Eastern interests

China, Japan and Australia, the leading powers of Greater East Asia, welcome Barack Obamas election for their own reasons.

in Singapore

THE rise of Barack Obama as a potential new-age leader in global politics can best be understood through creative awareness, a combination of rational intellect and the now-fashionable emotional intelligence. Greater East Asia is a region where India and the United States, both democracies with immense social diversity, are at best half-understood. Unsurprisingly, therefore, this region is yet to feel the full impact of the new political faith of the American people.

Of the other external powers in this geopolitical zone, Australia is also a democratic polity with some diversity, while Russia is arguably in transition towards a vibrant democracy. Despite these nuances, most native states in this region do not share the political wavelength of the U.S. and India, which boast a culture of seemingly endless democratic discourse.

In this overarching framework, Chinese President Hu Jintao and Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, in their congratulatory messages to Obama, saw his triumph in the U.S. presidential election as a potential signpost of the times. In contrast, the message from Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso reflected his sense of urgency on the Tokyo-Washington strategic front and overshadowed his parallel accent on their democratic bond.

The emerging history in global politics, as reflected by Obamas rise, was fully recognised by Hu. In a personal note to Obama, Hu said: In the new historic era, I look forward to working together with you to continuously strengthen dialogue and exchanges between our two countries. He further pledged to enhance mutual trust and cooperation on the basis of the three Sino-U.S. joint communiques. The aim was to take the China-U.S. constructive and cooperative relationship to a new high.

The Chinese leader prefaced these studied sentiments with a political punchline, which, while not being new, placed the congratulatory message itself in a future perspective: China and the United States share broad common interests and important responsibilities on a wide range of major issues concerning the well-being of humanity. An emphatic corollary was that the growth of robust and stable China-U.S. relations would continue to serve the fundamental interests of both countries. And this bilateral equation is of great significance to the maintenance and promotion of peace, stability and [economic] development in the world.

Those familiar with the present cross-currents in global affairs will readily notice the crucial importance of these seemingly platitudinous words to any future world order. Since the break-up of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, China has gradually emerged as the only power with the potential to compete with the U.S. on peer terms at some stage in the not-so-distant future. However, the parallel rise of India, still very much on a lower economic scale than Chinas, and the possible resurgence of Japan are also contemporary realities that Obamas anticipated creative foreign policy might foster or stifle or even snuff out.

In this context of possibilities, Aso sought to place Japan on the right side of the emerging history, as it were. Asos willingness to sustain the U.S.-Japan military alliance was no casual signal to the President-elect. The thrust of his message of felicitation was that the Japan-U.S. alliance is the lynchpin of Japanese diplomacy and the cornerstone of peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific region. Why did Aso strike this note? The answer: Japans possessiveness about this military pact forms the basis for the continued U.S. presence in what might be the future nerve centre of global affairs.

Japanese officials said Aso and Obama, over the telephone, affirmed their shared commitment to establish a sustainable personal equation of mutual trust. This, too, is no idle pledge by either, given the historical centrality of Japan-U.S. ties to the Asia-Pacific region. The alliance, built on the ashes of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which were nuclear-bombed by the U.S. towards the end of the Second World War, is a long-time pact that Obama, in a creative mood, could review.

Australia, another long-standing military ally of the U.S., and South Korea, whose current leaders have frequently affirmed faith in strong defence ties with the U.S., are also highly relevant to Obamas evolving world view. Seoul would like to stay relevant beyond the time-horizon of a possible denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula. The U.S. has so far viewed Australia as a Western outpost with useful geopolitical linkages to big Asian powers such as China, Japan and India, too.

Rudd said: Forty-five years ago, Martin Luther King had a dream of an America where men and women would be judged not on the colour of their skin but on the content of their character. Today, what America has done is to turn that dream into a reality.... Obamas historic win in this election has inspired a nation through his message of hope. It is also a message of hope for the world as well, a world which is now, in many respects, fearful for its future.

No annotation is required for the poignant and pertinent reference to Martin Luther King. And, Rudds view of a fear-stricken world is traceable to concerns over climate change, targeted political and religious terrorism, and the current global financial crisis, which has shaken the Wests economic philosophy.

Significantly, Japan wants Obama to treat it as a close partner in addressing the current global financial crisis as also the issues of climate change and terrorism. And, China too, desirous of balanced ties with Obamas U.S., has emphasised the importance of seeing far into the time-horizon from a commanding strategic height.

On the most urgent issue for the West, as of late November, a top Chinese official said: The [huge] trade imbalance [favouring China in its commerce with the U.S.] is actually the result of international industrial division [of functions] against the background of globalisation. The U.S. imports from China commodities it does not produce itself. So, even if it does not import from China, it will have to import from other countries. Chinas good-quality-yet-inexpensive products are well received among U.S. consumers and also help the U.S. keep a relatively low inflation rate.... Besides, measures have already been taken in recent years to address the issue. For instance, the RMB [Chinese currency] exchange rate, nowadays, is floating visibly.... We welcome the U.S. to expand export to China and make more investment in China. After all, it takes two to tango.... We hope the U.S. will lift its export restriction on high-tech products and recognise Chinas market economy status sooner than later.

Chinas elaborate comments and its economic stimulus package, announced on November 10 to address the U.S.-origin global financial crisis, are designed to expose the myth that the West is the centre of the universe. So, shorn of the gilt edge of congratulations, China has conveyed a desire to engage Obama not only on current issues, ranging from the financial crisis to Taiwan to Korean denuclearisation, but also on a future world order.

Todays global political order, founded on the outcome of the Second World War and Taiwans expulsion from the United Nations nearly 25 years later, centres on the configuration of the P5 (permanent members) in the Security Council. In terms of political potency, the P5 club is the same as the nuclear-armed N5 club. The five the U.S., Russia, China, the United Kingdom and France are authorised to possess atomic arsenals under the discriminatory Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Against this backdrop, the latest India-specific consensus in the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) has virtually expanded N5 into N6 in all but name. Before this diplomatic denouement, Indias nuclear-armed status did not have any form of international recognition. Also relevant to this context is the fact that the NSG has not considered an India-like status for either Israel or Pakistan, both nuclear-armed states outside the NPT purview. There is, therefore, no immediate prospect of an expansion of the virtual N6 category, a nomenclature that does not denote the status of a club as such.

In the Asia-Pacific theatre, where Russia and India have been invited to play significant roles of one kind or another, an alternative P5 classification of major space-faring countries is emerging fast. The U.S., Russia, China, India and Japan are these alternative P5 countries with extraterrestrial capabilities.

As of now, these five countries have not really come together to float an alternative P5 on the global stage or even within the Asia-Pacific domain. However, they are aware of their shared status as global leaders in a rarefied ambience because the dominant space-faring countries of today are expected to determine a futuristic international order at some stage.

The argument in favour of an alternative P5, or even a larger group in this category, is simple but profound. The commanding strategic heights of outer space can be used as a sophisticated platform for positive or even negative reordering of interstate affairs on Planet Earth. The European Space Agency, which belongs to a consortium of 17 countries and not any individual state, is not reckoned for the purposes of an alternative P5 as of now. With Obamas rise expected to spark new ideas on the world stage, a phrase, borrowed from a book on energy by Michael Klare, may well describe the emerging political order in Greater East Asia: rising powers, shrinking planet.

Overlapping the matrices of existing and potential power-sharing clubs of the P5 kind are economic groupings. Some of these linkages criss-cross the development divide. And, Greater East Asia figures prominently in the development debate as well.

The nuances of economic diplomacy by China and Japan, especially in the context of their participation in the recent Group of 20 Summit in Washington, have come into sharp focus in East Asia. A point being noted is that China, despite its terrific economic growth, still sees itself as a developing country for the purposes of G-20 equations and its international obligations.

Unsurprisingly, Japan has sought to capitalise on its status as the worlds second largest economy in the G-20 context of busting the current global financial crisis. Tokyo pledged $100 billion towards the International Monetary Fund. Derided in some quarters in the past for such chequebook diplomacy, Japan can now argue that its latest contribution towards easing the financial crisis cannot be seen in bad light at all. And, Japans protagonists contend that Chinese leaders have not matched Japan at this stage as a stakeholder in the international economic system.

China, however, knows that several East Asian countries hope to bank on its growth trajectory to ride out the current financial and economic crisis. And, China tends to believe that its growth prospects might be boosted by the opportunities available only to the developing, not developed, bloc.