{"id":12526,"date":"2014-02-28T06:00:56","date_gmt":"2014-02-27T19:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=12526"},"modified":"2014-03-06T10:26:37","modified_gmt":"2014-03-05T23:26:37","slug":"power-sharing-and-risk-management-in-hugh-whites-china-choice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/power-sharing-and-risk-management-in-hugh-whites-china-choice\/","title":{"rendered":"Power sharing and risk management in Hugh White’s ‘China Choice’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Can<\/a><\/p>\n

Hugh White argues in his book China Choice<\/i><\/a> that the United States should share power with China. Perhaps the starkest aspect of his proposal is that it requires real and substantive concessions to be negotiated with the Middle Kingdom. There\u2019s no wishful thinking about China being happy as a \u2018responsible stakeholder\u2019 in Hugh\u2019s view, and there\u2019s no place at the table for middle powers such as Australia either. His is a security architecture built around olde worlde great power politics.<\/p>\n

As an example of what that might look like, Hugh sketches out a \u2018concert of Asia\u2019 involving America, China, Japan, India and perhaps Indonesia. In doing so, he outlines seven \u2018understandings\u2019, with which the members of the concert would probably have to agree, including \u2018fully accept[ing] the legitimacy of the political systems of all the others\u2019. What\u2019s more, he identifies Japan\u2019s re-emergence as a great power in its own right (i.e. independent of the United States) as a likely precondition for a concert to be workable. None of this would be easy; in fact it might not even be possible.<\/p>\n

If power sharing can be achieved, it certainly won’t be pretty. The fundamental basis of Hugh\u2019s scheme entails compromises in favour of Chinese interests. Indeed, the term \u2018power sharing\u2019 is at best incomplete and potentially misleading in this context. In a previous generation, prior to the taint of history, the word \u2018appeasement\u2019 would have arisen in the discussion.<\/p>\n

What exactly China might demand is hard to anticipate, and Hugh is imprecise on the limits to be imposed on concessions. Although he mentions the UN Charter with its restraint on the use of force\u2014at least between those sharing power\u2014he also says that small and middle powers would be \u2018vulnerable to the predations of the great powers\u2019. In any case, it\u2019d be hard to be optimistic about continued Taiwanese independence under a power sharing arrangement with China.<\/p>\n

So we have a proposal which would be both difficult to achieve and worrying in its consequences. To his credit, Hugh doesn’t pretend otherwise. Instead, he argues that we should work towards what he calls power sharing because it\u2019s vastly preferable to what he sees as the alternatives: US withdrawal from the region or escalating US-Sino rivalry with an attendant risk of catastrophic war.<\/p>\n

I think that it’s fair to say that Hugh\u2019s analysis of the strategic environment has been proven prescient by recent events. Nonetheless, and despite wide exposure, it’s equally fair to say that his proposal is yet to garner serious policy traction in Australia or the United States. But the game isn’t over; Hugh will undoubtedly continue trying to convince US audiences of the imperative to share power with China.<\/p>\n

The question of what Australia should do naturally arises. The answer depends on how convincing you find Hugh\u2019s argument. I\u2019m unconvinced, but that\u2019s a story for another day. Instead, I want to explore an issue in risk management that arises for Australia from Hugh\u2019s proposal for the United States. (His prescription for Australia is set out in his Quarterly Essay Power Shift<\/a>.) If musing about risk seems an esoteric diversion, forgive me, but I think it\u2019s central to any serious discussion of strategy. Here goes…<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s stipulate for the purpose of argument that power sharing is the best option in the sense that it reduces anticipated future costs compared with the alternatives\u2014ie on average it\u2019s less bad then the alternatives. I say \u2018on average\u2019 because there’s always uncertainty about how the future will play out. We get to choose a course of action but we have to accept that the consequences are uncertain\u2014we control our actions but not ultimate outcomes.<\/p>\n

In a world where power sharing is the least costly option for the United States, they\u2019d presumably try to achieve that outcome, provided that they realise what\u2019s in their best interest. After all, they\u2019d have nothing to lose. If their offer to share power was rebuffed or proved too difficult or unpalatable, they could always change track and pursue another option.<\/p>\n

But what happens if, as Hugh argues, the United States lacks the wisdom to realise what\u2019s best for them? How should Australia respond then? Should we urge the US to share power with China and position ourselves to make this more likely by, for example, limiting our support to the US rebalance to Asia and adopting a more independent position between China and the United States? The answer depends on how likely we judge it to be that the United States will take our advice.<\/p>\n

If the prospects of persuading the United States to share power are low, all we gain is a small increase in the probability of the least costly outcome (and a commensurately small decrease in the probability of more costly alternatives). But we\u2019ll incur an opportunity cost; specifically, we won’t be able to shape the course of action the United States is actually undertaking and, more importantly, we\u2019ll limit our options for mitigating the risks associated with it. Most critically, by failing to support the US strategy with respect to China, we\u2019ll undermine the prospects of receiving US support subsequently.<\/p>\n

My judgement is that by advocating US\u2013China power sharing and positioning ourselves accordingly, we\u2019re only likely to marginally increase the already small probability of that occurring. That\u2019s because power sharing would require the United States to abandon the liberal democratic project it embraced following the end of WWII. As Hugh himself puts it: \u2018sharing power with China runs counter to America\u2019s vision of itself and its role in the world\u2026\u2019. I\u2019d put it even more strongly; the United States and China have such incompatible conceptions of power as to make power sharing between them the equivalent of a vegetarian and a carnivore attempting to share a meal.<\/p>\n

The critical point is that we can\u2019t have it both ways. We can\u2019t support the US pivot and not support the US pivot. We can\u2019t host US troops in Darwin and not host US troops in Darwin. We can\u2019t draw closer to other US allies in the region and distance ourselves from them at the same time. Most importantly, we can\u2019t undermine US strategy and expect US protection. By all means, Australian leaders should have frank and full discussions with their US counterparts about how to best handle the challenges we face, but at some point\u2014sooner rather then later\u2014a decision has to be made. In this sense, there is<\/i> a China choice for Australia to make.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s about playing the odds. Sound strategy demands a focus on the practical differences<\/i> that we can make to the probabilities and consequences of the risks that we face, rather then a fixation on achieving the theoretical best possible outcome. It would make no sense for Australia to expend its limited alliance capital in a quixotic quest to reverse US policy. Like it or not, Australia only has a marginal capacity to shape the strategic landscape of the Asia\u2013Pacific region in the 21st\u00a0century. We have to accept the realities we face and work diligently to mitigate identified risks where we can.<\/p>\n

Where does this leave us? My conclusion is that even if a power sharing arrangement is the best option for the United States to pursue in theory (a topic for another day), the best strategy for Australia will almost always be to work with the United States in executing the strategy it chooses for itself.<\/p>\n

Mark Thomson is senior analyst for defence economics<\/em>\u00a0at ASPI. Image courtesy of Flickr Ronnie Meijer<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hugh White argues in his book China Choice that the United States should share power with China. Perhaps the starkest aspect of his proposal is that it requires real and substantive concessions to be negotiated …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":12529,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[52,1426,708,31],"class_list":["post-12526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-china","tag-hugh-white","tag-power-sharing","tag-united-states"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nPower sharing and risk management in Hugh White's 'China Choice' | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/power-sharing-and-risk-management-in-hugh-whites-china-choice\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Power sharing and risk management in Hugh White's 'China Choice' | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Hugh White argues in his book China Choice that the United States should share power with China. 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