Getting Asia Wrong
The Need for New Analytical Frameworks
David C. Kang
Most international relations theory is inductively derived from the
European experience of the past four centuries, during which Europe was the
locus and generator of war, inno- vation, and wealth. According to Kenneth
Waltz, "The theory of international politics is written in terms of the
great powers of an era. It would be ... ridicu- lous to construct a theory of
international politics based on Malaysia and Costa Rica.... A general theory of
international politics is necessarily based on the great powers."' If
international relations theorists paid attention to other re- gions of the
globe, it was to study subjects considered peripheral such as third world
security or the behavior of small states.2 Accordingly, international rela-
tions scholarship has focused on explaining the European experience, includ-
ing, for example, the causes of World Wars I and II, as well as the Cold War
and U.S.-Soviet relations.3 Although this is still true, other parts of the
world have become increasingly significant. Accordingly, knowledge of European relations
is no longer sufficient for a well-trained international relations generalist.
During this time Asia itself-sometimes defined as including China, India,
Japan, and Russia and comprising perhaps half the world's population-had an
occasional impact on the great powers, but it was never a primary focus. In the
past two decades, however, Asia has emerged as a region whose economic,
military, and diplomatic power has begun to rival and perhaps even exceed that
of Europe. Its growing influence gives scholars a wonderful opportunity in the
fields of international relations generally and Asian security specifically to
produce increasingly rigorous and theoretically sophisticated work. Because
Europe was so important for so long a period, in seeking to understand inter-
national relations, scholars have often simply deployed concepts, theories, and
experiences derived from the European experience to project onto and explain
Asia. This approach is problematic at best. Eurocentric ideas have yielded sev-
eral mistaken conclusions and predictions about conflict and alignment behav-
ior in Asia. For example, since the early 1990s many Western analysts have
predicted dire scenarios for Asia, whereas many Asian experts have expressed
growing optimism about the region's future.4 It is an open question whether
Asia, with its very different political economy, history, culture, and demo-
graphics, will ever function like the European state system. This is not to
criti- cize European-derived theories purely because they are based on the
Western experience: The origins of a theory are not necessarily relevant to its
applicabil- ity. Rather these theories do a poor job as they are applied to
Asia; what I seek to show in this article is that more careful attention to
their application can strengthen the theories themselves. In this article I
make two claims about the levels of conflict and types of alignment behavior in
Asia. First, I argue that the pessimistic predictions of Western scholars after
the end of the Cold War that Asia would experience a period of increased arms
racing and power politics has largely failed to materi- alize, a reality that
scholars must confront if they are to develop a better under- standing of Asian
relations. Second, contrary to the expectations of standard formulations of
realism, and although U.S. power confounds the issue, Asian states do not
appear to be balancing against rising powers such as China. Rather they seem to
be bandwagoning.
I make these claims with great care. Asia is empirically rich and, in
many ways, different from the West. Thus efforts to explain Asian issues using
inter- national relations theories largely derived inductively from the
European experience can be problematic. Focusing exclusively on Asia's
differences, however, runs the risk of essentializing the region, resulting in
the sort of ori- entalist analysis that most scholars have correctly avoided.5
I am not making a plea for research that includes a touch of realism, a dash of
constructivism, and a pinch of liberalism.6 The same social-scientific
standards-falsifiability, gen- eralizability, and clear causal logic-should
apply in the study of Asian inter- national relations as has been applied to
the study of Europe. To achieve this, scholars must not dismiss evidence that
does not fit their theories. Instead they must consider such evidence and
sharpen their propositions so that they may be falsified. Many of the
criticisms that I make in this article could apply to other interna- tional
relations theories such as liberalism or constructivism. I have chosen to focus
on realist approaches because of their wide use in Western scholarship on Asia.
In addition, determining which predictions emerge from which vari- ant of
realist theory is often the subject of heated debate; in particular, efforts to
single out predictions that apply to Asia can be extremely frustrating.7 I have
three caveats: First, I am not claiming a priori that difference will tri- umph
over similarity. Whether Asian and Western international relations are
different is an open question, and in many cases scholars may conclude that
there are no significant differences. Instead of ignoring or dismissing
potential differences as unimportant, however, scholars should ask: Is this
situation different? And if so, why? Such questions are likely to yield useful
answers not only for scholars of international relations but also for those
specializing in either security or Asian studies. Second, scholarship on Asian
international relations from all perspectives is increasingly theoretically
rich and empirically sophisticated. Research from the realist and liberal
schools has explored issues such as U.S.-China and U.S.-Japan relations, as
well as the changing dynamics of the Japan-South
Korea-U.S. alliance." Literature with a cultural or constructivist
perspective has addressed topics including the formation of identity,
prostitution and its relationship to U.S. overseas troop deployments, and
antimilitarist sentiment in Japan.' More historically oriented work has emerged
that challenges all of the prevailing paradigms."' Despite these
encouraging trends, such work remains the exception rather than the norm.
Finally, the concept of "Asia" lends itself to highly problematic and
often sweeping generalizations. The term "Asia" often refers to a
geographic area that takes in Russia and Japan, encompasses the entire Pacific
Ocean including Australia, and ranges as far west as India and Pakistan. These
countries have different cultures, histories, political institutions,
economies, geographic fea- tures, and climates. Accordingly, wherever possible
I refer either to individual countries, to Northeast Asia (comprising Japan,
China, the Korean Peninsula, and occasionally Russia), or to Southeast Asia
(whose principal countries in- clude Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines,
Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam). This article does not cover South Asia (principally
the countries of Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka). When I do refer
to Asia as a whole, it is mainly to differentiate it from "the
West."" 8. See Thomas J. Christensen, Useful Adversaries: Grand
Strategy, Domestic Mobilization, and Sino- American Conflict, 1947-58
(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1996); Victor D. Cha, Align- ment
Despite Antagonism: The United States-Korea-Japan Security Triangle (Stanford,
Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1999); Leonard J. Schoppa, Bargaining with
Japan: What American Pressure Can and Cannot Do (New York: Columbia University
Press, 1997); and Richard Samuels, "Rich Nation, Strong Army":
National Security and Technological Transformation in Japan (Ithaca, N.Y.:
Cornell Uni- versity Press, 1994). 9. See Alastair lain Johnston, Cultural
Realism: Strategic Culture and Grand Strategy in Chinese His- tory (Princeton,
N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1994); Katharine H.S. Moon, Sex among Allies:
Mil- itary Prostitution in U.S.-Korea Relations (New York: Columbia University
Press, 1997); Peter J. Katzenstein, Cultural Norms and National Security:
Police and Military in Postwar Japan (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press,
1996); Thomas U. Berger, Cultures of Anti-Militarism: National Security in
Germany and Japan (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998);
Chalmers A. Johnson, "The State and Japanese Grand Strategy," in
Richard Rosecrance and Arthur A. Stein, eds., The Do- mestic Bases of Grand
Strategy (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1993); and Benedict Anderson,
Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism
(London: Verso, 1991). 10. See Victoria Tin-bor Hui, War and State Formation in
Ancient China and Early Modern Europe (New York: Cambridge University Press,
forthcoming); Yuen Foong Khong, Analogies at War (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton
University Press, 1992); Rosemary Foot, The Practice of Power: U.S. Rela- tions
with China since 1949 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1995); and Gordon H. Chang, Friends
and Enemies: The United States, China, and the Soviet Union, 1948-72 (Stanford,
Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1990). 11. See Alexander Woodside, "The
Asia-Pacific Idea as a Mobilization Myth," in Arif Dirlik, ed., What's in
a Rim? Critical Perspectives on the Pacific Region Idea (Lanham, Md.: Rowman
and Lit- tlefield, 1998), pp. 13-28; Gil Rozman, "Flawed Regionalism:
Reconceptualizing Northeast Asia in the 1990s," Pacific Review, Vol. 11,
No. 1 (1998), pp. 1-27; and Michael Ng-Quinn, "The Internation-
Getting Asia Wrong 61 This article is composed of three major sections.
In the first section, I explain why the pessimistic predictions of the 1990s
about a return of power politics to Asia have not materialized and why
scholarship needs to acknowledge this fact. In the second section, I argue that
the Chinese experience of the past two decades poses a challenge to realist
theories. The third section argues that Asian countries balance differently
from countries in the West. I conclude by discussing the tension between area
studies and political science theorizing in the field of comparative politics.
I argue that this tension is healthy because it forces both sides of the debate
to sharpen their scholarship. The field of inter- national relations can
benefit from such a discussion, as well. Elevating the Asian experience to a
central place in the study of international relations will provide an excellent
opportunity to inject vitality into the stale paradigm wars that currently
characterize the field. Post-Cold War Pessimism over Asia Following the end of
the Cold War in 1991, some scholars in the West began to predict that Asia was
"ripe for rivalry."'12 They based this prediction on the fol- lowing
factors: wide disparities in the levels of economic and military power among
nations in the region; their different political systems, ranging from
democratic to totalitarian; historical animosities; and the lack of
international institutions. Many scholars thus envisaged a return of power
politics after de- cades when conflict in Asia was dominated by the Cold War
tension between the United States and the Soviet Union. In addition, scholars
envisaged a re- turn of arms racing and the possibility of major conflict among
Asian coun- alization of the Region: The Case of Northeast Asian International
Relations," Review of Interna- tional Studies, Vol. 12, No. 1 (January
1986), pp. 107-125. 12. For generally pessimistic perspectives, see Friedberg,
"Ripe for Rivalry"; Richard K. Betts, "Wealth, Power, and
Instability: East Asia and the United States after the Cold War,"
International Security, Vol. 18, No. 3 (Winter 1993/94), p. 60; Robert A.
Manning and James Przystup, "Asia's Transition Diplomacy: Hedging against
Futureshock," Survival, Vol. 41, No. 3 (Autumn 1999), pp. 43-67; Avery
Goldstein, "Great Expectations: Interpreting China's Arrival,"
International Secu- rity, Vol. 22, No. 3 (Winter 1997/98), pp. 36-73; Barry
Buzan and Gerald Segal, "Rethinking East Asian Security," Survival,
Vol. 36, No. 2 (Summer 1994), pp. 3-21; Christopher Layne, "The Unipo- lar
Illusion: Why New Great Powers Will Rise," International Security, Vol.
17, No. 4 (Spring 1993), pp. 5-51; Thomas J. Christensen, "Posing Problems
without Catching Up: China's Rise and Chal- lenges for U.S. Security Policy,"
International Security, Vol. 25, No. 4 (Spring 2001), pp. 5-40; Ken- neth N.
Waltz, "The Emerging Structure of International Politics,"
International Security, Vol. 18, No. 2 (Fall 1993), pp. 56, 65; and Charles A.
Kupchan, "After Pax Americana: Benign Power, Re- gional Integration, and
the Sources of Stable Multipolarity," International Security, Vol. 23, No.
2 (Fall 1998), pp. 40-79.
International Security 27:4 162 tries, almost all of which had rapidly
changing internal and external environments. More specific predictions included
the growing possibility of Japanese rearmament;'3 increased Chinese adventurism
spurred by China's rising power and ostensibly revisionist intentions;'4
conflict or war over the status of Taiwan;'5 terrorist or missile attacks from
a rogue North Korea against South Korea, Japan, or even the United States;16
and arms racing or even conflict in Southeast Asia, prompted in part by
unresolved territorial disputes.7" 13. On Japan, see Gerald Segal,
"The Coming Confrontation between China and Japan," World Policy
Journal, Vol. 10, No. 2 (Summer 1993), pp. 27-32; Allen S. Whiting, China Eyes
Japan (Berke- ley: University of California Press, 1989); Clyde Prestowitz Jr.,
Trading Places: How We Allowed Japan to Take the Lead (New York: Basic Books,
1989); Ezra F. Vogel, Japan as Number One: Lessons for Amer- ica (Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1979); Eamonn Fingleton, Blindside: Why Japan
Is Still on Track to Overtake the U.S. by the Year 2000 (Boston: Houghton
Mifflin, 1994); Chalmers A. Johnson, "Japan in Search of a 'Normal'
Role," Daedalus, Vol. 121 (Fall 1992), pp. 1-33; Reinhard Drifte, Japan's
Foreign Policy for the Twenty-first Century: From Economic Superpower to What
Power? (New York: St. Martin's, 1998); and George Friedman and Meredith Lebard,
The Coming War with Japan (New York: St. Martin's, 1991). For an example of the
worry that Japan's economy induced in policymaking circles, see Central
Intelligence Agency, Japan, 2000 (Rochester, N.Y.: Rochester Insti- tute of
Technology, 1991); and "Paradigm Paranoia," Far Eastern Economic
Review, June 27, 1991, p. 15. 14. On the China threat, see Gerald Segal,
"East Asia and the 'Constraintment' of China," Interna- tional
Security, Vol. 20, No. 4 (Spring 1996), pp. 107-135; Denny Roy, "Hegemon
on the Horizon? China's Threat to East Asian Security," International
Security, Vol. 19, No. 1 (Summer 1994), pp. 149- 168, at p. 164; Nicholas D.
Kristof, "The Rise of China," Foreign Affairs, Vol. 72, No. 5
(November/ December 1993), pp. 59-74; and Edward Friedman and Barrett L.
McCormick, eds., What If China Doesn't Democratize? Implications for War and
Peace (New York: M.E. Sharpe, 2000). 15. See Christopher W. Hughes, Taiwan and
Chinese Nationalism: National Identity and Status in Inter- national Society
(New York: Routledge, 1997); Shelley Rigger, "Competing Conceptions of
Taiwan's Identity," in Suisheng Zhao, ed., Across the Taiwan Strait:
Mainland China, Taiwan, and the 1995-1996 Crisis (New York: Routledge, 1997);
Patrick Tyler, A Great Wall: Six Presidents and China (New York: PublicAffairs,
1999); and John Franklin Copper, Taiwan: Nation-State or Province? (Boulder,
Colo.: Westview, 1990). 16. See Betts, "Wealth, Power, and
Instability," p. 66; Aaron Friedberg, "Loose Cannon," New York
Times Review of Books, December 12, 1999, p. 23; Nicholas Eberstadt, "The
Most Dangerous Coun- try," National Interest, Vol. 57 (Fall 1999), pp.
45-54; Fred C. Iklk, "U.S. Folly May Start Another Korean War," Wall
Street Journal, October 12, 1998, p. A18; Amos A. Jordan, "Coping with
North Korea," Washington Quarterly, Vol. 21, No. 1 (Winter 1998), pp.
33-46; "Sound the Alarm: Defector Says North Korea Is Preparing for
War," Economist, April 26, 1997, p. 34; and Gen. Patrick Hughes, director,
U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, statement before the Senate Select Committee
on Intelli- gence, "Global Threats and Challenges to the United States and
Its Interests Abroad," February 5, 1997, 102d Cong., 1st sess.,
http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/1997_hr/s970205d.htm. For counterarguments, see
David C. Kang, "North Korea: Deterrence through Danger," in Muthiah
Alagappa, ed., Asian Security Practice: Material and Ideational Influences
(Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1998), pp. 234-263; David C.
Kang, "Preventive War and North Korea," Security Studies, Vol. 4, No.
2 (Winter 1995), pp. 330-363; Denny Roy, "North Korea and the Madman The-
ory," Security Dialogue, Vol. 25, No. 3 (September 1994), pp. 307-316; and
Leon V. Sigal, Disarming Strangers: Nuclear Diplomacy with North Korea
(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1998). 17. Kupchan, "After
Pax Americana," pp. 44-45.
Getting Asia Wrong 63 More than a dozen years have passed since the end
of the Cold War, yet none of these pessimistic predictions have come to pass.
Indeed there has not been a major war in Asia since the 1978-79
Vietnam-Cambodia-China conflict; and with only a few exceptions (North Korea
and Taiwan), Asian countries do not fear for their survival. Japan, though
powerful, has not rearmed to the ex- tent it could. China seems no more
revisionist or adventurous now than it was before the end of the Cold War. And
no Asian country appears to be balancing against China. In contrast to the
period 1950-80, the past two decades have witnessed enduring regional stability
and minimal conflict. Scholars should directly confront these anomalies, rather
than dismissing them. Social scientists can learn as much from events that do
not occur as from those that do. The case of Asian security provides an
opportunity to examine the usefulness of accepted international relations
paradigms and to determine how the assumptions underlying these theories can
become misspecified. Some scholars have smuggled ancillary and ad hoc
hypotheses about prefer- ences into realist, institutionalist, and
constructivist theories to make them fit various aspects of the Asian cases,
including: assumptions about an irrational North Korean leadership, predictions
of an expansionist and revisionist China, and depictions of Japanese foreign
policy as "abnormal."'8 Social science moves forward from the clear
statement of a theory, its causal logic, and its predictions. Just as
important, however, is the rigorous assessment of the the- ory, especially if predictions
flowing from it fail to materialize. Exploring why scholars have misunderstood
Asia is both a fruitful and a necessary theoretical exercise. Two major
problems exist with many of the pessimistic predictions about Asia. First, when
confronted with the nonbalancing of Asian states against China, the lack of
Japanese rearmament, and five decades of noninvasion by North Korea, scholars
typically respond: Just wait. This reply, however, is intel- lectually
ambiguous. Although it would be unfair to expect instantaneous na- tional
responses to changing international conditions, a dozen years would seem to be
long enough to detect at least some change. Indeed Asian nations have
historically shown an ability to respond quickly to changing circum- stances.
The Meiji restoration in Japan in 1868 was a remarkable example of governmental
response to European and American encroachment, and by 1874 18. For a detailed
discussion of these criticisms that uses North Korea as an example, see David
C. Kang, "International Relations Theory and the Second Korean War,"
International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 47, No. 3 (September 2003).
International Security 27:4 64 Japan had emerged from centuries of
isolation to occupy Taiwan." More re- cently, with the introduction of
market reforms in late 1978, when Deng Xiaoping famously declared, "To get
rich is glorious," the Chinese have trans- formed themselves from diehard
socialists to exuberant capitalists beginning less than three years after Mao's
death in 1976.2( In the absence of a specific time frame, the "just
wait" response is unfalsifiable. Providing a causal logic that explains
how and when scholars can expect changes is an important as- pect of this
response, and reasonable scholars will accept that change may not be immediate
but may occur over time. Without such a time frame, however, the "just
wait" response is mere rhetorical wordplay designed to avoid trou- bling
evidence. A more rigorous response in the Chinese case would be to argue that
condi- tions of balancing, not timing per se, are the critical factor. In this
view, China's relatively slow military modernization and limited power
projection capabili- ties suggest that its potential threat to other Asian
countries is growing only slowly; thus the conditions necessary to produce
costly all-out balancing efforts do not yet exist. Moreover, even though many
of the conditions that theorists argue can lead to conflict do already exist in
East Asia, the region has so far avoided both major and minor interstate
conflict. Most significant, in less than two decades China has evolved from
being a moribund and closed mid- dle power to the most dynamic country in the
region, with an economy that not only will soon surpass Japan's (if it has not
already) but also shows many signs of continuing growth. This dramatic power
transition has evoked hardly any response from China's neighbors.2' By realist
standards, China should be provoking balancing behavior, merely because its
overall size and projected rate of growth are so high. 19. On the Meiji
restoration, see E. Herbert Norman, Japan's Emergence as a Modern State:
Political and Economic Problems of the Meiji Period (Westport, Conn.:
Greenwood, 1973); and Ramon H. Myers and Mark R. Peattie, eds., The Japanese
Colonial Empire, 1895-1945 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Uni- versity Press,
1984). 20. See Andrew G. Walder, ed., China's Transitional Economy (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1996); and Jean Oi, State and Peasant in Contemporary
China: The Political Economy of Village Govern- ment (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1989). 21. Douglas Lemke and Suzanne Werner, "Power
Parity, Commitment to Change, and War," Inter- national Studies Quarterly,
Vol. 40, No. 2 (June 1996), pp. 235-260; Jack S. Levy, "Declining Power
and the Preventive Motivation for War," World Politics, Vol. 40, No. 1
(October 1987), pp. 82-107; Randall L. Schweller, "Domestic Structure and
Preventive War: Are Democracies More Pacific?" World Politics, Vol. 44,
No. 2 (January 1992), pp. 235-269; Woosang Kim and James D. Morrow, "When
Do Power Shifts Lead to War?" American Journal of Political Science, Vol.
36, No. 4 (Novem- ber 1992), pp. 896-922; and Henk W. Houweling and Jan G.
Siccama, "Power Transitions as a Cause of War," Journal of Conflict
Resolution, Vol. 32, No. 1 (March 1988), pp. 87-102.
Getting Asia Wrong 65 Second, pessimistic predictions about Asia's future
often suffer from incom- pletely specified evidentiary standards. Scholars will
frequently select evi- dence that supports their arguments and dismiss
contradictory evidence as epiphenomenal. For example, in his most recent book,
John Mearsheimer ar- gues that although Japan (and Germany) have "the
potential in terms of popu- lation and wealth to become great powers ... they
depend on the United States for their security, and are effectively
semi-sovereign states, not great powers."22 This begs a number of
questions: For instance, why define Japan, which has the second largest economy
in the world, as "semi-sovereign"? Indeed why would such an economically
advanced state ever allow itself to remain "semi- sovereign"?
Mearsheimer's book is focused on building a theory of offensive realism, but
the logic of offensive realism would lead to the conclusion that Ja- pan should
have rearmed long ago. The onus is on those predicting an increase in power
politics in Asia to state clearly what evidence would falsify their ar- guments
or challenge their assumptions, not to explain away objections or ig- nore
contradictory evidence. A clearer explication of their hypotheses and the
refutable propositions would be a genuine contribution to the field. More than
a dozen years after the end of the Cold War, much of Asia bears little
resemblance to the picture painted by the pessimists. Although the years
1950-80 saw numerous armed conflicts, since then there has been no major in-
terstate war in either Northeast or Southeast Asia. Countries do not fear for
their survival in either area. In Northeast Asia, rivalry and power politics
re- main muted. Japan has not rearmed, China shows little sign of having revi-
sionist tendencies, and North Korea has neither imploded nor exploded.
Southeast Asia, as well, remains free of the kinds of arms races and power
poli- tics that some have expected. As Muthiah Alagappa writes, "Viewed
through the ahistorical realist lens, the contemporary security challenges
could indeed suggest that Asia is a dangerous place. But a comprehensive
historical view would suggest otherwise. Although Asia still faces serious
internal and inter- national challenges, there are fewer challenges than before
and most of the re- gion's disputes and conflicts have stabilized."23 The
field of international relations would be better served if the pessimists not
only admitted this reality but also asked why this might be the case. Because
China has such an impor- 22. John J. Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power
Politics (New York: W.W. Norton, 2001), p. 382 (emphasis added). 23. Muthiah
Alagappa, "Introduction: Predictability and Stability Despite
Challenges," in Algappa, Asian Security Order, p. 11.
International Security 27:4 166 tant influence on Northeast, Southeast,
and even South Asia, I offer the tenta- tive outline of such an explanation in
the following section. China, Hierarchy, and Balancing The most hotly debated
of the pessimistic predictions about Asia concerns the rise of a revisionist
China. After two decades of rapid economic growth, China appears poised to
become a great power once again. Thus for Richard Betts, the question becomes:
"Should we want China to get rich or not? For realists, the answer should
be no, since a rich China would overturn any balance of power."24 Concern
over a revisionist and destabilizing China has only in- creased in the past
decade, as its economy continues to grow and its military and technological
capabilities further expand.25 Yet concern over a strong China may be
misplaced. Historically, it has been Chinese weakness that has led to chaos in
Asia. When China has been strong and stable, order has been preserved. East Asian
regional relations have histor- ically been hierarchic, more peaceful, and more
stable than those in the West.26 Until the intrusion of the Western powers in
the nineteenth century, East Asian interstate relations were remarkably stable,
punctuated only occasionally by 24. Betts, "Wealth, Power, and
Instability," p. 55. For similar arguments, see Roy, "Hegemon on the
Horizon?"; Andrew Nathan and Robert S. Ross, The Great Wall and the Empty
Fortress: China's Search for Security (New York: W.W. Norton, 1997); Goldstein,
"Great Expectations"; and the cita- tions in note 16. 25. For
excellent attempts to measure Chinese economic growth, see Harry X. Wu, How
Rich Is China and How Fast Has the Economy Grown? Statistical Controversies,
China Economy Papers (Canberra: Asia Pacific School of Economics and
Management, Australian National University, 1998); and Lawrence Lau, "The
Chinese Economy: Past, Present, and Future," Stanford University, 2000.
26. For detailed discussion on hierarchy in Asian international relations, see
David C. Kang, "Hi- erarchy in Asian International Relations:
1400-2000," Dartmouth College, 2002; and Muthiah Alagappa,
"International Politics in Asia: The Historical Context," in Algappa,
Asian Security Prac- tice, pp. 65-114. The classic statement is John King
Fairbank, ed., The Chinese World Order: Tradi- tional China's Foreign Relations
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1968). See also Michel Oksenberg,
" The Issue of Sovereignty in the Asian Historical Context," in
Stephen D. Krasner, ed., Problematic Sovereignty: Contest Rules and Political
Possibilities (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001); Akira Iriye, Across
the Pacific: An Inner History of American-East Asian Relations (New York:
Harcourt, Brace, 1967); and Johnston, Cultural Realism. For complementary work,
see Ste- phen D. Krasner, Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy (Princeton, N.J.:
Princeton University Press, 1999); Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of
Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (New York: Simon and Schuster,
1996); and Victor D. Cha's discussion in "Defining Security in East Asia:
His- tory, Hotspots, and Horizon-gazing," in Eun Mee Kim, ed., The Four
Asian Tigers: Economic Develop- ment and the Global Political Economy (San
Diego, Calif.: Academic Press, 1998), pp. 33-60.
Getting Asia Wrong 67 conflict between countries. The system was based on
Chinese military and eco- nomic power but was reinforced through centuries of
cultural exchange, and the units in the system were sovereign states that had
political control over rec- ognized geographic areas. East Asian international
relations emphasized for- mal hierarchy among nations while allowing
considerable informal equality. With China as the dominant state and
surrounding countries as peripheral or secondary states, as long as hierarchy
was observed there was little need for in- terstate war. This contrasts sharply
with the Western tradition of international relations, which has consisted of
formal equality between nation-states, infor- mal hierarchy, and near-constant
interstate conflict.27 In the nineteenth century, the traditional East Asian
order was demolished as both Western and Asian powers (in particular, Japan)
scrambled to establish influence in the region. After a century of tumult in Asia,
the late 1990s saw the reemergence of a strong and confident China, the growing
stabilization of Viet- nam, and increasingly consolidated political rule around
the region. Although realists and liberals have tended to view modern East Asia
as potentially un- stable, if the system is experiencing a return to a pattern
of hierarchy, the result may be increased stability. China in 2003 appears to
be reemerging as the gravitational center of East Asia. From a historical
perspective, a rich and strong China could again ce- ment regional stability.
However, a century of chaos and change, and the growing influence of the rest
of the world (in particular the United States), would lead one to conclude that
a Chinese-led regional system would not look like its historical predecessor.
Indeed Chung-in Moon argues that the Westphalian notion of sovereignty holds
sway in Asia, although he also admits that this is frequently compromised and
often contested.28 Even if a hierarchic system does not reemerge in East Asia,
and even if coun- tries in the region do not adopt Westphalian norms in their
entirety, the ques- 27. For more on the concept of hierarchy in its various
forms, see William C. Wohlforth, "The Sta- bility of a Unipolar
World," International Security, Vol. 24, No. 1 (Summer 1999), p. 13; David
Lake, "Anarchy, Hierarchy, and the Variety of International
Relations," International Organization, Vol. 50, No. 1 (Winter 1996), pp.
1-33; Alexander Wendt and Daniel Friedheim, "Hierarchy under Anarchy: Informal
Empire and the East German State," International Organization, Vol. 49,
No. 4 (Autumn 1995), pp. 689-721; and Douglas Lemke, Regions of War and Peace
(Cambridge: Cambridge Univer- sity Press, 2002). 28. Chung-in Moon,
"Sovereignty: Dominance of the Westphalian Concept and Implications for
Regional Security," in Alagappa, Asian Security Order, pp. 424-457.
Jean-Marc Blanchard calls Asian states "adolescent." Blanchard,
"Maritime Issues in Asia: The Problem of Adolescence," in ibid., pp.
424-457.
International Security 27:4 68 tion of whether a more powerful China will
be a revisionist or a status quo state remains.29 Although the evidence is
mixed, much in China's behavior points to Beijing's desire to stabilize the
region. According to political scientist Xinbo Wu, "Both the political
leadership and the Chinese public believe that . . . China must regain
major-power status.""3 Wu also notes that China perceives the
international environment in the past decade as less hostile, and even benign.
At the same time, Beijing views its relationship with Washington as potentially
the most troubling, believing that the United States is the pri- mary
constraint on Chinese maneuvering and influence in the region.31 It is not
clear, however, if China intends to challenge the United States for regional
su- premacy. For three decades, China has made a conscious decision to confine
it- self to a relatively modest second-strike nuclear force, although this
could change depending on U.S. actions regarding missile defense.32 Does China
have territorial or ideological ambitions? The evidence so far suggests that
although China has outstanding territorial disputes with a num- ber of
countries, it has neither revisionist nor imperial aims. First, China has shown
a genuine desire to join the world community, perhaps best reflected in its
considerable efforts to become a member of the World Trade Organization. Wu
notes that "the PRC understands that the best way to defend its interest
is to make its own voice heard in the rule-making process,"33 by joining
in- fluential regional and international institutions. This explains Chinese
active participation in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the
ASEAN Regional Forum, and a number of other international institutions.34 29.
See Alastair Lain Johnston, "Beijing's Security Behavior in the
Asia-Pacific: Is China a Dissatisfied Power?" paper prepared for Asian
Security Workshop, Cornell University, March 29- 30, 2002. 30. Xinbo Wu,
"China: Security Practice of a Modernizing and Ascending Power," in
Alagappa, Asian Security Practice, p. 115. For extended discussion, see
Alastair Iain Johnston and Robert S. Ross, eds., Engaging China: The Management
of an Emerging Power (London: Routledge, 1999). 31. Wu, "China," p.
148. 32. On the controversy over theater and national missile defenses, see
Kori Urayama, "Chinese Perspectives on Theater Missile Defense: Policy
Implications for Japan," Asian Survey, Vol. 40, No. 4 (July/August 2000),
pp. 599-621; and Thomas J. Christensen, "Theater Missile Defense and
Taiwan's Security," Orbis, Vol. 44, No. 1 (Winter 2000), pp. 18-32; and
Bates Gill and Michael O'Hanlon, "China's Hollow Military," National
Interest, Vol. 56 (Summer 1999), pp. 55-62. 33. Wu, "China," p. 151.
34. On multilateral institutions in Asia, see Amitav Acharya, "Regional
Institutions and Asian Security Order," in Alagappa, Asian Security Order,
pp. 210-240; and Margaret M. Pearson, "The Major Multilateral Economic
Institutions Engage China," in Johnston and Ross, Engaging China, pp. 207-234.
Getting Asia Wrong 69 Second, in the past two decades China has resolved
territorial disputes with Afghanistan, Burma, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia,
Nepal, Pakistan, and Russia. More recently, it has resolved its disputes with
Cambodia and Vietnam, renouncing support from the Khmer Rouge and embracing the
Paris Peace Accords of 1991 that brought elections to Cambodia, and normalizing
relations and delineating its border with Vietnam.35 Jianwei Wang writes that
"the fact that no war for territory has been fought in East Asia since the
1980s indicates a tendency to seek peaceful settlement of the remaining
disputes."36 On mari- time disputes, Jean-Marc Blanchard notes that all
Asian countries except Cam- bodia, North Korea, and Thailand have signed the
United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which has provided an
institutional forum for parties to address disputes over fishing rights, trade
routes, and other matters.37 China does have unresolved territorial disputes
over Taiwan, with ASEAN over the Spratly Islands, and with Japan over the
Senkaku (Diaoyu) Islands.3" Many other Asian nations also have unresolved
territorial issues, resulting from a century of regional change, not from
Chinese revisionism. For example, Japan and Russia have yet to resolve their
dispute over the Northern territo- ries, nor have Japan and Korea resolved
their dispute over Tokto Island. Thus these territorial disputes by themselves
are not an indicator of Chinese ambitions. Countries in East Asia are also
deciding how to deal with China's growing economy. Japanese investment in China
continues to expand, and Japanese companies are increasingly seeing their
fortunes tied to the Chinese market. Ja- pan runs a $27 billion trade deficit
with China.39 Forty thousand Taiwanese companies have investments in the
mainland, employing 10 million people. The Taiwanese central bank estimates
that total mainland investment is be- 35. On the Paris Peace Accords, see S.J.
Hood, "Beijing's Cambodia Gamble and the Prospects for Peace in Indochina:
The Khmer Rouge or Sihanouk?" Asian Survey, Vol. 30, No. 10 (October
1990), pp. 977-991. 36. Jianwei Wang, "Territorial Disputes and Asian
Conflict: Sources, Management, and Pros- pects," in Alagappa, Asian
Security Order, pp. 380-423, at p. 383. 37. Blanchard, "Maritime Issues in
Asia," pp. 424-457. 38. On the Spratlys, see Michael Gallagher,
"China's Illusory Threat to the South China Sea," Inter- national
Security, Vol. 19, No. 1 (Summer 1994), pp. 169-194; Ian Storey, "Creeping
Assertiveness: China, the Philippines, and the South China Sea Dispute,"
Contemporary Southeast Asia, Vol. 21, No. 1 (April 1999), pp. 95-118; and Mark
Valencia, China and the South China Sea Disputes, Adelphi Papers No. 298
(London: International Institute for Strategic Studies, October 1995). 39. See
David Kruger and Ichiko Fuyuno, "Innovate or Die: Reinventing Japan,"
Far Eastern Eco- nomic Review, April 25, 2002, pp. 28-34.
International Security 27:4 70 tween $40 and $50 billion.40 Sixty percent
of Taiwanese foreign direct invest- ment went to China in 2001, despite rising
political tensions. The capitalization of China's stock market is the largest
in Asia except for Japan's, despite being just a decade old-larger than the
capitalization of stock markets in Brazil, Hong Kong, India, Mexico, South
Korea, or Taiwan.41 The growing importance of China's economy in some ways
parallels China's historical role. Historical precedents may not be
tremendously helpful, how- ever, in assessing whether hierarchy will reemerge in
Asia, because other Asian nations' willingness to accept subordinate positions
in a Sino-centric hierarchy will depend on beliefs about how a dominant China
would behave in the future. Additionally, it is not clear if China is willing
to make more adjustments to calm fears or further integrate into the globalized
world. This possibility deserves serious investigation, however, and it could
be a fruitful line of research. Because the evidence of Chinese revisionism
over the past decade of rapid growth is limited at best, scholars should
explore the possibil- ity that China will be a stabilizing force in Northeast
and Southeast Asia. One way in which East Asian relations may manifest
themselves differently than realists expect concerns the issue of whether other
nations in the region fear China's growing power and will seek to balance
against it, or whether those nations will instead choose to bandwagon with it. Balancing
versus Bandwagoning and the Role of the United States Contrary to the
conventional wisdom, Northeast and Southeast Asian nations are not obviously
balancing against China. Relying on variations of "mercan- tile
realism," "soft balancing," and "reluctant realism,"42
however, scholars contend that this is likely to change in the future. Yet any
argument that bal- ancing may occur in Asia or that balancing has a different
meaning in Asia is an admission that such countries are not acting as balance
of power realists ex- 40. There is also considerable nonapproved Taiwanese
investment, meaning that the actual figures are higher. See David Murphy and
Maureen Pao, "A Place to Call Home," Far Eastern Economic Re- view,
July 5, 2001, p. 56. 41. Tom Holland, "Between Hype and a Hard
Place," Far Eastern Economic Review, June 28, 2001, p. 40. 42. See Eric
Heginbotham and Richard J. Samuels, "Mercantile Realism and Japanese
Foreign Pol- icy," International Security, Vol. 22, No. 4 (Spring 1998),
pp. 171-203; Yuen Foong Khong, "Southeast Asia's Post-Cold War Security
Strategy: Institutions and Soft Balancing in the Wake of Strategic
Uncertainty," paper prepared for Asian Security Workshop, Cornell
University, Ithaca, New York, March 29-30, 2002; and Michael J. Green, Japan's
Reluctant Realism: Foreign Policy Challenges in an Era of Uncertain Power (New
York: Palgrave, 2001).
Getting Asia Wrong 171 pect. Although the issue of balancing is
complicated by the presence of U.S. diplomatic, economic, cultural, and
military power in Asia, it is still possible to make tentative assessments
about the region. Instead of assuming that Asia will balance rising Chinese
power, posing this as a question would be a more productive exercise.43
Hierarchy can be global as well as regional, and the United States is clearly
the dominant state both in the international order and in Asia. This has impor-
tant implications for scholarly understanding of the region. As China contin-
ues on the path of economic growth and military modernization, the key question
is whether the United States can or will allow China to resume its place atop
the Asian regional hierarchy. As this section shows, the answer to this
question is not obvious. It is difficult to predict the reaction of other Asian
nations to the possibility of increased U.S.-Chinese confrontation as a result
of continued Chinese economic and military growth. If, as realists expect,
Asian nations do not balance against China, a U.S. attempt to form a balancing
coali- tion with East Asian states to contain China could be highly
problematic. In addition, if the United States withdraws significantly from the
region, Asia may not become the dangerous or unstable region that balance of
power ad- herents would suggest, because other nations may acquiesce to China's
central position in Asia.44 Discerning balancing behavior in Asia is especially
difficult given the over- whelming dominance of U.S. power in the region. As
argued by Michael Mastanduno and others, the conventional view is that by
balancing China, the United States acts as a stabilizing force in the region.
According to Mastanduno, "American power and presence have helped to keep
traditional power rivals in the region from engaging in significant conflict
and have reas- sured smaller states who have traditionally been vulnerable to
major regional wars."45 The U.S. alliance system in Northeast and
Southeast Asia, as well as 43. On bandwagoning, see Randall L. Schweller,
"Bandwagoning for Profit: Bringing the Revi- sionist State Back In,"
International Security, Vol. 19, No. 1 (Summer 1994), pp. 72-107. 44. For an
argument that U.S. power projection is misguided, see Chalmers A. Johnson,
Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire (New York: Metropolitan
Books, 2000). There is cur- rently no indication that the United States will
withdraw military assets from Korea or Japan. Such steps have been discussed,
however, since the Jimmy Carter administration in the 1970s. For cur- rent U.S.
planning, see Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Vision, 2020 (Washington, D.C.:
Government Printing Office, June 2000). 45. Michael Mastanduno, "Incomplete
Hegemony: The United States and Security Order in Asia," in Alagappa,
Asian Security Order, pp. 141-170, at p. 143. See also Robert S. Ross,
"The Geography of the Peace: East Asia in the Twenty-first Century,"
International Security, Vol. 23, No. 4 (Spring 1999), pp. 81-118.
International Security 27:4 72 the provision of naval facilities to the
United States by Singapore and the Phil- ippines, are manifestations of this
balancing behavior. The implication is that there would be considerably more
conflict in the region were the United States to pull back or otherwise reduce
its military presence.46 The ability of the United States to maintain regional
peace and stability, however, especially in Northeast Asia, is an open
question. As Alagappa notes, "The claim that stability in Northeast Asia
is predicated on the U.S. role rests on several controversial assertions ...
that the United States checks China's growing power and influence, which is
feared by other Asian states; [and] that nearly all countries trust and prefer
the United States.... [However,] contain- ment of China does not appeal to many
Asian states."47 Although the United States still retains overwhelming
power in the region, its scope is considerably ?maller than it was at its height
a quarter century ago. In addition, both East Asian and Southeast Asian
countries have grown significantly stronger, richer, and generally more stable.
This transition at least requires an explanation. That the United States plays
an important security role in Asia is relatively uncon- troversial. Whether
some type of U.S. withdrawal would be deleterious for the region is far more
questionable. Mastanduno writes that U.S. hegemony in Asia is incomplete in
many re- spects and functions more as a "holding operation."48 And
although Avery ?oldstein argues that balancing does occur in Asia, he too
suggests that its contribution to regional security is less clear.49 The
distribution of power and potential for conflict do not lead to obvious
bipolarity or multipolarity.s5 Part of what makes understanding Asia so
difficult is this complexity. Indeed some scholars have argued that underlying
the core U.S. strategy is the belief that China's future behavior can be
changed in a positive direction, through either democratization or integration
into the global economy (or some combi- nation of both), and that engagement is
a policy tool toward that end.5' 46. Christensen, "Theater Missile Defense
and Taiwan's Security"; and Kupchan, "After Pax Americana," pp.
40-55. 47. Alagappa, "Managing Asian Security," in Alagappa, Asian
Security Order, pp. 571-606, at p. 601. 48. Mastanduno, "Incomplete
Hegemony." On U.S. supremacy, see Wohlforth, "The Stability of a
Unipolar World," p. 13. 49. Avery Goldstein, "Balance of Power Politics:
Consequences for Asian Security Order," in Alagappa, Asian Security Order,
pp. 171-209. 50. Ibid. 51. Mastanduno, "Incomplete Hegemony."
Getting Asia Wrong 173 REALISM'S JAPAN PROBLEM Japan's foreign policy
provides perhaps the strongest evidence to date that bal- ancing is not
occurring in Asia as realist theories would predict. For the past twenty years,
realists have consistently predicted that Japan would rearm, or at least become
increasingly assertive in parallel with its growing economic power, but it has
not. Although Japan is very powerful, it has not yet adopted the trappings of a
great power. In contrast to realists who argue that power considerations will
ultimately influence Japanese foreign policy, and in con- trast to
constructivists who argue that Japan's culture or domestic politics ex- plain
its foreign policy,52 I offer another explanation. Scholars have spent decades
speculating about whether and when Japan might become a "normal"
power.53 This is the wrong question. Arguments about whether Japan is
"normal" or "militant" essentialize the country and miss
the point. Japan invaded other Asian states a century ago because the sys- tem
in Asia was highly unstable and Japan sought to protect itself. In the cur-
rent era, Japan has little to gain from challenging either a strong China or
the United States, but much to lose by starting great power competition.
Geogra- phy, population, and economics mean not only that Japan benefits from a
strong international order, but also that it is relatively safe from military
threats. There are two major realist explanations for Japan's foreign policy
behavior, both of which are often conflated in the literature. The first is the
great power explanation, which holds that Japan is so rich and technologically
advanced that it will soon want to become a great power once again (this is the
"power maximization" hypothesis). Second is the umbrella (or
"power satisfaction") explanation: According to this hypothesis, when
U.S. forces withdraw from Ja- pan, it will rearm and become a normal power.54 52.
See, for example, Katzenstein, Cultural Norms and National Security; Thomas U.
Berger, "From Sword to Chrysanthemum: Japan's Culture of
Anti-militarism," International Security, Vol. 17, No. 4 (Spring 1993),
pp. 119-150; and Heginbotham and Samuels, "Mercantile Realism and Japanese
For- eign Policy." 53. Johnson, "Japan in Search of a 'Normal'
Role"; and Drifte, Japan's Foreign Policy for the Twenty- first Century.
54. For arguments that Japan will soon become a great power, see Waltz,
"The Emerging Structure of International Politics," pp. 56, 65;
Betts, "Wealth, Power, and Instability," p. 55; and Michael C. Desch,
"Correspondence: Isms and Schisms--Culturalism versus Realism in Security
Studies," In- ternational Security, Vol. 24, No. 1 (Summer 1999), p. 176.
On the U.S. security umbrella restraining Japanese rearmament, see Betts,
"Wealth, Power, and Instability," p. 56; and Friedberg, "Ripe
for Rivalry," p. 25. For counterarguments, see the extended discussion in Katzenstein,
Cultural Norms
International Security 27:4 74 These explanations are mutually
incompatible: Japan cannot be a normal great power and yet be protected by the
U.S. security umbrella. Of the two, the power maximization hypothesis is most
easily falsified. Realists have no expla- nation for why Japan, the world's
second-largest economy, has not sought to balance or challenge the United
States (the world's largest power) or why Japan has not attempted to provide
for its own security. As Waltz has written, "Countries with great power
economics have become great military powers, whether or not
reluctantly.""" In addition to having the world's second largest
economy, Japan is arguably the world's finest manufacturing nation and one of
it most technologically sophisticated. Yet not only does Japan lack aircraft
car- riers, intercontinental missiles, and nuclear weapons, but it does not
send troops abroad. In sum, Japan is hard to invade, but it also evinces almost
no significant military or diplomatic strength. So although Japan is relatively
strong, it has not rearmed to the extent it could, nor has it rearmed to the
extent that a "great power" would (see Table 1). In support of the
great power explanation, Michael Desch offers evidence of Japanese supposed
intentions: marginally increased defense spending, pursuit of a virtual nuclear
deterrent, and growing nationalistic rhetoric from selected politicians."5
Yet this evidence is speculative at best. The key is not the offhand remark of
a right-wing politician, but rather that Japan could easily triple its defense
budget and still spend only what other powers such as France and Germany do
(Figure 1). In addition, Japan could modify its constitution, de- velop a
nuclear arsenal, deploy intercontinental ballistic missiles, and build aircraft
carriers. It could also forge a foreign policy independent from that of the
United States and attempt to exert far more influence in diplomatic arenas.
This would be convincing evidence that Japan is, or aspires to be, a great
power. Discussion of Japan as a virtual, potential, or nascent power is simply
an admission that Japan does not function as a typical realist nation-state. and
National Security; Yoshihide Soeya, "Japan: Normative Constraints versus
Structural Impera- tives," in Alagappa, Asian Security Practice, p. 203;
Chalmers A. Johnson, "History Restarted: Japa- nese-American Relations at
the End of the Century," in Richard Higgott, Richard Leaver, and John
Ravenhill, eds., Pacific Economic Relations in the 1990s: Cooperation or
Conflict? (Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1993); Jennifer M. Lind,
"Correspondence: Spirals, Security, and Stability in East Asia," In-
ternational Security, Vol. 24, No. 4 (Spring 2000), pp. 190-195; and Berger,
"From Sword to Chrysanthemum." 55. Waltz, "The Emerging
Structure of International Relations," p. 66. 56. Desch,
"Correspondence: Isms and Schisms-Culturalism versus Realism in Security
Studies," p. 177.
Getting Asia Wrong 175 Table 1. Japan and Evidence of Great Power Status.
Indicators of Great Power Aspirations or Potential Japan's Status Modifications
of the constitution to allow the use of force No Nuclear weapons No Aircraft
carriers No Power projection capabilities No Intercontinental missiles No
Defense spending on par with great powers No Military procurement strategies No
Attempts to influence the "great game" (e.g., a seat on the No UN
Security Council) Active regional leadership No Gross domestic product on par
with great powers Yes Population on par with great powers Yes Per capita gross
domestic product on par with great powers Yes Technological capability on par
with great powers Yes The U.S. umbrella explanation is also unconvincing, for
at least two reasons. First, it does not explain why the second largest
economic power in the inter- national system would trust the world's only
superpower to provide for its se- curity. Threats arise through the mere
existence of capabilities-intentions can always change for the worse.57 As
Robert Jervis writes, "Minds can be changed, new leaders can come to
power, values can shift, new opportunities and dangers can arise."5"
A weak, peaceful country may alter its goals as it be- comes stronger. Second,
the umbrella explanation fails to account for why Japan did not doubt the U.S.
commitment to its security in the past. Argu- ments about the U.S. umbrella
implicitly assume that Japan is realist and would rearm if the United States
departed the region. If this is true, and if there is no other factor that
keeps Japanese foreign policy from becoming more as- sertive, then Japan should
have rearmed at least a decade ago, when the Japa- nese economy was at its
height and when Tokyo had many reasons to doubt the U.S. commitment to its
defense. A Japanese policymaker in 1985 might have concluded that, given the
previ- ous fifteen years or so of negative signals from Washington, the U.S.
commit- ment to Japan was unlikely to endure. In 1969 President Richard Nixon
had 57. Layne, "The Unipolar Illusion." 58. Robert Jervis,
"Cooperation under the Security Dilemma," World Politics, Vol. 30,
No. 2 (Janu- ary 1978), p. 105.
International Security 27:4 76 Figure 1. Great Powers' Defense Spending
as a Percentage of Gross Domestic Product, 1985 and 1999. 9 8 7- 0. 45 1985 4 4
01999 0a n3- United Japan China France United Germany States Kingdom SOURCE:
International Institute for Strategic Studies, The Military Balance, 2000-2001 (London:
International Institute for Strategic Studies, 2002). called for "Asia for
Asians" and began a major drawdown of U.S. troops and commitments to the
region." By 1985 Japan had seen the United States aban- don South Vietnam,
withdraw recognition of Taiwan, and pull half of its troops out of South Korea.
In the mid-1980s U.S. concern over Japanese trading and economic policies was
at its peak. This concern manifested itself in intense U.S. pressure on Japan
to alter some of its economic agreements, among them the 1985 Plaza Accords
that attempted to devalue the yen relative to the dollar, and the 1988
Structural Impediments Initiative that sought to force changes in Japan's
domestic economic practices."' In addition, the United States had be- gun
to pressure Japan over "burden sharing" and attempted to make the
Japa- nese pay more for the U.S. troops already deployed. All these indicators 59.
On the "Nixon shocks," see C. Vanhollen, "The Tilt Policy
Revisited: Nixon-Kissinger Geopoli- tics and South Asia," Asian Survey,
Vol. 20, No. 4 (April 1980), pp. 339-361. 60. See Leonard J. Schoppa,
"Two-Level Games and Bargaining Outcomes: Why Gaiatsu Succeeds in Japan in
Some Cases but Not Others," International Organization, Vol. 47, No. 3
(Summer 1993), pp. 353-386.
Getting Asia Wrong 177 suggested that the United States would cease to be
a reliable ally of Japan. In addition, Japanese economic growth was at its
highest, national sentiment about Japan's future was increasingly optimistic,
and Japan was by some mea- sures a better technological and manufacturing
country than the United States. From a realist perspective, only the most naive
and myopic of leaders would focus solely on the present. Thus Japan has had
ample reason to doubt the U.S. commitment to its defense. Yet in 1976 Tokyo
pledged to keep defense spend- ing at 1 percent of Japan's gross domestic
product, which has essentially re- mained unchanged. In addition, Japanese
leaders had little reaction to either the Vietnam or Taiwan pullouts by the
United States. Further, in the mid-1980s there was no concomitant change in the
policies of Japan's Self-Defense Forces.61 Japan did not rearm despite real
tensions with the United States in the 1980s, nor did it make any major changes
in its foreign policy.62 There is a third alternative concerning Japan's
foreign policy, which I refer to as the hierarchic explanation. According to
this explanation, Japan is a status quo secondary power that has not rearmed to
the level it could because it has no need to, and because it has no intention
of challenging either China or the United States for dominance in Asia. Japan
does not fear for its survival, and it accepts the centrality of China in
regional politics. The historical animosities and lingering mistrust over Japan
for its colonial aggression in the late nine- teenth century and the first half
of the twentieth century are reasons some- times cited for a fear of Japanese
rearmament. In the late nineteenth century, Japan faced decaying and despotic
Chinese and Korean monarchies, a significant regional power vacuum, and
pressures from Western nations. To- day the militaries of South Korea and China
are well equipped, their econo- mies are robust, and there is no threat of
Western colonization. Thus it is unlikely that Japan needs or will seek to
expand its diplomatic and military influence on the Asian landmass. In addition
to explaining the historical pattern of Japanese foreign policy, the hierarchic
explanation generates a different set of questions about Japan's future. For
example, could Japan tilt toward China? Could Japan see the United States as
the real threat to its survival? If Washington were to pressure Tokyo to take
sides in an increasingly acrimonious U.S.-China relationship, it is 61. For a
detailed study of Japanese military expenditures, see Michael J. Green, Arming
Japan: Pro- duction, Alliance Politics, and the Postwar Search for Autonomy
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1994). 62. Glenn D. Hook, Julie Gilson,
Christopher W. Hughes, and Hugo Dobson, Japan's International Relations:
Politics, Economics, and Security (London: Routledge, 2001).
International Security 27:4 78 not clear that Japan would antagonize a
geographically proximate power for the sake of a tenuous alliance with a
distant power.63 In fact, there is evidence that Japan does not view its
relationship with the United States as purely posi- tive. There is also
increasing evidence that the Japanese do not fear a strong China as much as
they do a strong United States. A May 1995 Yomiuri Shimbun poll found that 26.6
percent of Japanese identified the United States as a secu- rity threat to
their country, whereas only 21.3 percent identified China as a threat.64 In
countering the assumption that Japan has no choice but to rely on the United
States, former Prime Minister Yashuiro Nakasone has said that "a worm can turn."65
A more recent opinion poll by Asahi Shimbun in May 2001 found that 74 percent
of the Japanese public opposed revision of article 9 of the constitution (which
prohibits Japan from using force "as means of settling in- ternational
disputes").66 And in a magazine article, politician Ozawa Ichiro, who makes
no mention of China, does mention the need for multilateralism to protect Japan
from "Anglo-Saxon principles."67 As to whether Japan could tilt
toward China, Ted Galen Carpenter writes, "[U.S.] officials who assume
that a more active Japan will be an obedient junior partner of the United
States are in for an unpleasant surprise. Tokyo shows signs of not only being
more active on the security front, but also of being more independent of the
United States. Nowhere is that trend more evident than with respect to policy
toward China."'" For example, Japan has made clear that it does not
wish to be drawn into any conflict over the status of Taiwan. In fact, the
United States cannot count on Japan to support or provide bases in the event of
a China-Taiwan conflict.69 Japanese cooperation with China is increas- 63.
James Przystup, "China, Japan, and the United States," in Michael J.
Green and Patrick M. Cronin, eds., The U.S.-Japan Alliace: Past, Present, and
Future (New York: Council on Foreign Rela- tions), pp. 21-42. 64. Poll quoted
by Paul Midford, July 27, 2001, on the Social Science Japan Forum discussion
site: ssj-forum@iss.u-tokyo.ac.jp. This site has featured an ongoing discussion
about whether Japan might find the United States or China a greater threat. 65.
Quoted in Yoichi Funabashi, Alliance Adrift (New York: Council on Foreign
Relations, 1999), p. 435. 66. Howard W. French, "Top Bush Aide Urges Japan
to Form In-Depth Ties with the U.S.," New York Times, May 8, 2001, p. A10.
See also "The Best Response to the U.S. on Missile Defense Is a Flat
'No'," Asahi Shimbun, May 11, 2001, http://www.asahi.co.jp. The poll was
conducted on May 2, 2001. 67. Ozawa Ichiro, "Nihon-koku Kenpo Kaisei
Shian" [Draft proposal to change the Japanese con- stitution], Bungei-shunjuu,
September 1999, p. 100. 68. Ted Galen Carpenter, "Is Japan Tilting toward
China?" Japan Times, June 9, 2001, p. 6, http://
www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion.htm. 69. Martin Sieff, "Asia's Allies Won't
Back Bush," United Press International, April 26, 2001.
Getting Asia Wrong 179 ing in other ways as well. Bilateral trade volume
between Japan and China in 1997 amounted to $570 billion, fifty-two times
greater than in 1972. China is now Japan's second-largest trading partner, and
Japan ranks as China's largest trading partner. Moreover, China is the largest
recipient of Japanese invest- ment in Asia.711 Japan is neither normal nor
abnormal, militaristic nor pacifist. Its survival and economic health are best
provided by a stable order. Neither China nor the United States threatens Japan
militarily. Thus Japan has not seen fit to rearm extensively, despite its
capacity to build aircraft carriers and nuclear weap- ons." Furthermore,
Japan has shown no signs of balancing against China. SOUTH KOREA, VIETNAM, AND
THEIR NONBALANCING BEHAVIOR Given the lack of evidence of Japanese balancing,
might other countries in Northeast Asia and Southeast Asia-particularly South
Korea and Vietnam- seek to balance China? First, if forced to choose between
the United States and China, it is unclear which state either country would
support. Second, the im- portance of the United States in curtailing an Asian
arms race may be over- stated. If the United States pulls out of the region,
China could take a greater role in organizing the system, and the countries of
Northeast Asia and South- east Asia would adjust-with order preserved. Realist
theories would predict that both South Korea and Vietnam should welcome the
United States and fear China. Yet this understates the historically complex
relationship between these two countries and China. Both South Korea and
Vietnam, while wary of China, are not obviously balancing against it.
Historically, both have been forced to adjust to China even while attempting to
retain autonomy, and this will most likely be true in the future as well. Both
South Korea and Vietnam are known for their stubborn nationalism, gritty
determination, and proud history as countries independent from China.72 From
this perspective, it would probably be more surprising if they tried to balance
against China by siding with the United States than it would be if they found a
means of accommodating Beijing. North Korea has consistently had better
diplomatic relations with China than with any of its other communist patrons.
In addition, China has managed 70. Japan Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
"Recent Developments in China and Japan-China Rela- tions," briefing,
January 16, 1999. 71. See Kent E. Calder, "Japanese Foreign Economic
Policy Formation: Explaining the Reactive State," World Politics, Vol. 40,
No. 4 (July 1988), pp. 517-541. 72. See Stanley Karnow, Vietnam: A History (New
York: Penguin, 1997).
International Security 27:4 180 to retain close relations with North
Korea despite Beijing's recognition of South Korea and the rapid development of
cultural and economic ties between South Korea and China. South Korea has shown
considerable deference to China, es- pecially in its reluctance to give full
support to U.S. plans for theater missile defense (TMD).73 Moreover, South
Korean military planning-even the distant planning for postunification
defense-has focused on maritime threats, not on a possible Chinese land
invasion.74 The anti-American demonstrations in late 2002 over the U.S. bases
in South Korea reveal the complexity of Seoul's rela- tionship with Washington.
In addition, many in South Korea's business com- munity see their future in
China and have increasingly oriented their strategies in this direction, rather
than toward the United States. Regarding Vietnam, political scientist Ang Cheng
Guan notes that "[in 1960] Ho Chi Minh appealed to Khrushchev to accede to
the Chinese because, ac- cording to Ho, China was a big country.... Khrushchev
retorted that the So- viet Union was by no means a small country. Ho replied,
'For us it is doubly difficult. Don't forget, China is our
neighbor."'7" Political scientist Kim Ninh writes that although
"China remains the biggest external security threat to Vietnam . . .
Vietnam is doing its best to cultivate friendly bilateral relations and is
engaging in talks over a number of contentious issues between the two
countries."7' Like North and South Korea, Vietnam shows no obvious signs
of preparing to balance against a rising China. Also like the Koreas, Vietnam
has historically stood in the shadow of China, and its relationship with China
is both nuanced and complex. Ninh writes, "This love-hate, dependent-
independent relationship with China is a fundamental factor in the Vietnamese
conception of security."77 Today Vietnam is neither arming nor actively
defending its border against China.78 The past three decades have seen conflict
between the two nations: Vietnam fought a short but bloody war with China in
1979, and in 1988 the two 73. This may also reflect South Korea's belief that
TMD will not help it in a conventional war with the North. See Victor D. Cha,
"TMD and Nuclear Weapons in Asia," in Alagappa, Asian Security Order,
pp. 458-496. 74. For discussion of the normalization of ties, see Daniel C.
Sanford, South Korea and the Socialist Countries: The Politics of Trade (New
York: St. Martin's, 1990). On military planning, see Ministry of Foreign
Affairs, Waygyo Baekso [Foreign policy white paper] (Seoul: Ministry of Foreign
Affairs, 1999). 75. Ang Cheng Guan, "Vietnam-China Relations since the End
of the Cold War," Asian Survey, Vol. 38, No. 12 (December 1998), p. 1141.
76. Kim Ninh, " Vietnam: Struggle and Cooperation," in Alagappa,
Asian Security Practice, p. 462. 77. Ibid., p. 447. 78. For a review, see Cecil
B. Currey, "Vietnam: Foreign and Domestic Policies," Journal of Third
World Studies, Vol. 16, No. 2 (Fall 1999), p. 197-198; and Guan,
"Vietnam-China Relations since the End of the Cold War," pp.
1122-1141.
Getting Asia Wrong 81 countries engaged in a brief naval clash over the
Spratly Islands. Both clashes, however, occurred under vastly different
domestic and international condi- tions, and unlike the "people's
war" for independence fought against the French and the United States,
neither was all encompassing. By the 1990s, bor- der incidents between Vietnam
and China had mostly disappeared, and unofficial border trade began to
develop.79 The major security concern between Vietnam and China is the
unresolved is- sue of control over the Spratly Islands, a potentially oil-rich
group of islands in the South China Sea. Yet Vietnamese and Chinese leaders
have met annually since the normalization of relations between their countries
in 1991, despite differences over the Spratlys, and relations have improved
steadily over time. Ang Cheng Guan notes that "it is unlikely that the two
countries [Vietnam and China] will engage in another military clash over their
South China Sea dis- pute."s" In other areas, Vietnam has sought to
take China's perspective into its decisionmaking calculus, as well. For
example, when Vietnam joined ASEAN in 1995, Vietnam's deputy foreign minister
explicitly told reporters that his country's entry should not worry China.8'
The case of Vietnam shows that relations between dominant and secondary states
do not necessarily have to be warm-accommodation can be grudging, as well.
Since 1991, trade and other forms of economic cooperation have devel- oped
steadily between China and Vietnam. By 1997, this trade totaled $1.44 bil-
lion, and China had invested an estimated $102 million in Vietnam.2" In
1999 the two countries signed a tourism cooperation plan, allowing Chinese
nation- als to enter Vietnam without visas.8" China also signed an
economic agreement with Vietnam in 2000, providing $55.25 million to upgrade the
Thai Nguyen Steel Company and other industrial plants in Vietnam."4 Thus
indications are that Vietnam and China are developing a stable relationship. SOUTHEAST
ASIA AND CHINA Nor do other Southeast Asian states seem to be balancing China.
Although In- donesia, Malaysia, and Singapore all provide naval facilities to
the United 79. Carlyle A. Thayer, "Vietnam: Coping with China,"
Southeast Asian Affairs, 1994 (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies,
1995), p. 353. 80. Guan, "Vietnam-China Relations since the End of the
Cold War," p. 1140. 81. Ibid., p. 1129. 82. Gu Xiaosong and Brantly
Womack, "Border Cooperation between China and Vietnam in the 1990s,"
Asian Survey, Vol. 40, No. 6 (November/December 2000), p. 1045. 83. Tuyet Minh,
"The Chinese Are Coming," Vietnam Economic News, No. 33 (December
2000), p. 24. 84. "China to Aid Vietnamese Instustry," Business
Vietnam, Vol. 12, No. 6 (June 2000), p. 4.
International Security 27:4 182 States, these countries also have deep
economic and cultural ties with China, and none has shown an inclination to
balance against it. Goldstein writes that Vietnam and the Philippines have
joined ASEAN and repaired relations with the United States to counter possible
Chinese influence, although he admits that this is a far cry from what actual
alliances would offer. He writes that "[the Philippines], like other ASEAN
states, neither has embraced a simple-minded strategy that treats China as an
implacable foe to be balanced at all costs. Instead, both simultaneously engage
China while hedging their bets."85 A dozen years is perhaps too short a
time to predict that no country in Asia will seek to balance against China.
Although U.S. power in the region may be a complicating factor, there is ample
evidence that, contrary to the expectations of some realists, other Asian
nations do not fear China. Scholars must begin to address this seeming anomaly.
As James Przystup writes, "It is highly unlikely that Japan or America's
other allies in the region are prepared to join in a con- certed containment
strategy aimed at China.... They have voiced their appre- hension that actions
taken in Washington could cause them to be confronted with difficult
choices."86 The existence of a U.S. alliance system that helps to reassure
Asian allies of their security is insufficient to explain the dynamics of the
entire region, and scholarship that explores Sino-Asian relations promises to
be a fruitful line of inquiry into perceptions, strategies, and alliances in
the region.'7 Conclusion There is likely to be far more stability in Asia-and
more bandwagoning with China-than balance of power theorists expect. The rapid
economic and politi- cal changes in both Northeast and Southeast Asia over the
past thirty years have not led to major instability, in part because of the
vast U.S. political, eco- nomic, and military presence in the region. Also,
there is evidence, as shown in this article, that China is likely to act within
bounds acceptable to the other Asian nations. If this is the case, U.S. attempts
to form a balancing coalition against China may be counterproductive. As
countries in Northeast and Southeast Asia increasingly orient their economic
and political focus toward 85. Goldstein, "Balance of Power
Politics," p. 193. 86. Przystup, "China, Japan, and the United
States," p. 37. 87. This lack of balancing should not be surprising.
International relations scholars are engaged in a lively discussion about
whether U.S. predominance is a "unipolar illusion" and whether such a
system is in fact stable.
Getting Asia Wrong 183 China, Asian nations, if forced to choose between
the United States and China, may not make the choice that many Westerners
assume they will. Historically, it has been Chinese weakness that has led to
chaos in Asia. When China has been strong and stable, order has been preserved.
The paradigm wars have grown stale: Pitting realism, constructivism, and
liberalism against one another and then attempting to prove one right while
dismissing the others has created a body of soul-crushingly boring research.
More useful approaches would include moving within the paradigms and ex-
amining the interaction between the unit level and the system. In this vein,
rec- ognition that Northeast, Southeast, and South Asia may offer new insights
to international relations theorists should be welcome. Examining the
possibility that these regions may pose new empirical and theoretical
challenges could lead to a fruitful research agenda. Moving the field of
international relations in this direction, however, will not be easy. The
debate over area studies versus political science theorizing has been healthy
for the field of comparative politics, focusing as it has on important is- sues
of research methodology and evidentiary standards."8 Indeed scholars in the
field of comparative politics take for granted questions that international
relations specialists have only begun to address. These include whether poli-
tics in other regions operate differently from the standard European model
based on the Westphalian state system, and if so, how and why. In comparative
politics, it is accepted that in different countries formal institutions such
as "democracy" may not operate in the same way, that authoritarianism
has many disparate causes and consequences, and that economic policymaking may
differ.89 While much of comparative politics involves applying models and
theories originally developed to explain political institutions in the United
States to other countries, there is also a consistent stream of research that flows
88. See Robert Bates, "Area Studies and the Discipline: A Useful
Controversy?" PS: Political Science and Politics, Vol. 30, No. 2 (June
1997), pp. 166-169; Peter J. Katzenstein, "Area and Regional Studies in
the United States," PS: Political Science and Politics, Vol. 34, No. 4
(December 2001), pp. 789-791; and Kenneth Prewitt, "Presidential
Items," Items, Vol. 50, Nos. 2-3 (June/September 1996), pp. 31-40. 89. See
David Collier, ed., The New Authoritarianism in Latin America (Princeton, N.J.:
Princeton University Press, 1979); and Guillermo A. O'Donnell, Modernization
and Bureaucratic Authoritarian- ism: Studies in South American Politics
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973). On states and markets, see
Chalmers A. Johnson, MITI and the Japanese Miracle: The Growth of Industrial
Policy, 1925-75 (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1982); Alice H.
Amsden, Asia's Next Giant: South Korea and Late Industrialization (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1989); and Robert Wade, Governing the Market: Economic
Theory and the Role of Government in East Asian Industrialization (Princeton,
N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1990).
International Security 27:4 184 from area specialists that informs and
furthers scholars' theories.90 There is no one answer: At times general models
explain problems better than do case studies; at other times evidence from the
cases forces adjustments in the models. Comparative politics is more than a
passive recipient of political economy theories developed in the United States
and Europe. It involves spirited dia- logue between theory and evidence. The
international relations discipline could follow this example, but it will
require openness to this possibility. In that way, despite the internecine
battles in the study of comparative politics, that field has done more than the
international relations field to embrace a healthy tension and dialogue between
theory and area studies, as well as be- tween U.S. and European models and how
they are applied in the rest of the world. One can note difference without it
becoming caricature, and that is the goal to which the field of international
relations should aspire. There are two general ways in which Asian
international relations might prove different. The first concerns the nature of
the state. Although countries in Asia are superficially
"Westphalian," they do not share the same process of development as
countries in the West, nor are they designed to address the same pressures and
issues that drove the development of the European nation- state system.91 Asia
has different historical traditions, different geographic and political
realities, and different cultural traditions. Thus it should not be sur-
prising if nation-states in Asia do not necessarily function like states in the
West or if they are preoccupied with issues that European nations for the most
part resolved long ago, such as internal conflict or questions of legitimacy.
On the one hand, many countries in Northeast Asia (e.g., China, Japan, and
Korea) have centuries of experience as formal political units, and their
histories as sovereign political entities often predate those in the West. Not
only does this mean that their national identities may have deeper roots; it
also means that Asian perspectives on nationalism and identity may be
different, and that issues of legitimacy or nationalism may not be the most
important issues for governments in Northeast Asia. On the other hand, many
countries in South- east and South Asia (e.g., Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines)
were not as 90. Examples include Robert H. Bates, Beyond the Miracle of the
Market: The Political Economy of Agrarian Development in Kenya (New York:
Cambridge University Press, 1989); Stephan Haggard and Robert R. Kaufman, The
Political Economy of Democratic Transitions (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton
University Press, 1995); and Kathleen Collins, "Clans, Pacts, and
Politics: Understanding Regime Change in Central Asia," University of
Notre Dame, 2001. 91. On Westphalian states, see Krasner, Sovereignty.
Getting Asia Wrong 185 formally organized-even by the mid-twentieth
century. For these countries, the creation of modern nation-states has been a
different process than it was in Europe, as they have had to establish their
political and economic institutions while interacting with states that already
have those institutions. These nation- states have been concerned with crafting
legitimacy, incorporating ethnic fac- tions, and forging a sense of national
identity. A second major difference is the historical path that Asian nations
have taken as they became incorporated into the larger international system.
The legacy of Western colonialism in Southeast Asia, and Japanese colonialism
in East Asia, remains vivid and continues to influence relations between states
in Asia and with the West. The Philippines has been indelibly altered because
of its relations with the United States, from its political institutions to its
passion for basketball. China, Japan, and Korea also have complex pasts that
involve war and occupation, while Southeast Asia is one of the great crossroads
of the world, where Indian, Muslim, and Chinese civilizations intersect. These
coun- tries also have complex relations with their former colonial rulers and
with each other. And although Asian countries were incorporated more recently
as nation-states, they deal with situations not de novo but rather within a set
of existing global alliances, conflicts, and institutions. This may mean that
their foreign relations operate differently than those in the West. Given the
very dif- ferent historical paths these states have taken, and the different
set of issues and circumstances that they have faced, it would be surprising if
their foreign relations did not include some differences as well. For the field
of international relations in general, and the study of Asian se- curity in
particular, the coming years provide an opportunity to make exciting advances.
A vigorous dialogue between theory and evidence holds the prom- ise of
enriching all the major international relations paradigms, as well as the
deepening scholarly understanding of Asia. By avoiding an implicitly Euro-
centric approach to Asia, and more accurately theorizing and problematizing
international relations in Asia, scholars in the fields of international
relations and Asian security appear poised to make major strides.
nv �9l u ��
���
with China, and none has
shown an inclination to balance against it. Goldstein writes that Vietnam and
the Philippines have joined ASEAN and repaired relations with the United States
to counter possible Chinese influence, although he admits that this is a far
cry from what actual alliances would offer. He writes that "[the
Philippines], like other ASEAN states, neither has embraced a simple-minded
strategy that treats China as an implacable foe to be balanced at all costs.
Instead, both simultaneously engage China while hedging their bets."85 A
dozen years is perhaps too short a time to predict that no country in Asia will
seek to balance against China. Although U.S. power in the region may be a
complicating factor, there is ample evidence that, contrary to the expectations
of some realists, other Asian nations do not fear China. Scholars must begin to
address this seeming anomaly. As James Przystup writes, "It is highly
unlikely that Japan or America's other allies in the region are prepared to
join in a con- certed containment strategy aimed at China.... They have voiced
their appre- hension that actions taken in Washington could cause them to be
confronted with difficult choices."86 The existence of a U.S. alliance
system that helps to reassure Asian allies of their security is insufficient to
explain the dynamics of the entire region, and scholarship that explores
Sino-Asian relations promises to be a fruitful line of inquiry into
perceptions, strategies, and alliances in the region.'7 Conclusion There is likely
to be far more stability in Asia-and more bandwagoning with China-than balance
of power theorists expect. The rapid economic and politi- cal changes in both
Northeast and Southeast Asia over the past thirty years have not led to major
instability, in part because of the vast U.S. political, eco- nomic, and
military presence in the region. Also, there is evidence, as shown in this
article, that China is likely to act within bounds acceptable to the other
Asian nations. If this is the case, U.S. attempts to form a balancing coalition
against China may be counterproductive. As countries in Northeast and Southeast
Asia increasingly orient their economic and political focus toward 85. Goldstein, "Balance of Power
Politics," p. 193. 86. Przystup, "China, Japan, and the United
States," p. 37. 87. This lack of balancing should not be surprising.
International relations scholars are engaged in a lively discussion about
whether U.S. predominance is a "unipolar illusion" and whether such a
system is in fact stable.
Getting Asia Wrong 183 China, Asian nations, if forced to choose between
the United States and China, may not make the choice that many Westerners
assume they will. Historically, it has been Chinese weakness that has led to
chaos in Asia. When China has been strong and stable, order has been preserved.
The paradigm wars have grown stale: Pitting realism, constructivism, and
liberalism against one another and then attempting to prove one right while
dismissing the others has created a body of soul-crushingly boring research.
More useful approaches would include moving within the paradigms and ex-
amining the interaction between the unit level and the system. In this vein,
rec- ognition that Northeast, Southeast, and South Asia may offer new insights
to international relations theorists should be welcome. Examining the
possibility that these regions may pose new empirical and theoretical
challenges could lead to a fruitful research agenda. Moving the field of
international relations in this direction, however, will not be easy. The
debate over area studies versus political science theorizing has been healthy
for the field of comparative politics, focusing as it has on important is- sues
of research methodology and evidentiary standards."8 Indeed scholars in the
field of comparative politics take for granted questions that international
relations specialists have only begun to address. These include whether poli-
tics in other regions operate differently from the standard European model
based on the Westphalian state system, and if so, how and why. In comparative
politics, it is accepted that in different countries formal institutions such
as "democracy" may not operate in the same way, that authoritarianism
has many disparate causes and consequences, and that economic policymaking may
differ.89 While much of comparative politics involves applying models and
theories originally developed to explain political institutions in the United
States to other countries, there is also a consistent stream of research that flows
88. See Robert Bates, "Area Studies and the
Discipline: A Useful Controversy?" PS: Political Science and Politics,
Vol. 30, No. 2 (June 1997), pp. 166-169; Peter J. Katzenstein, "Area and
Regional Studies in the United States," PS: Political Science and
Politics, Vol. 34, No. 4 (December 2001), pp. 789-791; and Kenneth Prewitt,
"Presidential Items," Items, Vol. 50, Nos. 2-3 (June/September 1996),
pp. 31-40. 89. See David Collier, ed., The New Authoritarianism in Latin
America (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1979); and Guillermo A.
O'Donnell, Modernization and Bureaucratic Authoritarian- ism: Studies in South
American Politics (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973). On states
and markets, see Chalmers A. Johnson, MITI and the Japanese Miracle: The Growth
of Industrial Policy, 1925-75 (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press,
1982); Alice H. Amsden, Asia's Next Giant: South Korea and Late
Industrialization (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989); and Robert Wade,
Governing the Market: Economic Theory and the Role of Government in East Asian
Industrialization (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1990).
International Security 27:4 184 from area specialists that informs and furthers
scholars' theories.90 There is no one answer: At times general models
explain problems better than do case studies; at other times evidence from the
cases forces adjustments in the models. Comparative politics is more than a
passive recipient of political economy theories developed in the United States
and Europe. It involves spirited dia- logue between theory and evidence. The
international relations discipline could follow this example, but it will
require openness to this possibility. In that way, despite the internecine
battles in the study of comparative politics, that field has done more than the
international relations field to embrace a healthy tension and dialogue between
theory and area studies, as well as be- tween U.S. and European models and how
they are applied in the rest of the world. One can note difference without it
becoming caricature, and that is the goal to which the field of international
relations should aspire. There are two general ways in which Asian
international relations might prove different. The first concerns the nature of
the state. Although countries in Asia are superficially
"Westphalian," they do not share the same process of development as
countries in the West, nor are they designed to address the same pressures and
issues that drove the development of the European nation- state system.91 Asia
has different historical traditions, different geographic and political
realities, and different cultural traditions. Thus it should not be sur-
prising if nation-states in Asia do not necessarily function like states in the
West or if they are preoccupied with issues that European nations for the most
part resolved long ago, such as internal conflict or questions of legitimacy.
On the one hand, many countries in Northeast Asia (e.g., China, Japan, and
Korea) have centuries of experience as formal political units, and their
histories as sovereign political entities often predate those in the West. Not
only does this mean that their national identities may have deeper roots; it
also means that Asian perspectives on nationalism and identity may be
different, and that issues of legitimacy or nationalism may not be the most
important issues for governments in Northeast Asia. On the other hand, many
countries in South- east and South Asia (e.g., Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines)
were not as 90. Examples include
Robert H. Bates, Beyond the Miracle of the Market: The Political Economy of
Agrarian Development in Kenya (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989);
Stephan Haggard and Robert R. Kaufman, The Political Economy of Democratic
Transitions (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1995); and Kathleen
Collins, "Clans, Pacts, and Politics: Understanding Regime Change in
Central Asia," University of Notre Dame, 2001. 91. On Westphalian states,
see Krasner, Sovereignty.
Getting Asia Wrong 185 formally organized-even by the mid-twentieth
century. For these countries, the creation of modern nation-states has been a
different process than it was in Europe, as they have had to establish their
political and economic institutions while interacting with states that already
have those institutions. These nation- states have been concerned with crafting
legitimacy, incorporating ethnic fac- tions, and forging a sense of national
identity. A second major difference is the historical path that Asian nations
have taken as they became incorporated into the larger international system.
The legacy of Western colonialism in Southeast Asia, and Japanese colonialism
in East Asia, remains vivid and continues to influence relations between states
in Asia and with the West. The Philippines has been indelibly altered because
of its relations with the United States, from its political institutions to its
passion for basketball. China, Japan, and Korea also have complex pasts that
involve war and occupation, while Southeast Asia is one of the great crossroads
of the world, where Indian, Muslim, and Chinese civilizations intersect. These
coun- tries also have complex relations with their former colonial rulers and
with each other. And although Asian countries were incorporated more recently
as nation-states, they deal with situations not de novo but rather within a set
of existing global alliances, conflicts, and institutions. This may mean that
their foreign relations operate differently than those in the West. Given the
very dif- ferent historical paths these states have taken, and the different
set of issues and circumstances that they have faced, it would be surprising if
their foreign relations did not include some differences as well. For the field
of international relations in general, and the study of Asian se- curity in
particular, the coming years provide an opportunity to make exciting advances.
A vigorous dialogue between theory and evidence holds the prom- ise of
enriching all the major international relations paradigms, as well as the
deepening scholarly understanding of Asia. By avoiding an implicitly Euro-
centric approach to Asia, and more accurately theorizing and problematizing
international relations in Asia, scholars in the fields of international
relations and Asian security appear poised to make major strides.
