America Unashamedly Proclaims Itself “Asia’s Leader”

American Secretary of State Hillary Clinton plans to attend the East Asia Summit on Oct. 28 in Hawaii, and will announce a vision of “America as the leader of the Asia-Pacific region” in her speech, specifically in East Asia. America once again proclaims itself as “Asia-Pacific’s Leader,” but is America qualified to “lead” East Asia? How does it intend on “leading” East Asia?

According to American diplomatic theory, there is a relationship between a country’s diplomatic capability and its comprehensive strength. The U.S.’s comprehensive strength is invincible; however, the amount of strength that it can exert over Asia is weaker than it was during the Cold War. Of course the U.S. no longer needs to fight Russia over Europe; thus they can increase the amount of military resources to more than what they had during the Cold War. Aircraft carriers can fool people, but they can’t convince people. For America to support its own influence in Asia there needs to be more of an economic reward.

The U.S. is still economically strong, but its current military advantage in East Asia is the smallest it has ever been. Not only has the size of China’s economy multiplied, but other East Asian countries are also growing. China’s trade with its neighboring countries is greater than trade between these countries and the United States. In the past, each East Asian country’s economy revolved around the U.S., but now the economies of these countries revolve around each other.

Under these circumstances, the U.S. has no chance of commanding East Asia through military means. The control America has over its East Asian allies and other allies cannot be as great as it was during the Cold War.

These facts should lead America to believe that they cannot be “Asia-Pacific’s Leader”. After taking office, Obama had said that he wanted to be a “Pacific President.” Let us hope that this means he wishes to put more effort into U.S.-Asia relations and not that the U.S. wishes to take over this region.

No one wants to have the U.S. “removed from Asia.” There are a few Asian countries that are wary of China’s sudden rise to power. These countries hope that the U.S. will take more active action in Asia to counter balance China. If Washington believes that they can manipulate East Asian countries’ wariness of one another and “use East Asia to control East Asia” and become Asia’s leader without lifting a finger, then they are wrong.

While diplomatic schemes do work, this sort of leverage does not last forever. In recent years America has agitated other countries in the South China Sea and then sent Secretary of State Clinton to make a surprise visit to China’s Hainan Island to explain the U.S.’s actions. In doing so, the rest of the world has realized that the U.S. cannot do whatever they want in Asia. America, Southeast Asia and China have a trilateral relationship, not a two versus one scenario. ASEAN and the U.S. joining forces against China will not only have a negative outcome for ASEAN, but the U.S. has also weighed the pros and cons of such a situation.

America needs to heed East Asia’s “natural” balance. East Asian countries working together is the norm; friction causes a deviation from this norm. If America is not opposed to the “natural” balance then it should not try to cause friction because the U.S. does not have the power to change East Asia’s general situation.

Let us utilize this logic and apply it to the world. The situation then becomes: the U.S. is strong, China is developing rapidly; China does not challenge America’s power, but the U.S. also cannot contain China’s development. The U.S.-China situation has become a norm of the world, and no one has the power to change it.

China has no intention of challenging the U.S.’s position in this world, and China is quite conscious of this point. Some American government officials and public opinion leaders are confused. They adamantly encourage strategically surrounding China, but doing this is most certainly futile. China’s rapid development is a result of the efforts of people from all over the world. America suppressing China’s development would not only oppose China but also the rest of the world including the U.S. itself.

Thus when the Americans broadcast that they want to “lead Asia-Pacific,” they ought to change their mentality and not try to do what cannot be done.