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De-binarization of world affairs: The third way for ASEAN?
The new administration will see China the same way: Not as a dangerous (trade) rival, but as a foe.
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ince my recent article in The Jakarta Post “ASEAN at crossroads” on Oct. 23, 2020 about the need to find the third way in the eve of the global strategic decoupling, a number of commentators were wondering if that article was an overstatement. During last week’s lecture given to Diponegoro University in Semarang on the very same topic, many faculty members were seeking for the further clarification.
Hence, to repeat; as the present world order weakens, the mega confrontations have appeared more likely: On its post-Soviet revival quest, Russia becomes increasingly assertive in Euro-Mediterranean theatre and beyond. Simultaneously, the Sino-American relations are increasingly adversarial, with escalating frictions over trade, advanced technology, human rights, and global strategic influence.
Strategic decoupling between the biggest manufacturer of American goods – China, and its largest consumer – the US, seems inevitable.
Of course, many would reject the above as an overstatement and the author’s alarmism. To this end, let us state some facts.
Extensive trading is not deterrent. Trade is an instrument of power not a virtue per se. (The case of the UK and Germany in the eve of World War I, and of Japan and the US in 1941, are the most known, in the series of such examples starting with the Peloponnese, Trojan and Punic wars through Napoleonic wars and Continental blockade all the way up to modern times, when nations were “sleepwalking” strait into a major mutually devastating and lasting armed conflict).
Absence of (regional) nuclear parity deterrent. (Asia hosts by far the largest number of nuclear powers – 2 legitimate, 3 declared, 1 undeclared and at least 2 states with the credible delivery systems and N-ready ‘turn-key’ technology. None of them is even by its quantities, qualities, configurations and delivery capabilities – which makes the First strike doctrine tempting.)
Diminishing international order due to a combination or either of the following:
Successful challenger to the status quo power/s. Or when a dismissive meets a neuralgic one. (Such constellation makes both sides nervous: Challenger is eager to challenge and change, and the status quo power tempts to strike sooner as it feels the time does not contribute to its strength – with a compromise as a biggest looser.
The modern-day China is portrayed as once-upon-a-time Imperial Germany – an illiberal opaque power that misuses liberal system on its unchecked quest for world domination. Collision course is fanned irrespectively from a fact that there are no overlapping territorial claims or even common borders, and despite an unprecedented interconnectivity and mutually brought prosperity. Confrontation is not only geo-economic but also an ideological – liberal world of freedom against illiberal order of coercion).
Weakening political support of the main guarantors to the existing International regime, due to their shrinking economics and/or demographics (Simply, Trump, Johnston, Bolsonaro, Modi, Kaczyński, Orbán are not causes to but the consequences of fading politico-economic system of the western type of democracy).
Absence of the comprehensive regional system to temporarily uphold or replace the shrinking global one (while Europe is the most multilateralized region on our planet, Asia is the only world’s continent that has no single, even less the security related, pan-continental organization).
Although the new US president is in place, it would be foolish to expect any policy reversal. The new administration will see China the same way: Not as a dangerous (trade) rival, but as a foe.
Is this yet another author’s alarmism?
A Biden presidency will be one of the weakest in the past 100 years. It is indeed a Pyrus victory: Trump got few million votes more now than in 2016 (i); Senate is controlled by Republicans (ii); angry Trump electorate is deeply convinced that the victory has been stolen from them, and will be further galvanising enlarging noising and tilting to the right in the following four years (iii); the blue-collar America firmly believes China steals their jobs – and none on the Democratic left even attempted to refute that.
Hence, Biden’s four years in office (if) will be marked by alienation from those electing him, and by pure agony of cohabitation with stifling Republicans. Administration will remain paralysed for any reversed yet fresh policy formulation.
Finally, history of the US bipartisanism teaches us that traditionally Democrats were opening wars while Republicans were closing them. Overstatement? Mind also that for nearly past 150 years, Trump presidency was the only four-year period that Americans did not start a single war. Many now believe, it is a high time to recuperate and compensate.
Ergo, a change in the White House – paradoxically enough – will not slow down the ongoing strategic decoupling and to it compulsory global re-alignment, but on contrary; it will only accelerate its speed and severity.
To be sure; only a measurable success in the US-led de-Chinization of the West will determine how far (and how long) will take the ongoing de-globalization, and if the second phase will be a reversibility, a re-globalization of the world
Once more, the imposed re-alignment will hit Southeast Asia particularly hard – from a prosperous meeting point of goods, cultures and ideas to the politico-military default lines. This painful readjustment may last for decades to come. Opting for either side will not only impact economy trade and security but will also determine a health of population and societal model, too.
All this necessitates to revisit and rethink the best of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) which saved the world from the past irresponsibilities and frictions of the two confronted blocks that contested each other all over the globe for decades.
The Indo-Pacific, the “Quad”, initiative (from Horn of Africa to East Pacific coast) is not viable policy response to the age of global realignment. It is rather a panicking tactics of imperial retreat. Why to side it up in lieu of the long-term principles shouldering the skilfully calibrated strategic and emancipatory orientation?
Middle East North Africa and Afro-Asia should not exhaust its entire foreign policy intellectualism and its action on that. A host of historic south-south summit of 1956, champion of true multilateralism, founding member of NAM should not peripheries itself, ASEAN and Asia by becoming a default, Maginot Line but should lead a reinvigorated third way.
Between confrontation and bandwagoning, it is time for a true multilateralism (active and peaceful coexistence postulated by the NAM). The Movement gave for so many and for so long a security shelter and voice above weight, sense of civilizational purpose, promising future of attainable prospect on the planetary quest for a self-realisation of mankind.
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The writer is chairperson and professor in international law and global political studies, Vienna. His eighth book, No Asian Century, is scheduled for winter 2020-21.
