4 Grounds for an Asian Concert

After the Cold War, an Asian Concert or a quasi-Asian Concert has gained ground in the region. Various regional mechanisms, arrangements and meetings (forums), can be seen as an Asian Concert. They fall into the following categories:

(1) Multilateral agendas in Asia. Participants include both China and the United States. APEC includes both countries from the outset. The A and P stand for Asia-Pacific, a post-Cold War American concept. In the early 1990s (right after the end of Cold War and the expansion of ASEAN), ASEAN created the Asian Region Forum and the ASEAN+, which later developed into the East Asian Summit including the United States, Russia and India.

(2) Temporary agendas, particularly those that have reached an impasse or have failed. Participants include both China and the United States. An example is the Six-party Talks started in 2003 and terminated in 2007. Although China and other countries have been calling to reopen the talks, the agenda has not advanced since.

(3) Multilateral agendas (and regional organizations) without the United States. Here the most important is the SCO, which doesn’t include the United States because it is neither Asian nor Eurasian. Another such regional agenda is the Asia-Europe Meeting, a platform for dialogue and cooperation between Asia (particularly East Asia) and Europe.

(4) Multilateral agendas without China. After the Cold War, one of America’s strategies is to try and involve China in international institutions and regional organizations (regional meetings), and China also tried to join various international organizations and regional meetings. But since 2011 the Obama administration initiated the “Pivot to Asia” strategy, the most important US-led trans-regional agenda did not include China, namely the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The exclusion of China coincided with the expulsion of Russia from G8 following the Ukrainian Crisis in 2014. Another sign of exclusion is the failure to recognize China as a market economy with the World Trade Organization; this has since become an issue between China and the United States and the European Union.

An SCO without the United States and a TPP without China could lead to security issues dividing the world in the 21st century.

In some unofficial, semi-official or certain Track 1.5 or Track 2.0 agendas, China and the US have gone from cooperation to conflict. For instance, the two sides shifted to conflict at the Asia Security Summit (the Shangri-La Dialogue), organized by the International Institute for Strategic Studies and held in Singapore.[11]

For the US, these trans-regional multilateral agendas don’t play a center or dominant role in US foreign policy. US presence in Asia is still underpinned by unilateral behavior, bilateral alliances (in military, politics and strategies), rather than said multilateral mechanisms.

For China, it is a different case; China’s approach towards multilateralism has gone through a transition period. After the Cold War between 1992 and 2016, initially China did not believe in multilateralism and was reluctant to lean on such mechanisms, but later, it has grown to rely on multilateral mechanisms. China assumed a leadership role in SCO and Six-party Talks. Out of various international security meetings, it chose the relatively low-profile CICA (Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia)[12] to propose a number of suggestions on regional security issues. These proposals indicated China’s wish for regional multilateralism to become the major approach to regional security governance.

In CICA 2014, Chinese President Xi Jinping said: “China proposes that we make CICA a security dialogue and cooperation platform that covers the whole of Asia and, on that basis, explore the establishment of regional security cooperation architecture.”[13] However, the international community was more interested in China’s proposal for Asian security regionalism: “We should uphold and promote the Asian way of mutual respect, consensus-building and accommodation of each other’s comfort levels, strengthen coordination among regional security frameworks, and gradually channel cooperation toward the same or similar goals to create synergy and work for practical results. On such basis, we may explore the building of a new architecture of regional security cooperation that reflects Asian needs.” This idea of regionalism for Asia security was simplified and criticized as the Asian version of Monroe Doctrine.[14] In response to such criticism, Chinese President Xi Jinping, while attending the 5th Meeting of CICA Ministers of Foreign Affairs, said: “We welcome countries outside the region making a positive contribution to peace and stability here and working with Asian countries to promote security, stability, development and prosperity of Asia.”[15]

From China’s perspective, how is this architecture going to be built? Xi Jinping suggested the Asian countries should “gradually explore the building of a security architecture that fits regional conditions. There exist multiple security cooperation frameworks in Asia, and they all contribute to regional security in their own way. Asian countries have long cherished the Asian way of mutual respect, consensus-building and accommodation of each other’s comfort levels. We should uphold and promote this approach, strengthen coordination among regional security frameworks, and gradually channel cooperation toward the same or similar goals to create synergy and work for practical results. On such basis, we may explore the building of a new architecture of regional security cooperation that reflects Asian needs. We can discuss relevant matters at such platforms as the CICA Non-governmental Forum and put forward ideas and suggestions on the principles and priorities of regional security cooperation.”[16]

The concept of “countries outside the region” makes sense. It is a key concept in Asian Regionalism, indicating that the nature and core of Asian cooperation are Asian; the solutions to Asian issues are Asian. Stressing the fact that the United States is a “country outside the region” is not the same as excluding the United States, it is not a play of China’s Monroe Doctrine, but rather helps identify the relationship between Asia and the United States, thereby drawing a line for US intervention in Asia. The US will never be invited to join the European Union, so, it is a “country outside the region” in Europe as well. In Asia, neither today’s ASEAN Community and SCO, nor the East Asian Community and the Asian Union in the future, will extend the invitation for the US to join as a member state. The United States can’t just call itself an Asian country, its connection to the region is via the Pacific.

From the perspective of the United States, since it couldn’t join Asia’s multilateral security architecture as an Asian country, the idea of “Trans-Pacific” is of vital importance. However, the “Trans-” in “Trans-Pacific” identifies the USA as a “country outside the region.” Trans-Pacific doesn’t involve all Asian countries. The US concept of “Trans-Pacific” risks dividing Asian countries into those who are members of the US-led Trans-Pacific mechanism and those who are not. The goal of an Asian Concert is to ensure the unity of Asia, coordinate the relationship between various Asian security architectures and the Trans-Pacific security architecture, and mediate the relationship between Asia and the United States.