{"id":14349,"date":"2014-06-12T14:45:15","date_gmt":"2014-06-12T04:45:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=14349"},"modified":"2014-06-16T10:25:38","modified_gmt":"2014-06-16T00:25:38","slug":"chinas-peaceful-rise-into-pieces","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/chinas-peaceful-rise-into-pieces\/","title":{"rendered":"China\u2019s peaceful rise into pieces"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a>China has gone from peaceful rise to rising by pieces, as it smashes the nascent regional security order. Not much peace in prospect as China forcefully asserts its ownership over pieces of the East China and South China Seas.<\/p>\n The irony is that the Asian order China\u2019s ramming<\/a> is one that has been a soft system, demanding little of Beijing and subject to Beijing\u2019s effective veto. Beijing\u2019s going from veto to vandal in an Asia system that has evolved in a China-friendly way for two decades. Driven by ASEAN, it has been a new order created by Asians for Asia. Mark that as another irony, with President Xi Jinping a fortnight ago arguing<\/a> that\u00a0\u2018it\u2019s for the people of Asia to run the affairs of Asia, solve the problems of Asia and uphold the security of Asia\u2019. Unfortunately for the rest of Asia, Beijing\u2019s actions mean those words are being interpreted to mean, \u2018it\u2019s for China to run the affairs of Asia\u2019.<\/p>\n China\u2019s assertiveness is bad news for the multilateral Asian order constructed using ASEAN building blocks\u2014the East Asia Summit, the ASEAN Regional Forum and the ASEAN Defence Ministers Meeting.<\/p>\n The ASEAN Regional Forum<\/a>, for instance, founded in 1994, now confronts the reality that two decades of confidence-building have produced precious little confidence. Remember that the ARF was always supposed to be a three-stage process:<\/p>\n Forget about stages two and three. Stage one is crumbling.<\/p>\n The commentaries, official and unofficial, are in sad agreement. The motif of 2014 for Asia is \u2018mistrust\u2019, according to a geopolitical overview<\/a> by Singapore\u2019s Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. The National Security Strategy<\/a> issued by Japan in December lamented that the regional security framework hadn\u2019t been institutionalised, and charged China with trying to \u2018change the status quo by coercion in the maritime and aerial domains including the East China Sea and the South China Sea, [in ways] which are incompatible with the existing order of international law\u2019. It\u2019s the frame Shinzo Abe employed for his \u2018we\u2019re back<\/a>\u2019 speech on Japan again taking a security role in Asia.<\/p>\n The 2014 Regional Security Outlook<\/a> published by the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific,\u00a0judges that after 25 years of effort, East Asia\u2019s fight for a security community has to be rated, at best, as a draw. \u2018In short,\u2019 Ron Huisken writes, \u2018we are not winning\u2019. He describes the US and China slipping towards \u2018mutually accepted adversity and antagonism\u2019, as China finds it \u2018hard to sustain its preferred image of a new model major power devoid of hegemonic aspirations and committed to stability and reassurance\u2019.<\/p>\n\n