically, Taiwan is anything but a local affair. How this issue unfolds in the coming months will decide whether harmony or confrontation prevail in the Asia Pacific region. It may also determine whether the United States can retain the highly influential role it has come to take for granted in East Asia.

It is clearly in the interest of the United States to avoid an outbreak of conflict in Taiwan. The United States does not want to have to make a choice between intervention and non-intervention in the Taiwan Strait--between war and peace with China. It is therefore in the interest of the United States that Beijing and Taipei to negotiate a renewed modus vivendi. The United States should vigorously promote such negotiations as the only viable alternative to confrontation and conflict. Doing so would not be easy. Neither Taipei nor Beijing wants war, but neither wants to compromise. Each side needs to be brought to face unpalatable realities and needs to reach difficult accommodations with the other.

Taipei must recognize that it cannot determine its status in defiance of Beijing's views. Taiwan's past, present, and future are linked to the Chinese mainland. Whoever rules Taiwan, and whatever the island calls itself, Taipei must have a working relationship with Beijing. The quality of that relationship--not whether Taiwan sits in international councils--will determine the level of security and prosperity Taiwan and its people will enjoy. Taipei can win a battle with Beijing, but it cannot win a war. At the same time, Beijing must confront the reality that confrontation and combat with Taiwan are likely to create a fundamentally adverse and hostile international environment for China. China's modernization, its links to the outside world, and its relationships with other great powers in the Asia Pacific region and beyond would be the victims of such an environment.

Conclusion

The vision of the United States as the manager of an evolving cooperative security system in the Asia Pacific region is appealing. Without greater efforts by Washington, however, this vision is unlikely to become reality. Leadership is like muscle tissue. Unless it is exercised, it atrophies. Many in Asia see the last minute decision by President Clinton, in the face of domestic political distractions, not to attend the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in Osaka as emblematic of a lack of US interest and commitment to participate actively in the affairs of the region. Others fear that the drift in US-Japan security relations, which efforts by both sides had begun to reverse, may now resume. Asians are especially disturbed by the erratic course of US relations with China.

US aspirations to help Asians resolve disputes by measures short of war now face a major test in the Taiwan Strait. So far, however, the United States has seemed reluctant to recognize that there is a problem, let alone to bring US diplomacy to bear on the PRC and Taiwan. A US default on this urgent challenge will not augur well for the prolongation of the "American century" in the Asia Pacific region.