Dr Stephan Frühling and Dr Benjamin Schreer are Lecturer and Senior Lecturer in the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, ANU.
In his Quarterly Essay and associated pieces in The Australian and The Interpreter, our esteemed colleague Hugh White has laid out his view of Asia's future in characteristically elegant style and argument. Already, he has contributed more than anyone to beginning a debate about Australia's future in Asia.
To us, Hugh's essay is reminiscent of (the best) of French writing on the American hyperpuissance ('hyperpower'), combining a seemingly detached, realist style of argument with equally strong emotional undercurrents.
Therefore, we will concentrate here on the realist approach underlying Hugh's argument. To us, the core weakness of Hugh's argument is its mechanistic nature, which passes over the importance of political and ideological aspects of world affairs past, present and future. This is evident in his use of historical analogies, his concept of power, and the foundations of US influence in Asia.
The concept of a future Asian 'concert of powers' has a central place in Hugh's argument, which draws on European history of the 19th century. But that European concert lasted for four, not ten, decades until the Crimean War, and its aim was not the prevention of great power war, but of domestic revolutions. It was based on a shared political imperative and the invitation of external intervention in domestic affairs — both fundamental points that are clearly not fulfilled in the Asian context that Hugh describes.
Similarly, Hugh rejects Swiss and Swedish-style armed neutrality as a possible model for Australia because, according to him, 'their big neighbours were willing and able to fight to preserve the European order on which they depended'. But in Sweden's case, neutrality was a political fiction during World War II and the Cold War. And Swiss neutrality was preserved during World War II by its unique geographic and political situation, not as a result of great power constellations.
Hence, we are also not convinced by this rejection of armed neutrality for Australia, an island at the far margins of Asia, as a serious future option.
Hugh exhorts his readers to ignore the political and ideological aspects of China's rise. But reference to 'legitimate' Chinese international interests glosses over the fact that these interests bump up against legitimate interests of neighbours and of the wider international community. For example, China's interpretation of its 'sovereign' rights in its EEZ is on weak ground in international law, let alone internationally accepted behaviour.
If Hugh wants to convince that a 'concert of powers' can resolve such conflicts, he owes a much more detailed explanation of what this would mean for actual points of contention.
This leads us to Hugh's concept of power. Hugh tips his hat to the idea of 'soft power', but his world is dominated by economic relativities and mechanistic balances. Without much further examination, he assumes that other powers would balance Chinas global influence, or a Chinese attempt to impose outright rule on Asia.
In this mechanistic worldview, and assuming more modest Chinese intentions, the US role in Asia then becomes a part of the problem, rather than a part of the solution, because US grand strategy does not neatly conform to the narrow concept of power that underlies Hugh's argument.
'Power', which Hugh does not define, is ultimately the ability to influence others. While the economic basis is important, it does not solely determine this ability. US power in particular is based on its unique ability to create international alliances and coalitions around shared interests and values. And it is this ability, not solely the status of the US as the single largest economy, that underlies what Hugh calls US 'primacy' in the Asia-Pacific. It is because this element is missing in China's international standing that we are much less convinced than Hugh of the dramatic nature of China's rise in Asia.
Photo by Flickr user funkandjazz, used under a Creative Commons license.
