{"id":5256,"date":"2015-10-17T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-10-17T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/us-chinaforum.com\/archives\/5256"},"modified":"2015-10-17T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2015-10-17T07:00:00","slug":"maintaining-empire-in-war-versus-sharing-power-in-peace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/us-chinaforum.com\/en\/2015\/5256\/","title":{"rendered":"Maintaining Empire in War versus Sharing Power in Peace"},"content":{"rendered":"
John Glaser, Media Relations Manager, Cato Institute, in his recent article, \u201cThe US and China can avoid a collision course \u2013 if the US gives up its empire\u201d, published in the Guardian, (5\/28\/2015) stated bluntly what many political analysts didn\u2019t dare to say. Glaser has four years experience as an editor; five years experience as a writer\/news reporter; also expertise in international relations; well published (CNN, Newsweek, The Guardian, The Washington Times, The National Interest, Reason, The Huffington Post, The American Conservative, The Daily Caller, Future of Freedom, Bleeding Heart Libertarians, and Young American Revolution) and appeared on TV\/Radio (Voice of America, Al Jazeera, Russia Today\/RT America, Free Talk Radio, The Scott Horton Show, Don Griffin Show St. Louis FM, among others). Granted Glaser has an anti-war background but anti-war is no more a sin than pro-war is heroism. <\/p>\n

Evidently, Glaser in his professional work has well read in the field of international relations. He cites the following to support his conclusion: Harvard Professor Graham Allison: \u201cin 12 of 16 cases in the past 500 years when a rising power challenged a ruling power, the outcome was war.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chicago University scholar John Mearsheimer, a theorist on hegemony: \u201cChina cannot rise peacefully.\u201d Political scientists Andrew Nathan and Andrew Scobell: \u201cBeijing sees America as the most intrusive outside actor in China\u2019s internal affairs.\u201d Foreign Policy commentator, Robert Kagan:  \u201cUS hegemony makes us safer and richer, but also that it bestows peace and prosperity on everybody else. If America doesn\u2019t rule, goes his argument, the world becomes less free, less stable and less safe.\u201d However, many political scientists dispute this claim. For example, in his book, Pathologies of Power, Christopher Fettweis wrote: \u201cThe international system, rather than cowering in obedience to American demands for peace, is far more \u201cself-policing.\u201d International relations theorist Robert Jervis has written: \u201cthe pursuit of primacy was what great power politics was all about in the past\u201d but that, in a world of nuclear weapons with \u201clow security threats and great common interests among the developed countries\u201d, primacy does not have the strategic or economic benefits it once had.\u201d Another International relations theorist Daniel Drezner contends: \u201cthe economic benefits from military predominance alone seem, at a minimum, to have been exaggerated\u201d; that \u201cThere is little evidence that military primacy yields appreciable geoeconomic gains\u201d; and that, therefore, \u201can overreliance on military preponderance is badly misguided.\u201d<\/p>\n

Glaser\u2019s conclusion is that the struggle for military and economic primacy in Asia is not really about our core national security interests; rather, it\u2019s about preserving status, prestige and America\u2019s neurotic image of itself. \u2013 pretty dumb reasons for risking war. The dire predictions of a coming US-China conflict may be wrong; China\u2019s economy may slow or even suffer crashes and the US\u2019s economic and military advantage may remain intact for a few more decades.  Both countries are armed with nuclear weapons. There\u2019s little reason to think the mutually assured destruction paradigm that characterized the Cold War between the US and the USSR wouldn\u2019t dominate this shift in power as well. So he concludes why take the risk, when maintaining US primacy just isn\u2019t that important to the safety or prosperity of Americans? Knowing that should at least make the idea of giving up \u2018empire\u2019 a little easier. Glaser\u2019s views are endorsed by a few commentators: \u2018\u2018The US troops based abroad are not there to defend the U.S., they are there to keep the host countries to be pro-US.\u2019\u2019 <\/p>\n

After reading Glaser\u2019s article, one comes away with the conclusion: It is not necessary to maintain an \u2018empire\u2019 and behave like an \u2018empire\u2019 in order to deal with a rising China! The U.S. military supremacy still leads China for decades, perhaps even longer if China could not maintain her rapid rise continuously for the next couple of decades. If we would examine this issue from the point of view of economics, the \u2018empire\u2019 strategy makes even less sense. Maintaining an \u2018empire\u2019 with military primacy is very costly. Under the \u2018Pivot to Asia\u2019 policy, rebalancing the U.S. presence in Asia calls for increasing more naval power to Asia Pacific, enhancing more military bases there and to sign up more military alliances with Asian nations. The U.S. has been relying on Japan to pay for the US troops stationed in Japan. This gives Japan a \u2018leveraging right\u2019 to act more on Japan\u2019s interest rather than on the U.S. interest. For example, the U.S. maintains a neutral position on the sovereignty issue of the disputed Diaoyu Islands between China and Japan. The U.S. wishes Japan not to stir up the pot to provoke China by scheming to purchase those islands. However, Japan rather wishes to get her money\u2019s worth by demanding the US-Japan Mutual Defense Treaty to cover those disputed islands specifically. Obviously, Japan\u2019s behavior raises tension in the East China Sea and makes the U.S. \u2018empire status\u2019 strategy more offensive. <\/p>\n

The local citizens\u2019 opposition to the $8.6 billion relocation and renovation of a new US military base in Okinawa is another challenge to the \u2018empire\u2019 model. Insisting of maintaining a US military base against the Okinawans\u2019 wishes in the name of Okinawan\u2019s security concern is extremely difficult to justify. The recent pro-military expansion policy of the Abe Shinzo administration not only does not help the Okinawa military base issue, it also adds a dark cloud over the US \u2018empire\u2019 image. As far as Asians are concern, if the presence of American military were genuinely for maintaining Asia security, it would be welcomed. But it would not be accepted if the presence of the US troops would actually raise tension in Asia. This feeling is not only seen in the ASEAN nations but also shared by Australia. When the U.S. would shoulder all the cost of maintaining her \u2018empire\u2019 model, the hosting countries of US military bases and US military alliances perhaps would accept the model. But if the Asian nations were required to pay for those costs or coerced to purchase the second tier US military weapons, the \u2018empire\u2019 model became another matter.  The good Asian political leaders would be under the guidance of their people to re-evaluate the Asian security issue.<\/p>\n

China\u2019s rise may be perceived to be posing a threat to her Asian neighbors, but her trade relations with them also tell them they need China as much as China needs them. China\u2019s recent assertiveness in dealing with her sovereignty (in East and South China Seas) was to a large extent triggered by her neighbors\u2019 own initiatives, be it by open provocation (arresting fishing boats for instance) or sneaky occupation and land reclaim on nearby islands. It is natural that all nations are mouth-watering over energy and fishery resources around those small islands and their surrounding sea areas. However, there is easier and simpler win-win solution for getting those resources by collaboration. As a large country with rapid development, China is in the position to lead such collaborations. China\u2019s \u2018One Belt and One Route\u2019 economic development strategy seems to pave a mutually beneficial way for Asian countries to work with China. There is hardly any reason for the U.S. to oppose that approach. On the contrary, it would benefit the U.S. to take an advanced developed country position to offer technological<\/u> and financial assistance needed for the Asian development. It would be a far better \u2018empire state\u2019 image than coercing small nations to purchase her weapons and\/or support her troops.<\/div>\n

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John Glaser, Media Relations Manager, Cato Institute, in his recent article, \u201cThe US and China can avoid a collision course \u2013 if the US gives up its empire\u201d, published in the Guardian, (5\/28\/2015) stated bluntly what many political analysts didn\u2019t dare to say. Glaser has four years experience as an editor; five years experience as a writer\/news reporter; also expertise in international relations; well published (CNN, Newsweek, The Guardian, The Washington Times, The National Interest, Reason, The Huffington Post, The American Conservative, The Daily Caller, Future of Freedom, Bleeding Heart Libertarians, and Young American Revolution) and appeared on TV\/Radio (Voice of America, Al Jazeera, Russia Today\/RT America, Free Talk Radio, The Scott Horton Show, Don Griffin Show St. Louis FM, among others). Granted Glaser has an anti-war background but anti-war is no more a sin than pro-war is heroism. Evidently, Glaser in his professional work has well read in the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[110],"class_list":["post-5256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-forum","tag-dr-wordman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/us-chinaforum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/us-chinaforum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/us-chinaforum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us-chinaforum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us-chinaforum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/us-chinaforum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5256\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/us-chinaforum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us-chinaforum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us-chinaforum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}