This month, President Biden held one of the most lavish state dinners in Washington's recent memory. Celebrities and billionaires gathered at the White House to celebrate Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, posing for photos in front of an elaborate display of Japanese fans. Jeff Bezos stopped by. Paul Simon provided entertainment.
The spectacle was part of a series of carefully planned events to showcase the new U.S.-Japan relationship and the remarkable transformation of the U.S. security alliance in Asia. The next day, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. also visited the U.S. capital for a historic Japan-U.S.-Philippines summit, during which a new trilateral security partnership was announced.
Both events were aimed at the same audience: China.
Over the past several years, the US government has developed a series of such multilateral security agreements in the Asia-Pacific region. Although U.S. officials insist that recent mobilizations of allies and partners are not aimed at China, don't believe them. In fact, in his speech to Congress on April 11, Mr. Kishida emphasized that China is the “greatest strategic challenge” to both Japan and the international community.
China's recent activities are, of course, worrying. China's military has gained ever more powerful tools to counter U.S. and allied capabilities in the Western Pacific, taking aggressive actions in the South China Sea, Taiwan Strait and elsewhere, alarming neighboring countries.
But Washington's pursuit of increasingly complex security ties is a dangerous game. These ties include improving defense capabilities, increasing joint military exercises, deepening intelligence sharing, new initiatives on defense production and technology cooperation, and strengthening contingency planning and military coordination. For this reason, the Chinese government may become more cautious about using overt military force in the region. However, new alliance structures by themselves do not guarantee long-term peace and stability in the region, and may even increase the risk of falling into conflict.
The security partnership unfolding this month in Washington is just the latest in a series of new defense configurations across Asia and the Pacific. In 2017, the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, known as the Quad, was revived to foster cooperation between the United States, Japan, Australia, and India. In September 2021, Australia, the UK and the US launched a partnership known as AUKUS, with the US, Japan and South Korea pledging closer cooperation at the Camp David summit last August.
All of these moves are primarily motivated by concerns about China, which accuses these countries of being part of a U.S.-led effort to create an Asian version of NATO aimed at containing China. . There is no collective defense agreement like the NATO Treaty, whose Article 5 considers an armed attack against one member state to be an “attack against all member states.'' But nevertheless, China will almost certainly view the latest agreement between the United States, Japan, and the Philippines, which have active territorial disputes, as further confirmation of Washington-led attempts to threaten its interests. right.
It is not yet clear how the Chinese government will react. However, it is likely to double down on its military expansion and step up its use of military and militia force to assert its territorial claims in the region, especially regarding the sensitive issue of Taiwan. Beijing may also further promote military cooperation between China and Russia in the form of increased military exercises and deployments.
The end result could be a deepening arms race that would leave the Asia-Pacific region even more divided and dangerous than it currently is. In this increasingly contentious and militarized environment, the likelihood that any political event or military mishap will spark a catastrophic regional war is likely to increase. This possibility is especially high given the absence of meaningful crisis communication channels with the United States and its Chinese ally to prevent such incidents from spiraling out of control.
To prevent this nightmare, the United States and its allies and partners must invest more in diplomacy with China, in addition to strengthening military deterrence.
First, the United States and key allies like Japan should make continued efforts to establish a durable crisis prevention and management dialogue with China that involves each country's foreign policy and security institutions. So far, such dialogue has been largely limited to military channels and military themes. It is important that both civilian and military authorities understand the many possible causes of inadvertent crises and develop ways to prevent or manage crises when they occur. This process should include establishing an agreed set of leadership best practices for crisis management and establishing trusted informal channels through which stakeholders can discuss their understanding of crisis prevention.
The immediate focus for the United States and Japan should be on avoiding actions that would increase tensions in the Taiwan Strait. The likely permanent deployment of U.S. military trainers to Taiwan and the belief by some U.S. officials and policy analysts that Taiwan should be treated as a security linchpin in the U.S.'s overall defense posture in Asia. List's proposal is unnecessarily provocative. They also said that the United States would cease all U.S. military deployments to Taiwan, that Taiwan is no longer considered a critical U.S. security base, and that the Taiwan issue would be handled peacefully and unjustly. It also openly contradicts the United States' long-standing “One China” policy, which only takes China into account. Forced.
Japan has also been reluctant to explicitly reaffirm that its government does not support Taiwan's independence, and has become more cautious about its “one China” policy. Recent statements by some political leaders in Tokyo that the Japanese military is ready to help defend Taiwan comes after Japan occupied Taiwan after the Sino-Japanese War in 1894 and 1895. It is almost certain to infuriate Chinese leaders.
The United States and Japan should clearly reaffirm their prior commitments regarding the China-Taiwan conflict. The Japanese government should also confirm that it does not support Taiwan's unilateral moves toward independence and resist U.S. efforts to force Japan to become involved in Taiwan's defense. American officials are reportedly urging Japan to join military plans for a conflict over Taiwan, but the majority of Japanese residents are not in favor of fighting to defend Taiwan. The best way for the Japanese government to deter China is to focus on strengthening its ability to defend its own islands.
The U.S. government and its allies should move to a more assertive approach towards China with the aim of promoting mitigation and restraint. This includes efforts to limit the levels and types of weapons the United States sells to Taiwan, in exchange for ensuring reliable mutual assurances regarding limits on Chinese military deployments, such as amphibious forces and missile capabilities, related to Taiwan. There is a possibility that They could also strengthen security cooperation with China on cyberattacks, sea lane defense, and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and seek better cooperation to combat climate change and the emergence of new pandemics.
Of course, China has its own role. After all, China, like the United States, wants to avoid crisis and conflict in the region. As such, it should respond to a more cooperative approach from the United States and its allies by moderating its own coercive actions regarding maritime disputes.
None of this will be easy, given the intense suspicions that currently exist between China and the United States and its allies. But new thinking and new diplomatic efforts could prompt China to retaliate in meaningful ways. At the very least, you should try it. Focusing only on military deterrence will not work. Finding ways to work with China is the best, perhaps only, way to steer the world away from disaster.
Mike M. Mochizuki is a professor at George Washington University and an adjunct fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible States. Michael D. Swain is a senior fellow specializing in China-related security issues at the Quincy Institute. This article was originally published in The New York Times.
