Adrián Romero Jurado
US Foreign Policy in Asia-Pacific through Obama Administration. Chinese and US Identity Introduction The State of the Union pronounced by Barack Obama on January 25th, 2011 marked the basis of the US foreign policy new realignment. This was the first time that an American Head of State mentioned with such impetus the need of take care about Asia. In his statement, he developed one of the main points that this study will refer to: the establishment of China as the direct competitor against US potential1. Obama would mention it two more occasions throughout his announcement, showing a great reflective charge that would be linked with the coining of Asia-Pacific2 concept. That autumn, his administration applied a reorientation of the previous foreign policy of Bush in Middle East to Asia, working the next years in reinforcing the US relations with the South-East Asian countries. Here starts the political pivot. Our ambition is to determine the causes of the US foreign policy realignment to Asia. Deep considerations will be taken through the literature in order to explain the facts that could reinforce our hypothesis. We will attend the period from 2011 to the second half of 2016, coinciding with the beginning of the presidential elections and the end of Obama´s political career. The analysis will follow a constructivist approach, according to IR theories, and the psychological bias on misperceptions applied to US national identity. We will develop our investigation through an essential question: which were the causes that produced the Asian pivot in the US foreign policy during Obama´s administration? Study of the literature and causes given about the Asian pivot According to previous analysis, the Bush administration, even its main interests in foreign policy was Middle East, never disdain its interest in Asia. According to Ross, the politics initiated by Obama were not too much different from the last applied in the continent by the previous Republican president. They were focused in similar aspects such as maintain the military stability of the allies in the region3 or develop commercial tides. However, while Bush politics were according to Nye a mere exercise of hard power4, Obama attempted to adopt an effective use of smart power.
“Meanwhile, nations like China and India realized that with some changes of their own, they could compete in this new world. And so, they started educating their children earlier and longer, with greater emphasis on math and science. They’re investing in research and new technologies”. The Obama White House (25th January 2011). The 2011 State of the Union Address [Video] Min 7:57-8:13 URL https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZdEmjtF6HE 2 The Obama White House (25th January 2011). The 2011 State of the Union Address [Video] Min 7:578:13 URL https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZdEmjtF6HE Min 31:58-32:06. “That’s what we did with Korea, and that’s what I intend to do as we pursue agreements with Panama and Colombia and continue our Asia Pacific and global trade talks”. 3 Ross (2012) pp.5. 4 Hard Power, coined for first time by Joseph Nye in his work Bound to Lead: The Changing Nature of American Power (1990) considers it as the use of coaction through force or economic resources for subduing a state to follow the interests of the issuer. Its counterpart, softpower, use the attraction as method 1
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Adrián Romero Jurado After he had reviewed Bush administration during the Great Recession, Obama proposed a new realist model as a circumstantial adaptation to the processes derived of globalization. In order to convince the elites about the new realignment of USA in Asia, he employed methods of persuasion and propaganda such as the storytelling5. To put an example, he reversed great part of the measures taken by Bush to reduce the Chinese threat to United States, increasing the number of troops stationed in allied countries6. In the case of South Korea, he argued as justification the increase of North Korea´s nuclear tests. Even the economic crisis reduced the security budget, the funds destinated to Asia were stable during Obama´s administration. In 2013, the Executive Budget Summary reflected in the continent a weak 5% reduction in assistance budget allocated to Asian South East and Pacific, while in Europe and Central Asia was dropped in a 18% (Manyin et al.2012). Literature shows us how part of this Asian pivot was because of the growing economic interest in the region. In a time where the European countries and United States suffered the economic crisis, the growth of certain Asian countries were unstoppable. China and India were growing in a 10% of the annual GDP, Philippines at 7% and Vietnam in a 6% (2010)7. The Asian allies started to question the US leadership in the region comparing with other states such as the versatile China8. The United States, constraint by the need to increase its domestic policy, maintain the global leadership9 and not lose commercial relations with Asia, carried the country into Dani Rodrik´s “unresolved trilemma”. This concept shows the existing contradictions between ideas and values in a globalized world, where states sometimes only can choose one option of three to revalidate or resign its position in the Pacific: sovereignty, globalization or democracy. In this case, Obama chose sovereignty, but not following economic purposes only. The literature´s review shows how there is a group of contradictions that have not been concertized to better understand the perspectives that the USA imposed to the Asian pivot. In first place, during the economic crisis the United States did not suffer a bad position in the region, and the Chinese dynamism was not a surprise for Obama. We must remind that the US economic participation in the region dates from more than six decades ago. As we have mentioned, even Bush focused great part of his efforts and resources in
to reach the objectives set by a state. The efficient use of both powers for a winning strategy is denominated smart power and was described by Nye in his article Smart power and the War on Terror (2008). 5 Understood as a propaganda and persuasion technique, it follows the efficient transmission of the message through metaphors. It facilitates the communication process, having a clear capability in the creation of ideas and values. (Sanahuja, 2012) pp. 33. 6 In September 2011, 48000 US soldiers were deployed in Japan and 43000 in Hawaii, being 6000 and 5000 more than in the same month 2008. Defense Manpower Data Center (September. 30 2008-2011). Counts of Active Duty and Reserve Service Members and APF Civilians. Obtained from https://www.dmdc.osd.mil/appj/dwp/dwp_reports.jsp 7 World Bank. 8 According to Ross (2012): “Washington faced a credibility problem: its East Asian allies questioned whether the United States, mired in its worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, could contend with a seemingly more confident and capable China”. (pp.5). 9 Throughout this study, take in account that we assume the term leadership as a “primus inter pares” concept of legitimacy. Do not confuse it with hegemony (supremacy). 2
Adrián Romero Jurado Middle East, he already advised the interest of the United States in Asia, containing any possible breakdown of US sphere of influence. So, there were enough economic or political threats at all to make such aggressive US policy realignment. The possible military menaces that Obama stablished for the increase of security in the region were not suitable according to the information we have from that time, especially about China. However, even the US President never wanted a confrontation with the Asian country, he was conscious how China was a worrying issue in his leadership in the continent. In every moment, Obama tried not to spread the doubt to China about US concerns. But its allies in the continent took care, through different conflicts10, to make China suspects of possible contention attempts coming from Washington. But China, even it had great economic power, during Bush and Obama´s administration it lacks a great military advantage to impose its sovereignty in the region. The country could have a great army11, but its fleet was incapable to compete at that time to the United States´12. In practice, the commerce with China in the Chinese Meridional Sea, one of the greatest routes of world commerce, was controlled entirely by the United States. At the end, we can stipulate that the United States did not have clear reasons in the international system to change radically its foreign policy to Asia. Having this into account, we determine that maybe the final pivot to Asia was produced internally, through domestic perceptions developed about the continent and China that have not been developed previously by the literature. For that, it could be decisive declare that the events happened in Asia did not influence directly the development of the Asian pivot, but the perceptions came from the presidential bureau. There, ideas and values played a fundamental role for the consideration of Asia as the new core region to develop US foreign policy. A hole in literature: how US identity influences its foreign policy The United States inference in Asia is well-known for more than a half century. Since the end of World War II, the American country has maintained special relationships in the continent incorporating in its sphere of influence several Asian countries. This is the case of Japan, South Korea, Philippines or Australia. Depending of the government administrations that ruled the American country, the conception that the United States had about Asia varied. The two pillars that Washington applied in Asia until the end of the Cold War were the security and stability of the Asian-Pacific region through the economic and military leadership. However, these two premises needed to be redirected with the end of the
Some of them were the Senkaku Incident in 2010 (Murakami, 2018) pp. 15; the “free-sailing” operation (pp.17) or lately the establishment of anti-missiles systems such as the THAAD in South Korea. Hudson, J. & Francis, D. (September 9, 2016). Why Did Sanctions Fail Against North Korea? Foreign Policy. 11 More than 850.000 soldiers in 2013. The People’s Republic of China (April 2013). The Diversified Employment of China´s Armed Forces. Recover from http://english.www.gov.cn/archive/white_paper/2014/08/23/content_281474982986506.htm 12 Compared with the information extracted from the webpage GlobalSecurity.org. 10
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Adrián Romero Jurado USSR13 and the entrance in the 21st century. We will focus the study in how interactions between states through the creation of new theoretical constructs (most of them produced internally) have changed the Asian perception of US leaders. If we are right, this could end in the conclusion that the events happened internally in the United States influenced in the justification to stablish the Asian pivot. US identity: exceptionalism and the idea of common enemy According to Benjamin Barber, be American “is not a nationality, is an ideology” 14. The US society is influenced by patriotism up to the point of be determinant in certain political decisions. The United States has developed through its history a hyperbolic idea of itself that certainly has influenced specific behaviors in foreign politics. Its actual identity is product of its predecessors, and changes in global system have adapted the visions and experiences of the different administrations. Since the US Independence, the United States has based the need to develop its nation in the search of a “place in the world”. Abstract concepts such as the American exceptionalism had great influence on its foreign policy realignments, specially during the 20th century. The US society has considered itself several times as a messianic messenger with the aim to combat any threat that could go against its survival of principles and liberties. This justification was used to fight against fascism during World War II, or the communism during Cold War. In order to follow an objective and a sense for its existence, the United States usually tended to shape a common enemy. This concept also is based on a fundamental principle developed by John Winthrop in 1630 and his idea of America as a lighthouse illuminating the way that the entire world must follow. These United States beliefs that makes it unique has served to take in many cases political decisions in the international system alone, considering them as universally wellaccepted. Also, American policymakers have searched in domestic policy to support through these creeds their international decisions (Luck 2003). This last idea is relevant for our hypothesis, because it indicates the great value that US domestic policy and ideology has in the confection of foreign policy. The new American exceptionalism was inaugurated by Bush after 9-11 attacks through the National Security Strategy of 2002. Obama would use part of this doctrine to guide the United States in the Asian pivot. For Bush, globalization was the new boardgame for US foreign policy, and he needed have in account new international actors such as terrorist groups or new emergent states. The connections stablished with them were done in order to avoid an US leadership constraint.
“Both of these foreign policy premises are now gone: the Cold War ended suddenly and dramatically; American economic hegemony has waned more slowly but with no less drama” Bosworth, S.W. (1991). The United States and Asia. Foreign Policy 71 (1). Recover from https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/asia/1992-02-01/united-states-and-asia 14 Barber, B. (1994) An Aristocracy of Everyone: Politics of Education and the Future of America. Oxford University Press: Oxford. 13
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Adrián Romero Jurado Obama adopted these principles in the search of a new world order where the American Pax of the 90s was starting to expire while new countries started to be potential rivals. In both American leaders we can find the continuity of the use of military hard power as a dissuasive and security component, and foreign investments to revalue the US economic leadership. However, in structural terms, Obama adopted a multilateral doctrine in the international system, using it as a tool to maintain its sphere of influence15. Obama has reconsidered the basis of the American exceptionalism advocating for a moderate exceptionalism (Cavicchioli, 2018), but maintaining a continuity on its development after all. Therefore, the growing interest of Obama in Asia comes from a fundamental fact: the conflict of identities with China16 and its identification as the new US rival. The confrontation between the two economic giants comes from the similitudes they have in their objectives. Huntington emphasizes in Clash of Civilizations how culture is dominant in global policy, and the identity is almost impossible to change. These differences on ideas and values made that same events can be taken under different points of view from the subject who observes them. After all, China and the United States were incompatibles to coordinate their foreign policies. Chinese identity as the cause of the US pivot to Asia China has been historically the most powerful country in the world. It was not until the first term of the 19th century when most part of its hegemony started to fall, opening the way for the European and American leadership in Asia. The description of its culture, according to Graham Allison (2018) has been based on hierarchy and authority as their original identity. For China, its actual situation is atypical, a humiliation that the country has suffered by West hands, being its main goal recover the original position. To obtain this, uses new political tactics that go against US leadership, such as maintain contacts with BRICS, or more recently the development of the “One belt, one road” initiative. This has been considered as a potential threat by the United States, specially after known the increasing magnitude of the agreements made by the Asian country with regions under the US sphere of influence, such as Latin America17. Huntington places China in the Sinic civilizations group, which means China´s identity clashes with the US one. The impact of the two narratives, Chinese and American, about the same global reality means that both parts considers reality in different ways, making a “Rashomon effect” (Sarahua, 2012) where divisions derived into tensions. This made the perfect combination for the development of a reciprocal enmity. Even since the second 15
During Obama´s administration, the aim to stop new actors that could question the US leadership in the international system through multilateralism will be known as “Obama doctrine” (Woźniak, 2015). 16 The division of identity and culture generates a vision in the global governance of “arena of dispute”, where consensus cannot be display within states because they are guided by their own world vision. (Sarahua, 2012) pp. 37. 17 According to the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, Chinese investments in South America have grown in more than $3000 million (excepting 2010, year that initiated the Asian pivot, increasing in $7000 million) between 2011-2012. Obtained from https://repositorio.cepal.org/bitstream/handle/11362/35908/1/S2014011_en.pdf 5
Adrián Romero Jurado half of the 20th century United States and China had maintained formal agreements, changes in Chinese policy could have conditioned how Obama conceived the country under his American exceptional view. China recognizes how its foreign policy is an extension of the domestic. Every action taken inside the country affects the Chinese response outside. The called “Xi´s nightmare”, linked with the actual General Secretary of CCP, Xi Jinping, is the possibility that the Communist Party of China could fall. The need to maintain the stability inside the nation has leaded to a continuous standpoint to the economic growth, regional expansionism and exacerbated nationalism. This has made China be more active in the South-East Asia 18, producing the United States to pay more attention to its actions. In 2010, after China surpassed Japan as the second world economic power, it started to be for the USA a rival that is threatening the American values and leadership. Through the new American exceptionalism Once we have delimitated how opposed identities between US-China relations has played an important role in the result of the American intervention in Asia, we need to investigate those causes to create a clear understanding of this pivot. We have determined that changes in Asian economic growing and supposed threats to the security of the region are not enough to understand why Obama stablished the AsiaPacific axis. However, this does not make them completely useless, being facts that have justified the intervention of the United States in the region to obtain the support of the legislative and executive branches. In any case, the sociocultural context and the US exceptional identity have been the main facts that have produced the pivot to Asia. Stablishing the American exceptionalism as the independent variable in our equation, its changes would condition the United States to intervene in a region. In our case, we understand how when a threat to the US identity comes from a rival state, and it is perceived in an exceptional US administration, can produce a higher political inference in the region where the rival state is. In our case, China, having different aims in the Asian politics than the United States, and enough resources to compete against the American country, was conceived by Obama´s government as a threat to their identity of world leadership, being necessary intervene in the continent. Having developed our hypothesis, it is time to finally determine which were the results derived from the United States by its influence in Asia through the American exceptionalism. Closing facts, concretizing issues. Consequences of our hypothesis For Obama, Middle East did not have strategic value for the United Sates, being uniquely a bottomless pit of wasting resources. The aim of the administration was no other that revalidate its continuity of world leadership after the Great Recession. Its inference in 18
We can emphasize the claim of sovereignty in waters of the South Sea of China in 2012, meaning a risk for the US naval leadership in the region. 6
Adrián Romero Jurado Asia was influenced by the competition with China, discovering that no measures taken to stop its growing made the country took an advantage on its development. The US situation in Asia was fragile. While it was evident how China was not going to move from the continent after its comeback as a regional power, the United States was 11.0000 kilometers away. The fear of lost sixty years of dominance threated the American legitimacy and leadership in Asia. Obama, who followed an exceptionalism but revisionist doctrine, would use multilateralism to make the pivot more effective. To obtain that, he must deploy connection nodes through official visits, political and commercial agreements. Most of them would crystallize through the labor of executive personalities such as the Secretary of Defense between 2011 and 2013 Leon Panetta, who made the first steps to increase American influence in Asia. Panetta dedicated most part of his efforts to maintain the existing alliances in Asia and reinforce the United States position in the region. He made several visits to South Korea and Japan with the aim of draw up a more effective “quarantine line” against North Korea19, which its only ally was China. This agreement was made after the bombing with artillery by the Pyongyang regime to Japan in 2010 to return the confidence lost. During his first visit to the Korean peninsula in October 201120, the Secretary of Defense showed the United States as a country “compromised” with the security in the Asian North East that would stablish an initiative of combined to reinforce the security in the continent. The use of combined forces would be constantly invoked by Obama´s administration to avoid the perception of US inference in Asia. On the other side, new agreements with other nations were made, as the sign of USAVietnam memorandum in 2015 to strengthen defensive relations in the Chinese Meridional Sea. Also, Obama started to integrate the United States in the region though organizations such as the ASEAN and with the aim to reduce the Chinese influence21. These efforts were doubled with an ampliation of the naval exercises for the defense of disputed islands between China and Japan, commercial agreements with Philippines in 2012 or even taking part in territorial disputes. One of the cases was the participation of the United States as mediator in the Vietnam-Philippines conflict against China in the Spratly Islands, giving the reason to the Vietnamese and Filipinos (Ross, 2012). To better understand the magnitude of the participation in Asia through Obama, he also visited for first time in US history Myanmar after his reelection in 2012. All these measures taken by the United States, according to the identity analysis developed by 19
Even it could be a mere though, the increase of US pressure in Korean Peninsula through the subscription to harder security agreements with South Korea could be part of the causes of the resume of nuclear test by North Korea: one in 2013 and another two in 2016. 20 Joint Press Conference with Secretary Panetta and Republic of Korea Minister of Defense Kim in Seoul, Korea. US Department of State. Recover from https://archive.defense.gov/transcripts/transcript.aspx?transcriptid=4916 21 During the next years of Obama´s administration, the investments of ASEAN countries to the United States would increase until 2017 in more than a 250%. At the same time, US investments would reach a total quantity of $329 billion, which meant more than the investments made to China, India, Japan and South Korea together at that time. ASEAN matters for America. Obtained from https://www.usasean.org/why-asean/investment 7
Adrián Romero Jurado Barack Obama about United States, could not be done without a high level of political exceptionalism, even if it cannot be compared with Bush administration. The new revitalization of the American exceptionalism and the intervention in Asia also was influenced by exogenous facts. The identification of China as the main competitor in Asia made many Asian countries move to US multilateral auspice, which serves to improve its position. However, we must indicate how most of the relations maintained in Asia by the United States were being purely bilateral. Also, is impossible reject that US actions leaded by identity originated low meditated decisions. These failed reconciliations increased the feeling of threat of certain Asian countries and a growing polarization of the states involved. The “tunnel vision” produced by careless policies, guided by narrow nationalist beliefs, constated that the Asian pivot would never be effective. Conclusions Having in account the explained keys, we can determine several factors that could have influenced the confection of Obama policy towards Asia: •
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In first place, we can consider that a “pivot to Asia” has never existed at all. As we have explained, Bush had already taken his interests to Asia, even if is true that the weight in his foreign policy was in the Middle East. Also, have let China grow economically has transformed it in a threat to the United States, not because its economic potential, but its ambitions to obtain the leadership in the continent. The US identity, as a social construct and an endogenous factor, has greatly influenced Obama administration in taking most of the political decisions in Asia. When a threat to the US identity comes from a rival state and is perceived in an “exceptional” US administration, it can produce a higher political inference in the region where the rival state is. According to our hypothesis, the US intervention in Asia is slightly influenced by exogenous factors, such as the general economic growing in the region, and more conditioned by the Chinese political pressure.
Literature only conceived economic and geopolitical causes to explain the creation of the Asia-Pacific axis, although they never payed attention to the internal structural causes of US identity. China is a perceived rival by the United States because of its ambitions to revalidate its position in Asia, which challenges US leadership. So, it is not absurd to admit that only a country could have the capability to redirect most part of US foreign policy, resources and efforts in the region where it is. After all, Bush did the same during the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq. It would be necessary in future analysis determine which types of bias and misperceptions influenced US identity and the decisions taken, sometimes acting in an irrational way. Examples such as the inference as mediator in naval conflicts which were not of its jurisprudence were counter-productive, upsetting China and increasing the tensions. On the other side, the bias produced by the exceptional policies of Obama overestimated the 8
Adrián Romero Jurado Chinese threat, meanwhile the literature has underestimated Obama´s political exceptionalism. It is expected that coming studies would determine how the “pivot” was necessary for the US international scenario, even if the US inference in Asia during Obama´s administration did not achieve the adequate results. The consequences obtained should serve as an indicative of how ideas that influence an identity tend to produce bias in the conception of the reality. This can be associated by the continuity of more restrictive politics in Asia by Trump administration and in what could derive this tendency. This possible scenario of US-China enmity in the future was predicted by Graham Allison in his concept “the Thucydides’ Trap”. Moreover, it is necessary to reconsider the role that other actors played during Obama´s political realignment to Asia, such as their allies in the region. This could help us determine the actual position of the United States in the continent. Americans are facing an unusual situation in Asia: if they withdraw, they will lose everything; if they stay, they will have losses anyway. References Ross, R.S. (November-December 2012). The problem with the pivot. Foreign Affairs. Recover from https://saintjoehigh.enschool.org/ourpages/auto/2012/11/20/56688567/121112%20The%20Problem%20With%20the%20Pivot.pdf Sanahuja, J.A. (2012). Narratives of multilateralism: “Rashomon effect” and change of power. CIDOB d’Afers Internacionals (101), pp. 27-54. Manyin, M. et al. (2012). Pivot to the Pacific? The Obama Administration´s “Rebalancing” toward Asia. Obtained from https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a584466.pdf Luck, E.C. (2003) American Exceptionalism and International Organization: Lessons from the 1990s in US Hegemony and International Organizations. Oxford University Press 27. Iglesias Cavicchioli, M. (2019). The World’s Last Best Hope: American Exceptionalism and US Foreign Policy in Obama’s Era. Araucaria 21 (41) pp. 162-185. Allison, G. (2018). Destined for war: can America and China scape Thucydides´s Trap? Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Woźniak, M. (2015). The Obama doctrine – U.S. strategic retrenchment and its consequences. University of Łódź: Łódź.
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