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Power Politics Behind the Transforming Geopolitics in East Asia

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Abstract

Current geopolitical dynamics in East Asia is generated by the US rebalancing and China’s counterbalancing. The US rebalancing has so far ended in an encircling of China, whereas China counteracts to extend into the seas and the lands as typified by the Belt and Road Initiative and assertive activities in the South China Sea. China under Xi Jinping’s leadership has set up a new guideline of ‘great power foreign policy’ (大国外交) to realize Xi Jinping’s ambitious vision of ‘China dream’. As delivered in the ‘New Model of Great Power Relations’, China under Xi Jinping’s leadership seeks clearly for ‘regional dominance’, while for ‘global balance’ with the USA. With rebalancing, however, the USA seeks to restore power balance in East Asia by adding up to military and economic resources already deployed there. By doing so, the USA aims to achieve its strategic goal of ‘regional balance’, while maintaining ‘global dominance’. These two distinct strategic goals, regional dominance and global balance for China and regional balance and global dominance for the USA, interact to result in currently transforming geopolitics in East Asia.

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Notes

  1. However, the growth rate of Chinese economy has slowed down to below 7% since the global financial crisis in 2008. China’s foreign exchange reserve also fell to below 3.5 trillion US dollars as of November 2015. To respond to this ‘new normal’, China turned its growth strategy from export-oriented to demand-creating one.

  2. The analysis of the US rebalancing is based on and revised from my earlier research in Korean [10].

  3. In spite of popular protests, Prime Minister Abe decided to reinterpret the constitutional provision to draw out the right of ‘collective self-defense’ as a way to implement ‘proactive pacifism’.

  4. According to Article 60, Paragraph 8 of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), ‘artificial islands, installations, and structures do not possess the status of islands’. On July 12, 2016, the Permanent Court of Arbitration ruled that there was no evidence proving China’s exclusive control over the waters and resources within the nine-dash line and that, therefore, China has no legal basis to claim ‘historical rights’ within the nine-dash line in the case brought by the Philippines. China rejected the ruling of the PCA [32].

  5. Foreign ministers of the C5+1 countries issued the Joint Declaration of Partnership and Cooperation in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, on 1 November, 2015. http://www.state.gov/secretary/travel/2015/t24/, accessed on 24 June, 2016.

  6. China is concerned about the THAAD. When Chang Wanquan (常万全), Chinese National Defense Minister, visited South Korea in February 2015, he expressed China’s concerns about deploying THAAD in South Korea; Sun Jianguo (孙建国), Vice Chief of Staff of the PLA, remarked to Han Min-goo, South Korean Minister of National Defense, that deploying THAAD in the US army in South Korea might disturb the stability in the Korean peninsula. Chosun Ilbo, 1 June, 2015, A6.

  7. This is to confirm what Shearman argued that “the real motive for Obama’s increased focus on Asia is to contain China” [21]. However, this study uses ‘encircle’ rather than ‘contain’ to catch geographically explicit end results without knowing the real intention.

  8. The analysis on China’s counterbalancing is based on and revised from my earlier research in Korean [10].

  9. New York Times, 30 July, 2015. http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/07/30/world/asia/what-china-has-been-building-in-the-south-china-sea.html?_ r=0, accessed on 24 June, 2016.

  10. According to South China Morning Post of 1 June, 2016, China is preparing another ADIZ over the South China Sea in the middle of intensifying tension with the US in the region. http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1960954/beijing-ready-impose-air-defence-identification-zone-south-china-sea, accessed on 24 June, 2016.

  11. Reuters News at http://www.reuters.com/article/us-hahn-m-a-china-idUSKCN0YS1G1, accessed on 2 December, 2016.

  12. As a reviewer pointed out, China might aim to attain global dominance ultimately. Xi Jinping stressed China will be a socialist modern strong country by 2050 at the beginning address of the 19th Communist Party of China on October 25, 2017. However, many studies indicate that China’s comprehensive national power will reach a parity with the US around 2050, if China continues to rise as it has risen so far.

  13. President Trump stressed a strategic cooperation with Japan in ‘Indo-Pacific’ extended from ‘Asia-Pacific’ at his visit to Japan in November 2017.

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Funding

This study was supported by the research grant 2013 of Incheon National University.

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  1. The Institute of China Studies, Department of Political Science and International Studies, Incheon National University, 119 Academy-Ro Yeonsu-Gu, Incheon, 22012, South Korea

    Hochul Lee

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Lee, H. Power Politics Behind the Transforming Geopolitics in East Asia. East Asia 34, 307–320 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12140-017-9280-3

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