Toward the end of the first decade of the 21st century a series of symptoms of a serious change in the security environment in Northeast Asia have emerged ― North Korea’s outright rejection of the preconditions for the resumption of the six-party talks demanded by the United States and South Korea and development of the uranium enrichment program; its provocative military actions against South Korea; China’s pro-North Korean behavior; the Chinese-Japanese maritime confrontation in the South China Sea; and the China-U.S. financial and trade war.

All these symptoms have led the U.S. to review and revise its existing security strategy in the Asia-Pacific region. It seems that the U.S. has come to the conclusion that North Korea has no intention of abandoning its nuclear programs and is likely to go through a political crisis in the next decade, while China has decided to challenge the U.S. hegemony in East Asia and the international financial order established and controlled by the U.S. Facing these developments, the U.S. seems to have decided to pursue the following strategy: Strengthening the U.S.-South Korea-Japan united front to pressure North Korea to accept its demand for the complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantlement of its nuclear weapons and programs through diplomatic, economic and other means and also pressuring China to support its demand while strengthening international sanctions through the U.N. Security Council.

Second, to counter China’s military challenge in East Asia, the U.S. is revising its traditional “congagement” (a combination of containment and engagement) strategy and strengthening the U.S.-Japan-South Korea coalition through revitalizing the trilateral consultative meeting. The U.S. is now faced with a dilemma: Whether it should maintain its Janus-faced strategy or adopt a containment policy similar to that toward the Soviet Union in the Cold War era. On the eve of the Cold War, it wavered between the containment and engagement policies toward the Soviet Union for some time and finally adopted the containment strategy. However, China and the Soviet Union are not the same. Most important of all, the present world is not divided into two blocs and its economic order is a uniform liberal economic order.

China does not have its own ideological bloc, and the Chinese and American economies are heavily interdependent. However, China’s challenge to U.S. hegemony is analogous to the Soviet Union’s: Both challenge the international political and economic orders although China presently challenges the international economic order and the Soviet Union initially rejected the international political order. The U.S. is now leaning toward a containment strategy. It is provoking China to seek the formation of an anti-American hegemonic coalition.

The U.S. government leaders have recently announced a new approach to the Asia-Pacific security environment. In her speech in Honolulu in October, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that the U.S. goals in the Asia-Pacific are “to sustain and strengthen America’ leadership in the Asia-Pacific-region and to improve security, heighten prosperity and promote our values.” This indirectly reveals the determination of the U.S. to contain China. In the same speech, she said that the U.S. will continue to strengthen its traditional wheel-spoke strategy (bilateral alliances with South Korea, Japan, Thailand, the Philippines and Australia) as “the foundation of its engagement in the Asia-Pacific.”

The U.S. also seeks to encircle China by establishing and strengthening new partnerships with Indonesia, Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia, New Zealand and India. On the strength of this, it will expand its role in various multilateral regional organizations including ASEAN, APEC, and the ARF.

Under the Bush administration, the U.S. took a negative attitude toward these regional organizations and did not show interest in the East Asia Summit. Now the Obama administration shows great interest in all of these organizations and has joined the EAS.

Its purpose is mainly to strengthen and expand its influence on East Asian countries and contain China’s influence. When Secretary of State Clinton announced the formal entry of the U.S. into the EAS, she stated America’s four concerns ― nuclear nonproliferation, maritime security, climate change and advancement of human rights. These concerns do not occupy top priority of China and ASEAN members.

Whether or not a new bipolar system will emerge in East Asia depends on how China will react to America’s new strategy. China’s reaction, in turn, will largely be influenced by how other countries, particularly Japan, South Korea and India, will respond to the U.S. strategy. China has already begun to build strategic coalitions in the Asia-Pacific region by forming a strategic partnership with Russia and India and by strengthening and expanding its ties with ASEAN. Japan and South Korea are cautiously examining whether or not they should agree to the proposition that the U.S.-Japan-South Korea trilateral coalition should deal with the Chinese challenge to U.S. hegemony.

South Korea and Japan have already joined a trilateral and a bilateral forum with China. Now, they are faced with a dilemma between the China-Japan-South Korea trilateral consultative forum and the U.S.-Japan-South Korea trilateral strategic coalition. It will be difficult for them to join the U.S.-led security coalition against China. At the same time, it will be more difficult for them to maintain both if the U.S.-China relationship worsens in the next decade. In Japan this issue has already become the subject of serious political debate. It is becoming such a subject in South Korea.

By Park Sang-seek

Park Sang-seek is a professor at the Graduate Institute of Peace Studies, Kyung Hee University. ― Ed.

코리아헤럴드
(2010.12.13)