{"id":44547,"date":"2018-12-17T06:00:57","date_gmt":"2018-12-16T19:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=44547"},"modified":"2019-12-06T16:00:30","modified_gmt":"2019-12-06T05:00:30","slug":"asias-power-puzzles-why-we-need-track-2-diplomacy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/asias-power-puzzles-why-we-need-track-2-diplomacy\/","title":{"rendered":"Asia\u2019s power puzzles: why we need track 2 diplomacy"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

The first priority is to manage great power competition in the Indo\u2011Pacific.
\n<\/em>\u2014 Australia\u2019s Defence Minister Christopher Pyne<\/a><\/p>\n

Optimists see the glass as half full, while strategists worry that it\u2019s actually a coffin that\u2019s half full.<\/p>\n

Confronting our new era of great-power competition<\/a>, optimists think that smarts and self-interest will achieve a balanced mix of intense competition and intimate cooperation. The pessimists see the coffin of great-power clash already in the front parlour.<\/p>\n

As an optimist, I\u2019m pushing the idea that this will be a hot peace<\/a> not a new cold war<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I got a partial tick in Canberra last week from our second-longest-serving prime minister, John Howard, just back from leading the Australian delegation in Beijing for the high-level dialogue with China<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Howard responded to my cold war\/hot peace question: \u2018I think talk of a new cold war is overblown. I think we have to adopt a pragmatic assessment of relations between China and the United States.\u2019<\/p>\n

The Howard recipe for pragmatic management is not to twitch at every tweet by Donald Trump, and push hard to preserve the open economic settings that have delivered so much for Asia and Australia:<\/p>\n

China and America are the dominant powers in the world. And how they interact has a big impact. And I, certainly, speaking as an Australian, don\u2019t want a return to higher levels of protection and trade restriction. I\u2019m totally against that. The debate between Xi and President Trump, I hope in the long term doesn\u2019t make the world a more protected place when it comes to trade.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

With the first track of government-to-government dealings becoming tougher, there\u2019s more need for work via track 2<\/a> to understand and balance the hot peace.<\/p>\n

For second-track heavy lifting, turn to CSCAP, the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific, established in 1993 in Asia\u2019s great burst of optimistic regionalism and institution creation following the end of the cold war.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been a CSCAPer since the wonderful insurgent intellectual\u00a0Des Ball<\/a>\u00a0conscripted me, opining that even journalists should lend a hand in the long second-track trek.<\/p>\n

CSCAP has been pondering our new era<\/a> and the management theme Australia is pushing: the need for a rules-based order in Canberra\u2019s geographic construct of choice, the Indo-Pacific.<\/p>\n

The council\u2019s published view is in the Regional security outlook 2019<\/a><\/em> and the latest round of debate happened in Perth at the 50th meeting of the CSCAP steering committee. Those offering Oz perspectives in Perth included Kim Beazley, Julie Bishop and Stephen Smith.<\/p>\n

Some regional commentators see opportunities as well as threats in this increasingly stark competition. Southeast Asian countries may benefit if foreign companies move their production from China to their region. Major-power rivalry, in the view of key Vietnamese analysts (writing in CSCAP\u2019s Regional security outlook<\/em>), \u2018creates more room for manoeuvre\u2019 for Southeast Asians as Washington and Beijing strive to win partnerships and collaboration.<\/p>\n

Bilahari Kausikan from Singapore makes the point that the world\u2014at the end of the period of US unipolarity\u2014is in \u2018a more historically normal situation of a divided global and regional order and great power competition\u2019.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s concern\u2014not just from China, but also Russia and much of ASEAN\u2014that advocacy of the \u2018Indo-Pacific\u2019 is antagonistic towards China.<\/p>\n

The Vietnam essay portrays Washington\u2019s \u2018Indo-Pacific Strategy (IPS)\u2019 and China\u2019s \u2018Belt and Road Initiative\u2019 as rival visions, representing \u2018intensified engagement with the wider region in terms of economic[s], politics, diplomacy, and defence\u2019. The IPS is \u2018centred on the concept of the Quad\u2019 (which is intended to bring together four democracies\u2014the United States, Japan, India and Australia) and \u2018may sideline ASEAN-led arrangements that prioritise \u2026 a more comprehensive approach to security\u2019.<\/p>\n

As ever, ASEAN is anxious about forging alliance-style alignments. The \u2018DNA of ASEAN countries\u2019, according to a senior Indonesian writer in CSCAP\u2019s \u00a0Regional security outlook<\/em>, is for \u2018inclusive cooperation\u2019 to maintain \u2018equal distance from all the great powers\u2019 to prevent the region from \u2018becoming a theatre of proxy war\u2019.<\/p>\n

Australia views the \u2018Indo-Pacific\u2019 as primarily a geographic framing device, giving proper recognition to India\u2019s rise. However, CSCAP commentary is a reminder that the concept carries other, more controversial significance for many in the region.<\/p>\n

The notion of an international \u2018rules-based order\u2019 is also less straightforward than Australian official statements and academic commentary sometimes suggest. True, there\u2019s support for the idea of \u2018rules\u2019 in international behaviour\u2014but reference to a \u2018liberal\u2019 order is more contested. Also, the insistence that alliances are a part of this order\u2014as some Australian leaders have done\u2014fits uncomfortably with ASEAN international preferences.<\/p>\n

The Australian academic Anthony Milner<\/a>, currently a co-chair of CSCAP, says the region confronts the implications of a great transition in global power:<\/p>\n

Most observers instinctively sense that moving to a new order is a fearsomely daunting undertaking, especially as we are not coming out of a major war with a clear winner who has the muscle and the moral authority to offer new solutions.<\/p>\n

Henry Kissinger has argued that the future international order will involve not just a shift in power from the US to China but also a new \u2018agreement on norms\u2019\u2014and he is uncertain whether it will be \u2018possible to translate divergent cultures into a common system\u2019. An understandably popular stance is to keep it simple, staying clear of ideology and focusing initially on trade and investment regimes. But even here, divergent philosophies of governance darken the horizon almost instantly.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

More than being simply pragmatic, Australia must be nimble and smart as it adheres to the US alliance while simultaneously leaning towards Asia on economic and trade issues. It\u2019ll be a complicated trek, on first or second track.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The first priority is to manage great power competition in the Indo\u2011Pacific. \u2014 Australia\u2019s Defence Minister Christopher Pyne Optimists see the glass as half full, while strategists worry that it\u2019s actually a coffin that\u2019s half …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":79,"featured_media":44548,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[294,56,2075,25],"class_list":["post-44547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-diplomacy","tag-indo-pacific","tag-power-dynamics","tag-southeast-asia"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nAsia\u2019s power puzzles: why we need track 2 diplomacy | 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\" 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