Indo-Pacific needs US-China cooperation, not conflict with the Quad

The key to peace and prosperity in the old Asia-Pacific concert of nations was the inclusion rather than exclusion of China
It is in everyone’s interest to build a new concert of Indo-Pacific powers based on the principle of great power multilateralism

Pang Zhongying

Published: 3:30am, 19 Mar, 2021

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In the post-Cold-War years of the 1990s and 2000s, the Asia-Pacific region was really a de facto power in concert, although it was far from perfect with regional problems including the complexity of China-US relations.

I remember Susan Shirk, a prominent China expert in the US and the Clinton administration’s deputy assistant secretary for East Asia, arguing for “a full-fledged Asia-Pacific concert of powers”. One dimension of US foreign policy in the post-Cold-War era is a de facto concert of the Asia-Pacific.

Yesterday’s Asia-Pacific can be regarded as inspiring the solution to today’s Indo-Pacific conflict. The key to the Asia-Pacific concert was in including rather than excluding China, which pursued “reform and opening up” and peaceful development after the end of the Cold War.

China joined almost all Asia-Pacific regional institutions and forums. The US and its allies almost fully engaged China. The mutual engagement processes made the post-Cold-War Asia-Pacific peaceful and orderly for three decades. However, this peace is fragile and vulnerable.

Since 1989, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) forum has helped promote regional economic growth and integration. Meetings led by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations let leaders from Asia-Pacific and Indian Ocean countries meet annually in a Southeast Asian nation.

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Four Asean members signed on to the Trans-Pacific Partnership in 2016, and Asean orchestrated the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership that was signed in 2020. These agreement have brought fruitful results despite the US exiting the TPP in 2017 and India withdrawing from RCEP negotiations.

Asean has made a great difference geopolitically. It has organised Asean+ dialogue partnerships with Australia, New Zealand, China, India, Japan, South Korea and the US, as well as the Asia-Europe Meeting and East Asia Summit.

However, this concert of the Asia-Pacific began to crumble in the 2010s. While the US pursued its “ pivot to Asia” under the Obama administration, China simultaneously had its “March West”, which was the predecessor of today’s Belt and Road Initiative.

China’s 21st-century maritime Silk Road is its de facto pivot to the Indo-Pacific, but China does not use the term “Indo-Pacific” and has not defined the maritime Silk Road as its Indo-Pacific vision. China chose Indonesia, one of its comprehensive strategic partners, to launch the concept of the maritime Silk Road in 2013.

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As China worked in the Asia-Pacific to forge better economic and commercial relations, it helped found the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and invited India and Pakistan to be new members of the grouping. Neither the US nor any of its allies are members.

Two regional powers, Australia and Japan, have taken the lead in driving the shift from “Asia-Pacific” to “Indo-Pacific”. The “free and open Indo-Pacific” (FOIP) concept came from Australia rather than the US, and Japan worked hard to conduct FOIP diplomacy during former prime minister Shinzo Abe’s second term.

China faces a challenge from a great convergence on the Indo-Pacific. Other powers from outside the region, particularly Britain and EU members including France and Germany, have also pivoted to the Indo-Pacific.

The Trump administration killed the TPP with its withdrawal on January 24, 2017 and publicly embraced the Indo-Pacific concept for the first time at the 2017 Apec summit in Da Nang, Vietnam on November 10 of that year. Ironically, the Trump administration ended the notion of an Asia-Pacific concert.

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The collapse of the Asia-Pacific concert has had severe consequences politically and economically. Terms such as “catastrophic”, “cold”, “destined” and “ inevitable” have been used to describe China-US relations. In the real world, China and the US have been engaging in various “wars” over trade and technology.

Another potential conflict is a second China-India war. They are regarded as two of the world’s rising great powers, and severe border crises arose in 2017 and 2020.

The Biden administration has continued its predecessor’s Indo-Pacific policy. So far, it has not redefined the “free and open Indo-Pacific” concept but rather lifted the Quad security grouping to a summitry level. However, there are differences and disagreements within the Quad and it is unlikely to act as an Asian Nato against China.

Could an Indo-Pacific concert reverse the trend towards a great power conflict? How can we make a concert of Indo-Pacific powers come together? It is in everyone’s interest to build a concert of Indo-Pacific powers based on the principle of great power multilateralism.

03:09

Deng Xiaoping’s role in transforming China

China-US relations are key. Both sides can work together to create a peaceful Indo-Pacific. Deng Xiaoping argued in the 1980s that China needs a peaceful international environment to focus on economic development.

The normalisation of China-US relations in the late 1970s and former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s embrace of glasnost and perestroika – openness and reform – in the late 1980s helped create favourable conditions for China’s reform and development. Today, China still needs peace in the Pacific and Indian oceans while the US, after its unprecedented election in 2020, also needs peace with China.

China will not overtake the US in terms of real hard and soft power, even if, as anticipated, it becomes the world’s largest economy around 2030. Demographically, China’s ageing population will weaken its status. India and Indonesia will enjoy greater population advantages.

Yi Fuxian, a senior scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and author of Big Country with an Empty Nest, is correct: China’s ageing population will cast a long shadow over its economy, society and relations with the world.

As a solution, it is time to seek out a new concert of Indo-Pacific powers led by China and the US, as well as the middle powers around the Indo-Pacific region.

Pang Zhongying has been teaching international relations and global issues at China’s leading universities for the past 20 years