National Review
Building US-Asia Teamwork against China
New governments that differ in party orientation from their predecessors are in the habit of reorienting American foreign policy. George W. Bush, until September 11, 2001, planned to shift America’s focus back to the competition of the great powers, even dispatching Donald Rumsfeld, then the government’s most prominent statesman, to Moscow to negotiate with Putin. This marked a distinct break with Clinton’s liberal interventionism. Obama reversed virtually all of the substantive foreign policy choices of the previous eight years, immediately seeking a “restart” with Russia, a withdrawal in Iraq, a major trip to the Arab world and shortly after a detente with Iran. Mr. Trump withdrew from the Paris Climate Agreements and the nuclear deal with Iran. He also made substantial changes in a four-decade American effort to make China an “interested party” in the international order. Even more impressive at the party level has been the variation in commitment to “anti-war” causes. Democratic support for the anti-war movement practically evaporated in 2009, despite, let us not forget, Bush’s multiple attempts at impeachment for his conduct in the Iraq War. Republicans are equally guilty: the challenges to the constitutionality of Obama’s military actions in Syria and Iraq disappeared on January 20, 2017. If Biden’s recent attack on Syria shows anything, it is that politics has remained remarkably normal. Apart from the marginal progressives – Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and his avant-garde cohort – there will be no opposition from the Democrats to the military action of the Executive. It is, however, encouraging to identify an emerging continuity between Biden and his predecessor. The Biden government appears committed to maintaining “the Quad” – the Asian security forum that includes the United States, Japan, Australia and India. The Quad was the result of efforts to coordinate relief after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. Although a formal security relationship seemed imminent in 2007, changes in American, Indian and Australian policies have buried the idea for almost a decade. The Trump administration revived the Quad in November 2017 through ASEAN, building America’s joint naval exercises with the three potential members. The high point of the Quad came in October 2020, when its four members participated in the MALABAR Exercise, traditionally a bilateral Indo-American issue. In addition, other American allies have begun to recognize the link between the balance of the Indo-Pacific and their own interests. In February, France deployed a nuclear powered attack submarine in the South China Sea and plans to deploy an amphibious assault ship and frigate in preparation for the US-Japanese military exercises in May. Germany will send a frigate to the Indo-Pacific this fall. The Royal Navy Carrier Strike Group will be deployed in the Indo-Pacific this year, marking the first deployment of a British-owned vessel east of Suez in a generation. Biden showed little interest in confronting China in his first weeks in office, but signaled his willingness to keep the Quad. In addition, there is talk of expanding the Quad by incorporating South Korea as a member of the “Quad Plus”. China, of course, signaled its discontent with the Quad. As a spoiled child who receives sweets, he finds it inconceivable that three of the regional powers with the most to lose from Chinese expansionism would consider it reasonable to coordinate with the great power most opposed to China’s hegemonic ambitions. China’s wrath, however, points to a critical truth: the Quad is not a structure for political coordination, designed to diplomatically defend a “Free and Open Indo-Pacific”. It is the beginning of a formal alliance, with the aim of containing Chinese aggression and preserving the interests of America’s allies. This alliance, if formalized, would be long overdue. China has posed a demonstrable threat to the interests of virtually all Indo-Pacific policies since at least the early 2010s, when it began to build and militarize islands in the South and East China seas. Since then, it has consolidated its internal control in Hong Kong and East Turkestan, shifting from an incremental approach to the pure use of force, staging a coup in Hong Kong and conducting the genocide in East Turkestan. It increased its pressure on India, instigating three border incidents since 2017. And with Xi Jinping’s rise to supreme leadership, it has led to the most significant increase in conventional high-powered weapons since before World War II. Given China’s goals, expanding the Quad to include other regional partners would reinforce US interests and the stability of the Indo-Pacific, increasing the credibility of deterrence. China surpasses any individual Indo-Pacific adversary, even Japan with its sophisticated Western-style technology and India with its massive conventional ground forces. No nation wants a long war – at least, no nation with a view to its political survival. But China is in an especially vulnerable position. It still depends on petrochemical imports abroad and on essential raw materials for its industries. And while part of China supports the Party’s goal of “national rejuvenation” – that is, weltmacht at any cost – it is likely that the majority of its citizens, with the memory of Maoist insanity still etched in their minds, will tolerate the Party government. in exchange for economic and social stability. A long war would destroy both benefits, exposing the true nature of the party-state. An alliance that connects the main Pacific powers directly with the United States and between them would eliminate the possibility of China doing a fait accompli against an isolated policy. Adding formal military cooperation to this partnership would further reinforce deterrence, allowing smaller regional players to maximize their capabilities while supporting the American combat fleet. South Korea is now divided between China and the United States. Its strong economic ties to the PRC allowed its elites to present North Korea as the only threat to its existence, leaving its population blind to the risks that a China-dominated Pacific would pose to any liberal government. But South Korea will not be China’s direct target. ROK’s industrial and technological capacity makes it more valuable as a partner or subject than as a prize won, especially if the chimera of reunification can be captured. Its affiliation with the Quad would be a diplomatic and strategic triumph: China would be deprived of a potential neutral partner and its military capabilities could join those of Japan in the Pacific Northwest. Taiwan, however, is much more important. The party-state is obsessed with this. Taiwan’s geographical location makes it possible to interrupt any transfer of force between the northeast and southwest Pacific, preventing the PLA from concentrating its fighting power. It is the critical link in the “First Chain of Islands”, which runs from the Aleutians through Japan to the Philippines and prevents China from having unimpeded access to the central Pacific. Its existence proves that the Chinese people need not compromise their freedom for their safety. Today’s Taiwan emerged from the same political cataclysm as its communist counterpart. But it successfully transitioned from a military dictatorship, full of standard trappings of despotism – secret police, controls over political expression and extreme state involvement in economic planning – to a multi-party capitalist democracy that guarantees individual and political rights and provides its citizens. citizens a standard of living equivalent to that of any Western European or North American. Hence China’s obsession with Taiwan. The PLA’s growing investigation of Taiwan’s airspace is a prelude to the climb, as much as the Party’s smooth maneuvers in East Turkestan and Hong Kong preceded the use of force. Incorporating Taiwan into Quad, as an observer, a Quad Plus affiliated state or a full member, would link the ROC to other regional adversaries in China. China would no longer need to calculate whether the United States would be involved in a Taiwanese contingency. Instead, Japan, Australia and India would be able to exert political pressure, with the guarantee of US involvement during any escalation. In addition, a non-Taiwanese flashpoint – for example, one in the South China Sea or along the Sino-Indian border – could now lead to a wider conflict in the Pacific. This is where a central issue arises. Is the Quad simply a forum for political security for powers committed to a “Free and Open Indo-Pacific”? No threat to the freedom and openness of the Pacific exists beyond China. But interpreting the Quad as a purely diplomatic / political tool, rather than an explicit alliance designed to contain Chinese aggression, effectively nullifies its potential benefits. It would be as if the United States insisted in 1955 that NATO was a political forum composed of liberal regimes with similar ideas and no common interest, instead of being the backbone of a Soviet containment strategy. Seth Cropsey is a senior member of the Hudson Institute and director of its Center for American Seapower. He served as a Navy officer and as an assistant deputy secretary of the Navy. Harry Halem is a research assistant at the Hudson Institute and an undergraduate student at the London School of Economics.