The US and Japanese Push for a ‘New Cold War’ Is Threatening Asia-Pacific Stability

From July 28 to 29, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin visited Tokyo to attend the U.S.-Japan Security Consultative Committee (“2+2”) meeting of U.S.-Japanese foreign and defense officials, a dialogue on “extended deterrence,” trilateral defense official talks between the U.S., Japan, and South Korea, and a foreign officials’ meeting for the quadrilateral mechanism between the U.S., Japan, India, and Australia. America and Japan are leveraging this series of meetings to play up the “China-Russia-North Korea threat,” incite inter-factional confrontation, and stress the direction for Chinese containment, all of which drive the Asia-Pacific to face an increasingly severe threat of a new Cold War.

Looking at the results from the consensuses reached during this series of meetings led by the U.S. and Japan, we can see that the Asia-Pacific alliance’s traits of exclusivity, aggression and faction building are highlighted and beginning to resemble an Asia-Pacific version of NATO. First, the United States and Japan are upgrading integration of military affairs. America and Japan have confirmed through their “2+2” meeting that Japan’s Self-Defense Forces will establish a “United Operations Command,” the U.S. military stationed in Japan will accordingly establish a “Unified Army Command,” and the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command will delegate part of its combat and command authority to U.S. forces stationed in Japan for realizing the complete integration of the U.S.-Japan command and combat system. Second, the United States military is advancing the forward deployment of its nuclear capabilities. The U.S. and Japan held its first extended deterrence dialogue wherein the United States further strengthened its promise to Japan of a nuclear umbrella, indicating that there may be future moves to advance forward deployment of strategic nuclear assets. Third is the alliance of America, Japan and South Korea in security cooperation. The three nations reached an agreement to strengthen institutionalized cooperation in areas such as intelligence sharing and joint exercises, elevating their trilateral relations to new heights. Fourth is the faction formation resulting from the U.S., Japan, India and Australia’s quadrilateral security mechanism. The four countries’ foreign officials meeting hyped up the situation in the East and South China Seas, creating a contest for maritime hegemony in the name of a “free and open” Indo-Pacific that incites faction-based confrontation and geopolitical competition.

What is particularly troubling is that the documents published following the U.S.-Japan “2+2” meeting contain large-scale accusations and vicious attacks on China’s foreign policies, national defense structure, maritime rights protection, nuclear weaponry, the South China Sea, human rights and other issues. The documents also blatantly interfere with the Taiwan issue and fan the flames of the so-called Chinese threat on all fronts, teeming with zero-sum Cold War ideology and exposing a dangerous trend for promoting a new Cold War.

Blinken and Austin are attempting through their Asia-Pacific trip to show the outside world that, despite being deeply troubled by the crises in Ukraine and the Middle East, the focus of America’s foreign strategy remains the Asia-Pacific and its main opponent is still China. They also are trying to demonstrate the “global leadership” of the United States and the centripetal force of its allies by tightening their alliances in the Asia-Pacific.

It is worth noting that during this round of “NATO Asianification” and setup for a new Cold War, Japan has taken especial initiative in threading the needle between American allies, drawing NATO into the Asia-Pacific, and serving as vanguard for Chinese containment. The United States and Japan have jointly promoted factional confrontation, provoked geopolitical conflict, and strengthened forward military deployment in the Asia-Pacific. This has led the Asia-Pacific to face three of the most severe challenges to its peace, stability, unity and cooperation since the Cold War.

The first of these challenges are the attempts to trigger geopolitical conflicts. America and Japan seek to link the Korean peninsula and the East China Sea, South China Sea, and Taiwan Strait, highlighting their strategic aims for surrounding and containing China.

American, Japanese and South Korean military cooperation has set off an upward spiral of peninsula tensions. America and Japan are focusing on military intervention in the Taiwan Strait to accelerate war preparations and intervening in the South China Sea to provoke confrontation, which is actively increasing the risk of maritime conflicts.

The second challenge is a separation of the region’s unity and cooperation. The United States and Japan concocted a factional, antagonistic narrative of the U.S., Japan and South Korea versus China, Russianand North Korea, which attempts to use the hyping of South China Sea issues for fragmenting China-ASEAN relations and undermining ASEAN’s internal unity. America has lured its Asia-Pacific partners into promoting high-walled and decoupled relations, which has spread the shadow of faction-based confrontation from military to economic, trade and technological fields, thus attacking Asia-Pacific regional cooperation and integration progress.

The third challenge is worsened risk of nuclear proliferation. The raising of extended deterrence dialogue by the U.S. has whet the appetite of Japan and South Korea, stimulating both nations to seek nuclear sharing or even independent nuclear ownership from the United States. At the same time, the U.S. is promoting the forward deployment of strategic nuclear assets in the Asia-Pacific and nuclear submarine cooperation under the Australia, United Kingdom and United States framework. These actions will further trigger a nuclear arms race and profoundly impact global mechanisms meant to prevent such proliferation.

In response to the security traps that America, Japan and other nations have created in their pursuit of a new Cold War layout, regional countries need to fully acknowledge how severely harmful these are, increase their awareness of the crisis and collectively work to suppress it. Just as Foreign Minister Wang Yi pointed out at the ASEAN Regional Forum Foreign Ministers’ Meeting, in the face of international and regional challenges, foreign interference cannot solve the problem, and confrontational pressure will only worsen tensions. All the countries of East Asia must persist in their vision for peace, accommodate the interests of all parties, account for the demands of each nation, and walk the path of common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security.

The author is a distinguished researcher from the Department of Asia-Pacific Studies at the China Institute of International Studies.