From Asia-Pacific to Indo-Pacific: Continuity and Variation of American Foreign Strategy
After the Obama administration came to power in 2009, the United States began to readjust its global strategy rapidly, “Asia-Pacific Rebalance” becoming the label of the Asia-Pacific strategy of the Obama administration. Since Trump entered the White House in 2017, “Free and Open Indo-Pacific Strategy” has become the most important regional strategy of the current US administration. From “Asia-Pacific Rebalance” to “Indo-Pacific Strategy”, what are the similarities and differences of the successive strategies applied to China’s neighborhood region between the two US presidents from the Democratic Party and the Republican Party respectively? Behind different names and appellations, what are the variations and contradictions in US diplomacy as a whole as reflected in these strategies? What are the inspirations Chinese diplomacy can draw on from the practices of US regional strategies in the past decade? As the current term of the Trump administration is to expire, this Essay attempts to provide preliminary analyses and answers to above questions.
From “Asia-Pacific Rebalance” to “Indo-Pacific Strategy”
When running for US president, Obama claimed that he would become the first “Pacific president”. But as for academic and strategic circles to discuss the Asia-Pacific strategy of the Obama administration, it basically began in 2011. On October 11, 2011, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton published an article titled America’s Pacific Century on Foreign Affairs , which is generally taken as the “prelude” of “Asia-Pacific Rebalance” strategy of the Obama administration. On November 17 of the year, US President Obama made a speech at the Australian Parliament, which is regarded as signifying the official launching of US “Asia-Pacific Rebalance” strategy. According to Obama, “Asia-Pacific Rebalance” strategy included the following aspects: first, to maintain strong and modernized US military presence in the Asia-Pacific region; second, to enhance regional allies and partnerships and to strengthen contacts with regional organizations; third, to develop a more cooperative relationship with China; fourth, to expand economic partnerships through regional trade arrangements; fifth, to establish partnerships with “emerging democracies” in the region and to strengthen their domestic governance mechanisms. In the early years of “Asia-Pacific Rebalance” strategy, the Obama administration put the main focus of rebalance on the military security dimension. It was at the beginning of the second term of the Obama administration that “AsiaPacific Rebalance” strategy was focused on expanding to economic and social dimensions, thus its five pillars gradually striking a balance.
Since Trump entered the White House in January 2017, “Free and Open Indo-Pacific Strategy” has replaced
“Asia-Pacific Rebalance” as US regional strategy that embraces a broad space from the East Coast of the Pacific to the West Coast of the Indian Ocean. In its first year in office, the Trump administration began to expound on its “IndoPacific Strategy” in a systematic way. On October 18, 2017, US Secretary of State Tillerson made a speech on US-India relations at US think tank the Center for Strategic and International Studies, putting forward the notion of a “Free and Open Indo-Pacific”. In November 2017, when attending APEC Summit in Da Nang, Vietnam, President Trump presented for the first time the focus of the
Asia-Pacific policy of his administration as “Free and Open Indo-Pacific”. In December of the year, the Trump administration came up with its first US National Security Strategy, which for the first time wrote “Free and Open IndoPacific” into national strategy. In January 2018, US Department of Defense put forward the military dimension of “Free and Open Indo-Pacific” in its National Defense Strategy. In October 2018, US Vice-President Pence made a speech on US China Policy, regarding “Free and Open Indo-Pacific” as one of the several means to cope with China’s rise, not being shy to link “Indo-Pacific Strategy” to countering the rise of China. In 2019, US Department of Defense and US Department of State released their reports on “Indo-Pacific Strategy” successively.
To observe the trend of US foreign strategy for a region should look at the continuity of US regional policy in the past decade. After the end of the Cold War, US global strategy lacked a clearcut sense of orientation for a period of time. The center of strategic gravity of the Bush senior and the Clinton administrations remained in Europe. At the beginning of the 21st century, a sudden escalation of the struggle against terrorism clarified the orientation and center
of gravity of US global strategy. However, the heavy cost of the two wars of Iraq and Afghanistan and the successive rise of emerging markets threw light on the Obama administration that US global strategy ought to be readjusted. The fact that the Obama administration put forward “Asia-Pacific Rebalance” symbolized that the US began to make up its mind to readjust the center of gravity of its global strategy. Though the Trump administration is inclined to “anything but Obama” in many domestic and foreign policy areas, its cognition of the center of gravity of US global strategy is as clear cut as the Obama administration. The strategic focus of “Indo-Pacific Strategy” is very similar to “Asia-Pacific Rebalance” of the Obama administration, underscoring strong continuity of center of gravity of US global strategy being shifted to China’s neighborhood region. Upon the expiration of the current term of the Trump administration, the shift of the center of gravity of US global strategy will have lasted for more than a decade. In view of US strategic cognition, strategic planning and arrangement, such a shift is a done deal. No matter what will be the outcome of US presidential election of 2020, the posture of Indo-Pacific as the center of gravity of US global strategy will necessarily last.
In perspective of strategic means, from “Asia-Pacific Rebalance” to “IndoPacific Strategy”, the US has been consistent in managing the regional strategic posture on regional plane. Both the Democratic and Republican administrations have attempted to unite regional allies, partners and other countries, and to achieve its strategic objectives by comprehensively applying its policy tools in military, diplomatic and economic fields. Of course, the shift of US strategic focus is directly relating to China’s rise. However, both the Obama and Trump administrations have intended to avoid “going it alone” against China at least on “paper” but rather to win over countries in China’s neighborhood to join hands in dealing with China, which has become bipartisan consensus. The relations of China and the US with China’s neighboring countries will become an important content of the strategic contest between China and the US.
The Differences and Mutations between “Asia-Pacific Rebalance” and “Indo-Pacific Strategy”
From “Asia-Pacific Rebalance” to “Indo-Pacific Strategy”, though there is strong continuity in the US regional strategy, a careful comparison between the two strategies reveals delicate and important differences between the two.
Firstly, in terms of strategic planning, “Asia-Pacific Rebalance” strategy of the Obama administration may be described as a regional strategy that embeds US China strategy, whereas “Indo-Pacific Strategy” of the Trump administration is a regional strategy that takes China as the target of confrontation. Compared to “Asia-Pacific Rebalance” strategy, “Indo-Pacific Strategy” is more obvious and explicit in its intent against China. After the Obama administration launched “Asia-Pacific Rebalance” strategy, the US Government on several occasions signaled that “AsiaPacific Rebalance” strategy was not exclusively against China through peopleto-people exchanges and its successively released officially strategies. In practice, during the two terms of the Obama administration, China and the US conducted effective cooperation on Korean nuclear, climate change and reform on WTO issues. Of course, guided by “AsiaPacific Rebalance” strategy, US military forces were transferred to the Asia-Pacific region, the US used the South China Sea issue to instigate China’s neighboring countries to “besiege” China, and the US actively intervened in domestic political change in Myanmar, and all this did not help remove China’s misgivings. In comparison, “Indo-Pacific Strategy” of the Trump administration has not bothered to “cover up” as its predecessor did. In its various strategic papers, the Trump administration has not clarified whether “Free and Open IndoPacific Strategy” includes China. The absence of such an expression seems to imply that US “Indo-Pacific Strategy” does not include China.
At the same time, in the process of promoting its “Asia-Pacific Rebalance” strategy, the Obama administration gave special emphasis on “liberal and rule-based order”, which is in general rather neutral. After all, “rule-based” is less than strong a word in value, and though “liberal” has a strong ideological taste, it mainly pertains to a “liberal international order” often referred to by Western strategic circle. Though this set of terminology is not adopted by the Chinese side, it is basically convergent with the “existing international order” that China speaks about. In contrast, “Indo-Pacific Strategy” of the Trump administration is focused on the two concepts of “free” and “open”, which according to the Indo-Pacific Strategy Report released by US Department of Defense, to be “free” means that all countries in the region can exercise their own sovereignty free from the interference of other countries, and internally exercise “good governance” and protect human rights; and to be “open” means in the main that all countries can enter into international waters, airspace and cyberspace and have access to the market of other countries on equitable and reciprocal basis. This definition has a strong taste more obviously against China, not only pertaining to China’s foreign policy but also pertaining to the internal system of the country.
Secondly, on the level of strategy execution, “Asia-Pacific Rebalance” strategy was a typical regional strategy, whereas “Free and Open Indo-Pacific Strategy” can be described as a major country confrontation strategy under the disguise of a regional strategy. Such differences are in essence differences between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party in overall diplomatic philosophy and diplomatic concepts: by comparison, the Democratic Party leans more to multilateralism and regionalism, whereas the Republican Party, to unilateralism. Guided by “Asia-Pacific Rebalance” strategy, not only did the Obama administration strengthened military relations with US allies in the
Asia-Pacific region, it also actively intervened in arrangements for regional economic liberalization during its second term, accelerating, leading and basically completing the negotiations for Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP). In contrast, the center of gravity of “Indo-Pacific Strategy” rests with the US organizing a “Quad” mechanism against China with regional major countries or middle powers like Japan, India and Australia. Led by the US, the “Quad” mechanism against China has increasingly moved toward perfection. However, compared with the era of the Obama administration, the Trump administration has paid less than sufficient attention to middle and small regional countries and the regional mechanism with the ASEAN at its core.
Thirdly, in terms of the effects of the implementation of relevant US strategies, there have been subtle differences between the responses of other regional countries than China to the strategies implemented by two successive US presidents. In general, regional countries had higher acceptance of “Asia-Pacific Rebalance” strategy of the Obama administration. In the security area, the US deepened cooperation with its allies and Indian and Vietnam; making use of the South China Sea issue, the US won over some of the middle and small regional countries; in the economic area, the TPP talks had the attention and support of quite a few regional countries. Of course, while “bringing America in and making America stay” to counterbalance China, these countries also tried to keep balance between China and the US. As such, these countries took the attitude of “heartfelt welcome with cautious expression” to “AsiaPacific Rebalance” strategy of the era of the Obama administration. In contrast, regional countries have adopted the attitude of “welcome in words with complex minds” to “Indo-Pacific Strategy” of the Trump administration. On the level of words and documents, regional countries seem to be more “enthusiastic” about “Indo-Pacific Strategy” than “AsiaPacific Rebalance”. An underlining indication is that Japan, India, Australia and the ASEAN have respectively responded to US “Indo-Pacific Strategy” in different forms. However, at the same time as they actively respond to US “Indo-Pacific Strategy”, they also entertain profound concerns and misgivings about the America First strategic orientation of the Trump administration, about the effects of China-US “When Elephants Fight, the Grass Suffers”, and about possible division and marginalization of the existing regional mechanisms.
Contradiction and Inspirations from US Regional Strategy
From “Asia-Pacific Rebalance” to “Indo-Pacific Strategy”, there has been a consistent inherent contradiction in US regional strategies, that is, contradiction between US regional strategy and US China strategy. From the official announcement of US Government, both are natural points of departure for the making of strategy by US Government. But between them it is inevitable to have the questions of which being prioritized and which carrying more weight. It seems that “Asia-Pacific Rebalance” strategy of the Obama administration gave more considerations to the importance of the region. However, under such a strategic design and arrangements, US foreign policy makers seemingly consider that the strategy can less effectively cope with the rise of China. “Indo-Pacific Strategy” of the Trump administration seems to proceed more from coping with China’s rise. However, such a strategic design and arrangements will give regional countries the impression that the US is building an anti-China alliance, thus resulting in increased concerns and misgivings of regional countries about supporting and collaborating with US strategy, and in turn resulting in the failure of US thinking of countering China with the region. In general, from the US practices of “Asia-Pacific Rebalance” and “IndoPacific Strategy”, several inspirations may be drawn upon as follows.
Firstly, it is necessary to be soberminded about the attitude of neighboring countries toward US regional strategy. The shift of the center of gravity of US global strategy to China’s neighborhood is irreversible, and to a degree, such a shift has won the support and collaboration of some of China’s neighboring countries. It is a relatively universal psychology for neighboring countries to use the US to counterbalance China, and to use the certainty of the status quo power to counterbalance the uncertainty of the rising power, of which China should be sober-minded.
Secondly, as the implementation of US regional strategy is limited, China should keep strategic confidence. With either “Asia-Pacific Rebalance” or “IndoPacific Strategy”, there are quite a number of factors that constrain the implementation of US strategy. First of all, the two-party political system of the US and the political polarization of the country in the past two decades or so have resulted in the swing of US foreign strategy, affecting the consistency of US strategy. Second, the capacity of the US is limited. Though the US claims to be an Indo-Pacific or Asia-Pacific country, in geographical terms it is very far away from the region, and with limited resources to be projected to the region. Finally, China’s neighboring countries would not like to take sides between China and the US, which is against their own national interest.
Thirdly, the state of China’s relations with its neighboring countries is a main variable that decide on the effectiveness of US regional strategy. The fact that US “Asia-Pacific Rebalance” or “Free and Open Indo-Pacific” strategies have been able to make some progress can be attributed to some of the issues in China’s relations with some of the neighboring countries that call for resolution. Such issues provide opportunities that can be exploited by the US to implement its regional strategy. Under the situation of US comprehensive containment of China, it will necessarily be an important task of China’s foreign policy to improve China’s relations with neighboring countries and to prevent the latter from becoming a platform or outposts for the US to keep China down.