Japan protests Chinese ships entry into waters near disputed isles. PHNOM PENH Wed Jul 11, 2012 3:53pm IST PHNOM PENH (Reuters) - Japanese and Chinese foreign ministers sparred over rival claims to uninhabited islands in the East China Sea on Wednesday but appeared to try to steer clear of the acrimony that plunged ties between the two Asian giants into a deep chill two years ago. The meeting in the Cambodian capital on the sidelines of a regional meeting came just hours after Japan lodged a protest with China against the entry of Chinese patrol ships into waters near disputed islands in the East China Sea, an issue that has long plagued relations between Asia's two biggest economies.
"Through specific cooperation we have to make Japan-China relations forward looking," Kyodo news agency quoted Japanese Foreign Minister Koichiro Gemba as telling Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi at the start of the two-way talks. China swiftly rejected the claim. "Chinese fisheries patrol boats went to the waters administered by China in accordance with Chinese law ... The Global Power Shift from West to East. WHEN GREAT powers begin to experience erosion in their global standing, their leaders inevitably strike a pose of denial. At the dawn of the twentieth century, as British leaders dimly discerned such an erosion in their country’s global dominance, the great diplomat Lord Salisbury issued a gloomy rumination that captured at once both the inevitability of decline and the denial of it.
“Whatever happens will be for the worse,” he declared. “Therefore it is our interest that as little should happen as possible.” Of course, one element of decline was the country’s diminishing ability to influence how much or how little actually happened. We are seeing a similar phenomenon today in America, where the topic of decline stirs discomfort in national leaders. Obama's Asia 'Bluff' When a leading expert on military affairs recently told a Brookings Institution meeting that President Obama’s much-touted pivot to Asia was “a bluff,” I considered the statement way off the mark. But since then, I have concluded that there is indeed less to Obama’s grand change in strategy than meets the eye. In fact, the pivot makes little sense. This suggests that one ought to look for domestic explanations. The media points to the drawdown of American troops in the Middle East (particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan) and their increase in the Far East as exhibit one of the realignment of American military forces called for by the pivot.
Actually, the new commitment to Asia is minuscule. The press refers to new deployment of 2,500 Marines in the region, but only 250 troops have actually arrived to date. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta announced in early June that there also will be a shift in U.S. naval forces. Why then the military “pivot to Asia”? Why NATO Is a Pacific Power. The culmination of an invigorated NATO-Japan relationship should be the establishment of a liaison office in Tokyo. A small staff in such a global capital would allow the alliance to cultivate the long-term relationships it needs if it is to be viewed as a major actor in the pan-Pacific region.
NATO’s Pacific Moment Alliance engagement in Asia will create controversy. No matter how NATO chooses to pursue an Asia-Pacific strategy, doing so will be a source of concern for other actors in the area and for some in Europe. Pushback from other nations in the region will be a natural response, but the alliance should be prepared for that outcome and nevertheless stride ahead, always mindful that building a meaningful partnership takes time, effort, and investment.
A far riskier option for the alliance is to stay out of Asia. America’s pivot is a significant opportunity for NATO. About that Pivot to Asia. Leon Panetta with Ng Eng Hen, Singapore's defense minister.At the start of his long journey across Asia, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta told the Shangri-La Security Dialogue that the United States would play a greater role in the security of the Asia-Pacific region. Specifically, Panetta explained, the United States would focus on “promoting strong partnerships that strengthen the capabilities of the Pacific nations to defend and secure themselves.” (Emphasis mine) In a speech with the requisite amount of hand-waving and pleasing rhetoric, this statement stands out as one that is eminently measurable. If the U.S. strategy in the Asia-Pacific region succeeds, ten or fifteen years from now we will have observed that countries in the region expanded their military capabilities, such that they are better able to secure their territory and their wider interests.
How this will play out is still quite murky. All told, the numbers are quite small. The State of the World: Explaining U.S. Strategy. By George Friedman The fall of the Soviet Union ended the European epoch, the period in which European power dominated the world. It left the United States as the only global power, something for which it was culturally and institutionally unprepared.
Since the end of World War II, the United States had defined its foreign policy in terms of its confrontation with the Soviet Union. Virtually everything it did around the world in some fashion related to this confrontation. The fall of the Soviet Union simultaneously freed the United States from a dangerous confrontation and eliminated the focus of its foreign policy.
In the course of a century, the United States had gone from marginal to world power. After the Cold War The post-Cold War period can be divided into three parts. These interventions were not seen as critical to U.S. national security. The period where indulgences could be tolerated ended on Sept. 11, 2001. The Failure of Reset China had also changed. Limiting Intervention. The State of the World: Assessing China's Strategy. China Is No Longer Predictable by Robert D. Kaplan. By Robert D. KaplanChief Geopolitical Analyst The United States has had it easy over the past third of a century in regards to China. Washington has been able to proclaim moral superiority over the Communist Party dictatorship in Beijing, even as those very dictators provided Washington with a stable, businesslike relationship that fostered immense opportunities for American companies in China and for the American economy overall.
China's rulers, ever since Deng Xiaoping consolidated power in 1978, may have been nominally communists, but they have also been professionals and technocrats who have ruled in a self-effacing, collegial style. Yes, they may oppress dissidents, but they have also been enlightened autocrats by the standards of the suffocating rulers who have governed in the Middle East. But the purging of the pseudo populist boss of the megacity of Chongqing, Bo Xilai, may indicate that a less predictable period in Chinese politics lies ahead.
Is America Pivoting to Asia Fast Enough? - By James Holmes. Over the weekend, U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta delivered his first keynote address at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, an annual convention that hosts top defense officials from Asia-Pacific nations. Last year, the talk focused on allegations of Chinese aggression against Vietnamese survey vessels near the Spratly Islands, and sparks flew as China's Defense Minister Liang Guanglie spiritedly defended Beijing's conduct. This year, Liang was a no-show, and all eyes were on Panetta as he laid out the U.S. military's plans for putting some muscle behind the Obama administration's much-heralded "pivot" to Asia, unveiled by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Foreign Policy last November.
Panetta used his bully pulpit to reaffirm American resolve in maritime Asia. Regional audiences should also measure the United States' resolve by its visibility in the region, he said -- showing up is half the battle. Will it be enough? Which raises two related questions. Small-Stick Diplomacy in the South China Sea. The China Bluff. Forty years ago, on a clear, cold afternoon in Beijing, I followed President Nixon onto the tarmac at Beijing’s Capital Airport. I have a belated confession to make. When I tried to sleep on Air Force One on the way to Beijing, I was jolted awake by a nightmare. I dreamed that Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek would be standing there with his old political sparring partner and secret pen pal, Zhou Enlai. In my dream, Chiang stepped forward to greet his former friend and political backer Richard Nixon with a loudly sarcastic "long time, no see!
" As we pulled up to the shabby old structure that was then the only terminal at Beijing’s airport, I peered anxiously out the window. Last Tuesday, on the precise anniversary of that February 21, 1972, personal introduction to Beijing, I was back there—not to try to rearrange the world again but to make Chinese financiers aware of specific investment opportunities in the United States. Right now, the military-strategic choice we’ve made is clear. Robert Kagan on Why the World Needs America.