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Title: The Great Decoupling: America Sidelined in Asia
Published: 2018-05-02
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0qFih_nvk8
Title: The Great Decoupling: America Sidelined in Asia
Published: 2018-05-02
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0qFih_nvk8
1/31
Hello, I am Peter Lee, Food News Buds, China Watch. This week on China Watch, the great decoupling, US pursuit of hegemony and Asia's pursuit of security are diverging. To keep it simple, it's Asia for the Asians. America is on the outside looking in as the Korean peace process unfolds. To quote the Los Angeles Times correspondent Anne Fyfield, what is even going on? Well you'll find out2/31
here at China Watch and in an unexpected development, India's Narendra Modi and China's Xi Jinping make nice. Very, very nice. It's a scary time for US influence in Asia and America isn't liking it. And Australia and Japan, to countries that have hitched their foreign policy star to the idea of US centrality, aren't liking it either. The big Asian news this week was the summit between the3/31
leaders of South and North Korea, Moon Jae-in and Kim Jong-un. They met at the demilitarized zone at Pan Moon-john that separates the Korean peninsula and there were some really cool optics as the two supremacists shook hands at the property line, Kim stepped into South Korea and then unscripted moment alert, persuaded Moon to hop into North Korea. A lot of nice promises were made by Kim Jong-un.4/31
In the Korean War, cease nuclear and ICBM tests, decommissioned the DPRK nuclear test site and he made a statement that North Korea would denuclearize if it got a peace treaty with the United States and a US non-aggression promise. This is all good stuff and it was designed to keep the pressure on the United States to support the peace process and short circuit the demands of US5/31
hawks that North Korea be compelled to denuclearize before anything else good started. Like I said on last week's China watch, the key issue is whether doves can move the frame to peace or whether hawks can shift the frame to denuclearization. Right now, the doves are doing pretty good. The hawks haven't given up. After all, the signature characteristic of American leadership is that we have the strength6/31
and impunity to persist in ruinous policies. As Eli Lake put it, beware the Korean peace trap. Mix in a New York Times op-ed North Korea's phony peace ploy. And let's check in on Ted Cruz who lays down the real reason peace is bad in a tweet. Kim should not be allowed to use negotiations over the denuclearization of North Korea to weaken our alliances with South Korea7/31
and Japan, which could risk destabilizing not just the Korean peninsula, but the entire Pacific Rim. D-Coupling is a word that's thrown around in Korean affairs, usually in the context of China and North Korea wedging off South Korea so that it behaves more like an independent actor and less like a U.S. ally and asset. Under South Korean President Moon Jae-in, that's already happened. The D-Coupling to pay8/31
attention to these days is the D-Coupling of Asian security and American hegemony. When America was dominant in Asia, American hegemony and Asian security were pretty much synonymous, not necessarily in a good way, by exercising its hegemonic power, the United States determined the agenda, content, and direction of the Asian security debate. For instance, there was a Korean peace process under President Bill Clinton, then there was a9/31
regime change policy under Dick Cheney during the Bush administration, and then there was a none of the above policy by Barack Obama. And South Korea had to go along in every instance, because there was no alternative. Interested viewers can check the show notes for my episode on the absolute nadeer of U.S. Korea policy when Dick Cheney's outfit tried to execute North Korean regime change clandestinely on10/31
the cheap and completely incompetently in 2006 and 2007. Instead of cratering the DPRK, we literally birthed North Korea's atomic bomb. And the peace-minded South Korean government had no alternative but to grin and bear it. But in 2018, the Republic of Korea is deeply embedded in the PRC-led North Asian economy. It's run by a piece that is deeply disgusted with the nationalist, revisionist antics, and insults of11/31
America's chief Asian ally, that's Japan's Shinzo Abe, and also North Korea has gigantic bombs and ICBMs that simply can no longer be ignored. So, South Korean President Moon Jae-in defined the U.S. strategy of sanctions and isolation of North Korea, reached out to North Korea bilaterally, and got away with it. And credit where credit is due, Donald Trump cares so little for the 20-year legacy of U.S.12/31
futility on North Korea that he is willing to let the edifice of U.S. Korean policy crumble. Team Trump is already agitating for the Donald to get the peace Nobel, which will definitely trigger a festival of exploding heads in liberal land if it happens. Could Trump win the Nobel Peace Prize? Another place the U.S. found itself on the outside looking in was in all places, India. U.S.13/31
deep strategic thinkers regard India as the linchpin of America's 21st-century China containment strategy. The idea is that India is a big country with a natural and typically toward China, and it can be enticed into forming a United Front with the United States, Japan, and Plucky Australia in the Democracy Quadrilateral. A.K.A. The Quad. But last week, with apparently no prior consultation with the Allies, Narendra Modi went14/31
to China for a meeting with the PRC's Xi Jinping, and it was hard for onlookers in the West to figure out why. A generic desire to quote less than tensions between Indian China doesn't quite cut it, especially since the whole premise of the Quad is that tensions should be heightened to polarize Asia, justify further military expenditures, and heightened tensions even more in a supremely virtuous and15/31
profitable cycle. It appears the answer and motivation for Modi's visit was Afghanistan. India wants a big role in Afghanistan and to deny Afghanistan to Pakistan as a source of strategic depth, and China, which is supposedly Pakistan's absolute bestie, bro, is apparently willing to go along. Afghanistan expert, Barnett Rubin, who has advised or tried to advise the US government on Afghan policy for many years, tweeted a16/31
lengthy and important thread on the takeaway from the Xi Modi meeting. You can find it in the show notes. Long story short, it looks like India and the PRC have agreed to cooperate on some Afghanistan projects and in the larger sense on stabilizing Afghanistan by allowing the Afghan Taliban to enter the government while checking Pakistan's influence on the Afghan Taliban and on Afghan politics in general.17/31
I'm assuming this means that Modi expects China to exert meaningful pressure on Pakistan's ISI intelligence services to dial back its core mission of trying to run the Afghan Taliban as a Pakistan asset and also not try to murder every Indian inside Afghanistan. For his part, she expects India to resist the temptation to subvert and destroy Pakistan and endanger China's supreme overseas strategic gambit, the China-Pakistan economic18/31
corridor. Getting Pakistan to toe the line on Afghanistan will be a significant challenge for China. Pakistan's army dredds the idea of encirclement by India on the west via Afghanistan and has allegedly provided havens for the Afghan Taliban and fostered terrorism inside Afghanistan to make sure Pakistan has the upper hand there. But can China persuade Pakistan to accept a reduced role in Afghanistan? China is pretty well19/31
positioned to offer Pakistan some hefty economic and security inducements. And it doesn't hurt China's bargaining leverage that by a funny or suspicious coincidence, just as China, India and the US seem to share an understanding that Pakistan's influence on the Pashtun-dominated Taliban in Afghanistan needs to be rolled back. Pakistan is in the grip of agitation by its own, restive and unhappy, Pashtun-monority inside Pakistan. The Pakistan army20/31
is desperately trying to contain a popular movement, the Pashtun-long march that is demanding redress for the excess of security operations in the ethnic Pashtun West lands of Pakistan. So instead of projecting power to the Pashtun areas of Afghanistan, Pakistan is preoccupied with trying to pacify its own Pashtun population. Our Afghan security services, egging on Pakistan-Pastuns are the great powers willing to let Pakistan struggle till it21/31
mends its ways. What do you think? An important factor to watch is if and when the People's Republic of China withdraws its opposition to the designation of a Pakistani Masud Ajar as a terrorist by the United Nations. Masud Ajar has a 20-year history of terrorism against India, including the catastrophic Mumbai attack of 2008 that killed 164 people. He has also enjoyed 20 years of protection by22/31
the Pakistan military. He's pretty much India's most wanted man and China's refusal to let the UN designate him formally as a terrorist is a hot-button issue for India. If the PRC does finally permit Masud Ajar's designation as a terrorist, it will be a pretty major sign that China-India relations have entered a new phase in US streams of India as a reliable anti-China asset are fading. Next,23/31
let's look at the biggest loser from last week, Australia. Australia's China hawks have banked on the idea that China containment strategy in Asia would be reborn as the democracy quadrilateral of India, Japan, the United States, and Australia. The Quad is supposed to be laser-focused on blocking the People's Republic of China's efforts to dominate Asia with its illiberal authoritarian model of economics and governments. Australia has the24/31
stongeist, most loyal and most resolute ally of the United States and Pyrrhus and perhaps widest liberal democracy in Asia would play a key role in setting the regional agenda. The Turnbull government, the Australian security and intelligence organization, and remarkably client-local media beat the drum against Maline Chinese influence in Australia and urged the rest of the free world to follow. Well, it appears there are limits to25/31
the Asian clout wielded by a nation of 24 million people, that's a lot closer to the South Pole than to the South China Sea. Australia's China hawks suffered three humiliations last week. The first, as discussed above, was Quad-Keystone India, wandering off to cut a separate deal with China. The second was the news that India had once again declined to allow the Australian Navy to participate in26/31
the Malabar exercise, a yearly India-Japan-US naval shindig that Australia has been pleading to join for the last three years. The third blow was that the tutelary deity of America's China hawks, Admiral Harry Harris, once the hefe of Pacific Command, and penciled in to fill the role of US ambassador to Australia, would be parachuted into the ambassador ship of South Korea instead. Harris was expected to be27/31
a vital ally in Australia's Quad campaign, which might be why he didn't get the job. There are indications that Harris was duplicitous and borderline insubordinate in opposing Trump's cooperation with China on North Korea policy. Check my report in the show notes on the mysterious diversion of Pacific Command's aircraft carrier task group in March of 2017. It dottled down Australia way when it was supposed to be28/31
up north, intimidating North Korea. And to that, Australian China hawking has a significant component of Hillary Clinton pivot advocates who found refuge at places like the Lowey Institute after Trump's election. May be, Team Trump didn't feel like empowering Australia, or Clintonistas, or Harry Harris to set the Asia and Antichina agenda. And of course, sending Admiral Harris up north to South Korea might have been a sob29/31
to his closest associate in Asia, Shinzo Abe, who is otherwise completely out of the loop on the Korean situation. After his ambassador ship was announced, Harris promptly jetted to Tokyo, not Seoul, for a reassuring grip and grin with the sideline Japanese Prime Minister. Well, if the nations of Asia and Donald Trump's America are settling in for bilateral, transactional diplomacy, the nations that sought influence and prestige30/31
by supporting and collectively enforcing global norms might be in for a rough patch. Sorry, Strea, sorry, Japan. But maybe good news for everybody else. Look at Taiwan. Taiwan President says willing to meet with Chinese leader if no political preconditions imposed. And down South Asia way a key Napoli's political figure, Bobberum Batarai tweeted, Let's hope Shimoji summit will usher in the spirit of cooperation rather than competition31/31
between our two neighbors, which should be conducive for promoting trilateral cooperation among Nepal, China, India, peace and cooperation in Asia. What a concept. That's all for this week. Thank you for watching and thank you for supporting NewsBud. NewsBud is 100% people funded independent media and that means 100% you thank you again. See you next week. I'm Peter Lee for NewsBuds, China Watch.
