US Foreign Policy in

a Turbulent Pacific

Hoover Institution Working Group on Military History

Regional Tensions around China

andthe Role of the US in the
Western Pacific

Military History

A HOOVER INSTITUTION ESSAY ON US FOREIGN POLICY IN A TURBULENT PACIFIC

MILES MAOCHUN YU

China borders fourteen countriesIndia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan,

Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Russia, North Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar, Bhutan, and
Nepalmore than any nation in the world. Also unlike any other nation in the world,
China has had border disputes with almost all of its neighbors in one form or another at
different points in time. In addition to the fourteen neighbors sharing land boundaries
with China, more than half a dozen maritime neighborsJapan, South Korea, Taiwan,
the Philippines, Malaysia, Borneo, and Indonesiaare having ongoing maritime and
island disputes with China, some legendarily fierce. None of the border issues China is
involved in with its neighbors is new; many of them predate the rise of the United States
as a global power andadominant player in the Western Pacific.
Therefore part of the answer to the first question should be an unambiguous
yes. The current tensions between China and its neighbors seem inevitable because,
despite thesteady and robust advance of democracy, international law, and global
trade in the AsiaPacific region, China uses an inexorable logic of its own against its
neighborsin pursuitof reviving a grand Chinese Dream of past glory and imperial
grandeur. This is the same old imperial tributary system mind-set whereby China is
thecenter of the universe, with paternalistic responsibility and duty to protect regions
and countries initsperiphery, regardless of what its neighbors object to.
The seemingly inevitable tensions caused by Chinas strategic expansion, however, do
not necessarily result in a Chinese triumph. On the contrary, Chinas undying territorial
ambition against its neighbors can be, and has been, tempered or curtailed significantly
inthe past several decades by a single country: the United States.
The United States holds a central role in maintaining peace and stability in the Asia
Pacific region. It is the only nation that possesses the necessary military capabilities and
an alliance to maintain the balance of power, check regional ambitions, and prevent
attempts to redraw territorial and political maps by blunt force. In other words, the
United States is the crucial, irreplaceable pillar that upholds the existing geopolitical
structure and guarantees continuing political stability and economic prosperity.

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This US role in tempering Chinas ambition, thus minimizing regional tensions, has
worked well overall in the several decades since the end of World War II, albeit with
some bumps and surprises here and there.
Steeped in its own realist strategic wiles, China understands the power of the United
States and its role in checking its regional ambitions. Thus Beijing has never trusted
the United States. Chinas leaders, from Mao Zedong to Deng Xiaoping to Jiang Zemin,
HuJintao, and the current supreme leader Xi Jinping, have all espoused a conviction
in a US conspiracy to contain China and infiltrate it through a peaceful evolution
centering on exporting gospels of democracy, human rights, and individual freedom,
the same US conspiracy Beijing believes was the real culprit in the downfall of the
Soviet communist government.
In other words, the seven decades of tense peace and stability in the Asia Pacific region
are the consequence of Chinas understanding, and acceptance, of Americas military
dominance in the Western Pacific and Chinas deep conviction in a well-crafted
American scheme to infiltrate and change Chinas autocratic political system. Peace
andstability are preserved in Asia because China knows that the United States is
militarily strong and ideologically hostile to Chinas communist system; thus China has
been forced to exercise passive-aggressive grievances against the United States without
military confrontations.
Once the US military advantage is thought by Beijing to be gone or gone soft, or once
Americas statesmen have promised the Chinese leadership to give up all hostility
toward Chinas human rights affronts and abandon Americas values-based advocacy,
or both, China may resume violent expressions of its naked regional ambitions, thus
intensifying theregional geopolitical tensions we are witnessing today.
The turning point that convinced the Chinese of Americas decline was the 2008 global
financial meltdown. China viewed Americas economic woes, political gridlock, aversion
by US political and business elites to criticizing Chinas authoritarian political system
and human rights abuses, and the election of a black American president in 2008 as
unmistakable signs of Americas decline. This then was a golden opportunity for China
to shake off the pretense of its acceptance of US military superiority in the Asia Pacific
region.
Sensing the supposed weaknesses of the United States under an African American
president, China began deliberately to intensify regional tensions, challenging
Americasrole as the ultimate power balancer.
Beijings strategy was to first rebuff the US claim of having a core national interest
in the South China Sea by bullying the small countries, such as the Philippines and

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Vietnam, in maritime disputes with China. This was followed by rekindling a near
dormant maritime dispute with Japan, Americas most trusted and reliable ally, over the
uninhabited tiny island group of Senkakus (known in China as Diaoyudao) to drive a
wedge between Japan and the United States or, failing that, a wedge between Japan and
the United States, on the one hand, and the rest of the Asian nations, including US ally
South Korea, on the other.
Since Chinas escalated aggressiveness from 2008 onward, the United States has also
exposed several of its own strategic fault lines and doctrinal flaws, further emboldening
Chinas aggressive behavior.
Is Washingtons obsession with peace and stability the primary goal of US policy in
the Asia Pacific region? If maintaining peace is the ultimate purpose, then avoiding
any major military conflict, no matter how inevitable and unpreventable and who is
provoking it, becomes paramount. Taking full advantage of this US aversion to war,
China is diligently endeavoring to tear apart the US-Japan defense alliance.
In recent years, China has been bellicose toward Japan and threatened to take military
actions against it on a regular basis. Yet Japan feels pressure from Washingtons lack
of support in light of Chinas aggressiveness. The US top agenda for Japan-US relations
seems related not to security but to the controversial Trans Pacific Partnership(TPP)
negotiations.
Although the US government publicly announced promising to help Japan if the
Senkakus come under attack by China, those statements came too late and too
reluctantly, for the tensions had already reached a near critical point.
Another flaw of the US strategy in the Asia Pacific region that has escalated the
tensionsis Washingtons insistence on not getting involved in regional disputes over
territorial sovereignty. Although neutrality seems diplomatically wise, that the United
States has always been involved in shaping the postWorld War II boundaries in the
region undermines the credibility of the neutrality policy. A good example is the fierce
Chinese-Japanese dispute over the Senkaku islands.
The Senkakus were seized from Japan and occupied by the US military during World
WarII.The United States administered them until 1970, when the Nixon administration
decided to return them to Japan. The US government and all the countries in the
region, including China and Taiwan, had always assumed that the Japanese owned
the Senkakus; the USNavy used some of the islands as gunnery ranges and paid an
annual rent of $11,000 to the registered Japanese owner of one of the islands. Yet when
China and Taiwan challenged Japans sovereign rights to those islands in 1970, the

Hoover Institution Stanford University

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USgovernment insisted on not taking sides, despite a thorough investigation in 1971

bythe CIA that concluded that the islands were undoubtedly Japanese.
A similar US neutrality policy is being applied in the South China Sea; there, half a
dozen nations are challenging Chinas territorial and maritime claims to more than
90percent of the entire sea.
This US neutrality position on sovereign disputes in the Asia Pacific region is dangerous
because it indicates Washingtons reluctance to stand up for its allies, such as Japan
and the Philippines, giving China ample room to manipulate Americas perceived
excessive aversion to confrontation with an increasingly militant China. It has certainly
emboldened Beijings relentless diplomatic and propaganda assault on Americas
credibility.
The next policy inadequacy is excessive emphasis on military engagement with China
at the expense of US allies trust and reliance on the United States. The key allies in the
regionJapan, the Philippines, and, to a certain degree, South Koreaall have deep
suspicion of and disputes with China. Yet while Japanese troops were clashing with
Chinese intruders near the waters of the Senkakus, it sent a chilling message to Tokyo,
our trusted ally, if senior Chinese and US military leaders are wining and dining in the
Great Hall of the People or exchanging gifts and hobnobbing in the Pentagon.
Washingtons engagement with China at any cost tendency has been partially
responsible for the gradual decline of Japans confidence in the US-led defense alliance
in the Asia Pacific region. That has prompted Japans rapid rearmament program and its
gradually independent defense posture that includes an India-Japan security alliance
to deter a rising China, without the participation, let alone the leadership, of the
UnitedStates.
The Asia pivot initiative that marked a major achievement of President Obamas
global force realignment in favor of an Asia-heavy focus during his first term in office
was certainly a welcome move. It was an important strategic initiative that would
check Chinas ambition and guarantee a continuing American presence in the Asia
Pacific region. A good policy, however, needs steady implementation and leadership
commitment. The Asia Pivot was announced with great fanfare and presidential
determination in 2009. But the second term of the Obama administration saw the
Asia pivot neglected. Washingtons budgetary imbroglio and government shutdown
obviateda crucial presidential trip to the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation(APEC)
summit in 2013 that would have shored up Americas allies to rally around the
alreadyself-discredited Asia pivot.

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The recent tensions in the Asia Pacific are rooted in Chinas built-in strategic culture
and geopolitical ambition that the United States or any other nation may be unable
to change. But those tensions can be and have been diminished by the US military
presence in and political commitment to the region. With China being recently
convinced of Americas decline and its statesmens abandoning advocating for a
more politically benign modern nation ruled by the consent of the people and the
law, tensions aroused by Chinas more aggressive acts will further expose the major
inadequacies of Americas Asia Pacific strategy. Americas Asian allies will then be
moreindependent and coalesce among themselves, without Washingtons leadership
unless it is willing to redress those inadequacies and meet Chinas challenges head-on,
without any strategic ambiguity.

Hoover Institution Stanford University

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Miles Maochun Yu Regional Tensions around China and the Role of the US in the Western Pacific

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The publisher has made this work available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs license 3.0. To view a copy
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Copyright 2014 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University

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Working Group on the Role of Military History

inContemporary Conflict

About the Author

MILES MAOCHUN YU
Miles Maochun Yu is a professor
of East Asia and military history
at the United States Naval
Academy (USNA). He is the
author of OSS in China: Prelude to
Cold War and The Dragons War:
Allied Operations and the Fate of
China, 19371947. He has received
numerous awards, including
the USNA top researcher award,
several USNA Special Action
Awards, and the Navy Meritorious
Service Award. He holds degrees
from the University of California,
Berkeley, Swarthmore College,
and Nankai University.

Hoover Institution, Stanford University

434 Galvez Mall
Stanford, CA 94305-6010
650-723-1754

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The Working Group on the Role of Military History in

Contemporary Conflict examines how knowledge of past
military operations can influence contemporary public
policy decisions concerning current conflicts. The careful
study of military history offers a way of analyzing modern
war and peace that is often underappreciated in this age of
technological determinism. Yet the result leads to a more
in-depth and dispassionate understanding of contemporary
wars, one that explains how particular military successes
and failures of the past can be often germane, sometimes
misunderstood, or occasionally irrelevant in the context
ofthe present.
The core membership of this working group includes David
Berkey, Peter Berkowitz, Max Boot,Josiah Bunting III, Angelo
M.Codevilla, Thomas Donnelly, Admiral James O. Ellis Jr.,
ColonelJoseph Felter, Victor Davis Hanson (chair), Josef Joffe,
Frederick W. Kagan, Kimberly Kagan, Edward N. Luttwak,
Peter Mansoor, General Jim Mattis, Walter Russell Mead, Mark
Moyar, Williamson Murray, Ralph Peters, Andrew Roberts,
Admiral Gary Roughead, Kori Schake, Kiron K. Skinner, Barry
Strauss, Bruce Thornton, Bing West, Miles Maochun Yu, and
Amy Zegart.
For more information about this Hoover Institution Working Group
visit us online at www.hoover.org/research-topic/military.

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