Sam and Raoul both raise important questions about the Concert of Asia which I propose in Power Shift as a model for how Asia's order could be adapt to China's growing power. Raoul worries that a Concert could not last because the parties would not trust one another enough to stop competing. Sam shares this worry; he suggests that Europe's concert required a lot of cultural cohesion to overcome the competitive instinct, which Asia lacks.
I agree with their premise. If the concert required the great powers to abandon strategic competition in favour of trust and cooperation it would have a very poor prospect indeed. But that is not how I see it.
To me, a concert is not an alternative to strategic competition, but a way of managing it. Its essence is simple: every member of the concert accepts that the costs of attempting to dominate the system outweigh the benefits, so each accepts as the best outcome they can sensibly hope for an equal share of regional power with the others, as long as the others accept that too.
There is nothing 'kumbaya' about any of this. The judgement by each of the concert's members that the costs of a bid for hegemony outweigh the benefits is not based on a close reading of Kant on perpetual peace. It is based on a lively expectation that any bid for hegemony would meet a unified, determined and forceful response from the other members. To make that credible they remain well-armed and ready to defend any major violation of the norms which underpin the concert.
Trust does play a part, of course. The parties need to trust one another enough to think that the arrangement has a chance of working or the initial agreement would never be reached and the system would slide directly into a competition over primacy. But that trust is bolstered by the expectation that each party will see that the deal is in its own best interest. It will also be bolstered by the immense risks and costs of the alternative.
One reason I think the concert might be possible is precisely the huge stake that economic interdependence gives as all in avoiding competition. So I'm not as gloomy as Sam about the chances of making it work in Asia.
And, to repeat what I have said elsewhere, my point about the concert is one of prescription, not prediction. I do not predict that a concert will emerge in Asia, in fact I think it is quite unlikely. But I do think it is a credible possibility, and that it would be the best credibly possible outcome for Australian and for the rest of the region. So I agree with the many strong arguments that the concert is a long shot, but I also think they slightly miss the point.
Photo by Flickr user just.Luc, used under a Creative Commons license.
