“Great Irresponsibles”?

I increasingly wonder whether the US and China – just like the US and USSR characterized by Hedley Bull in his 1980 article ‘The Great Irresponsibles?’ – are just not “well suited to fulfil the normative requirements of great powerhood”.

Like Bull’s superpowers of the Cold War, neither has a “continuous tradition of involvement as a great power manager in co-operation with other great powers”. Neither seems capable of realizing that “the overweening power of a state … provides other states and peoples with grounds for legitimate concern”. Rather, in each there is “an instinctive belief that the menace to others of superior power is cancelled out by virtuous purposes” – whether those purposes are a peaceful rise or the advancement of freedom. Both are “societies … that are self-absorbed and inattentive to values and perspectives other than their own, in a way that only very large societies can be”.

There is never any lack of reportage on China’s diplomatic missteps, and a thicket of commentary has noted how a carefully calibrated “charm offensive” seemed to give way over the last few years to a worrying tendency to come across as a bully. China definitely needs to do better.

But what about the US? Is it all good news for SEA that it’s “back”? Hardly.

It is not that SEA is opposed to US engagement. Far from it. Its economic and strategic security has long depended on ensuring that all its surrounding powers have a stake in its wellbeing. In broad terms, therefore, the region is happy that the US has signed ASEAN’s Treaty of Amity and Cooperation, showed up at regional meetings, and generally signalled a massive upgrade in attention.

But responsible engagement involves more than this.

One element of responsibility involves not coming across as too obviously self-interested.

As Fenna Egberink has pointed out (8 Sep): “Increased engagement is much welcomed, but not if it feels like an anti-China rather than a pro-ASEAN policy.”

Singaporean Foreign Minister K. Shanmugam sums this up in an interview with Amitav Acharya (21 Oct), noting that he “believes that the ‘US has to demonstrate the importance it attaches to Southeast Asia’. The US needs to engage the region in a ‘responsible’ way and pursue ‘a coherent and clear policy towards Southeast Asia, otherwise countries here will make their own calculations’.”

Of course, no state has purely altruistic motives for any of its diplomatic moves. Understandably, the US wants to get some benefit from its investment of time, energy, and political capital. But being a responsible power means knowing how to make your great-power status palatable – knowing how to demonstrate that political initiatives are not “all about me”.

A second element of responsibility involves not creating or exacerbating harmful divisions – in other words, not making things worse. US administrations come and go, but the idea that “whoever is not with us is against us” never quite disappears.

Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa, also interviewed by Acharya, insists that “the answer to regional tensions lies not in inviting the US to balance China militarily, but in expanding and deepening ASEAN's engagement with both the US and China”. Asians, famously, “do not want to have to favor one country over another”.

Yet participants at a recent workshop “wondered if the US is increasingly successful in ‘using’ ASEAN-led regionalism against China”.

Indonesian newspapers likewise pick up on undercurrents that resent what is perceived as an unwarranted tilt towards the US, or that question an increased US presence on the edges of the region.

And in a recent opinion piece (6 Dec), Ruhanas Harun, from the National Defence University of Malaysia, detects “some concern about the US intention to deepen their military presence in the region.  If it is done too fast, too deep and somewhat arrogantly, many countries are worried that it might antagonise China… Are ASEAN countries actively looking to refurbish their relationships with the US as a way of balancing against Chinese power, as suggested by some? Not really. ASEAN countries maintain that they have no quarrel with China and are not willing to fight someone else’s battle against China… For ASEAN, the dilemma is managing the delicate balance between the necessity to reassure its security and the desire to have its sovereignty and integrity respected. While there are differences among ASEAN members with regards to outside powers’ intentions in the region, they all agree that arrogance is unacceptable, wherever it might originate.”

Two current issues are particulaly ripe with divisive possibilities, and offer a clear test of responsibility for both powers. One is the South China Sea. Both powers seem incapable of realizing that their actions look threatening to the other, and are threatening to the unity of the region. China’s famous dotted line is an obvious provocation, but the US, too, seems often oblivious to the effect of its actions, which can easily come across as contributing to “encirclement” or pursuing a “zero-sum approach”.

And then there's the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).

It appears this “potentially threatening arrangement” has jolted China into redoubling efforts to reach a regional trade agreement in East Asia “even if it means moving towards Japan’s position on issues of coverage and membership” (maybe).

But as Shiro Armstrong very forcefully argues (11 Dec), this possibly useful galvanizing effect may come with a heavy price tag: “China needs to help set the rules and agree to them so that it has buy-in – not have those rules created around it. The latter scenario may have been possible a decade ago, but not now. It is crucial, then, that a major trade policy initiative in the Asia Pacific, such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, include China, else it will become one of the set of rules created around China, constraining not promoting one of the main trans-Pacific economic relationships…The biggest risk of the TPP is political: that it might divide the region strategically between its members and the rest, with China being on the outside.”

Peter Drysdale (12 Dec) agrees: “The TPP is supposed to weld the Asia Pacific region together. It is supposed to deal with ‘behind-the-border’ regulatory (21st century) issues on which other preferential trade agreements fall short. Without careful consideration, design and a manageable framework, it will likely do the reverse — exclude key partners who are at the heart of East Asian economic dynamism by making it near-impossible for the excluded to join… It is disingenuous to declare, as [Congressman and Chairman of the Subcommittee of Trade of the House Committee on Ways and Means Kevin] Brady did in announcing the congressional hearings last week, that ‘we should also welcome new countries to the TPP if they are willing to meet TPP’s high ambitions and resolve outstanding bilateral issues’. There is absolutely no indication that the intention is to draw China into the TPP process any time soon.”

The report from an ASEAN Studies Centre seminar (12 Dec) concludes: “The TPP is another part of the ongoing Sino-US rivalry. The absence of China’s participation is evident. While the US states that it aims to prevent a division in the Asia-Pacific, it may actually be carefully engineering this division… The TPP is a very ambitious initiative towards deeper economic integration in Asia-Pacific. But it should be managed with ‘great sophistication’ so that it does not become another confrontational ground for the US and China.”

Having a large power in your vicinity is like having a hippo in your bathtub. It leaves you little space for manoeuvre. SEA is in the invidious position of having two major hippos and several minor ones in its bathing place. Individually and collectively, its states have the responsibility to do their utmost not to rock the tub. But at the end of the day, it’s the hippos who have to play responsibly, and learn to share. Otherwise, we’ll be in for a very messy, bruising outcome.