Zhou Shixin

    IN 2011, the United States sought to play a larger role in East Asia where it has been influential since the U.S.-Spain War in the 19th century in the Philippines.

    On Jan. 5, 2011, the White House declared it would strengthen its military presence in the Asia Pacific. The United States seems to think its military power is welcome in East Asia which has been integrating in its own way for many years.

    The U.S. security commitments should be more cooperative than coercive. There is animosity among some East Asian countries for historical reasons, therefore there are security issues. That much of this animosity has never been resolved is not due to unwillingness, but the superior importance of economic collaboration.

    For East Asian countries, economic but not security issues are their priority. In this sense, U.S. military presence here is not necessary.

    There are many multilateral forums in East Asia such as the ASEAN Regional Forum and East Asia Summit (EAS) which have improved diplomatic relations. ASEAN is supposed to be the driving force that sets agendas and topics. However, the United States challenged ASEAN by changing some agendas to deliberately create discord. This may be what the United States really wanted.

    After declaring it would enter the negotiation process for Trans-Pacific Economic Partnership (TPP) in 2009, the United States began to dominate its agenda.

    The United States is trying to divide East Asian countries into different groups against the ongoing process of regional integration. The United States forced Japan to take part in TPP negotiation to mitigate Japan’s dissatisfaction with the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement (KORUS) last year, and purchase fighter aircrafts F-35 from the United States even though it was still in design. It enticed the Philippines to be assertive in the South China Sea by promising to provide secondhand ships and planes and security commitments but little economic assistance.

    U.S. military bases in East Asia are primarily in the interests of the United States rather than the host countries; meanwhile they are also an everlasting source of troubles and upheavals in the region. Southeast Asian countries are directly in the scope of the bases of Darwin of Australia and Changi of Singapore.

    The United States must recognize ASEAN as the driving force of East Asian regional integration. ASEAN is the core player in hosting a series of conferences and making the rules and regulations of regional cooperation. The 6th East Asia Summit was a failure not only to Indonesia but also to ASEAN as a whole when its agenda had to be changed by the United States. This may force ASEAN to prefer ASEAN+1 and ASEAN+3 instead of EAS in case the domestic affairs of ASEAN community building are lost.

    East Asia is more important than before just because the regional economic and financial situation has kept stable and increasing even as Western countries are trapped in the financial crisis. East Asia has become a big market in the world and attractive to the United States. What America and East Asian countries need most is to develop their economies by making use of each other’s market and weather the economic crisis together.

    East Asian countries are still waiting to see how much benefit they can get from the United States while America is trying to ask them to obtain prosperity in exchange for security. If they really do this, regional security will be more endangered by an arms race and prosperity will be threatened. This would be a no-win situation.

(The author is a researcher with a Ph.D. with the Shanghai Institute for International Studies.)