Where Did All China’s Asian Friends Go?

Until recently, Japan was a country where national law forbade it from using war as a way to settle international disputes. The Philippines was on the U.S. piracy list. Indonesia was a neutral country. And no U.S. president had visited Malaysia in 48 years.

All of this has now changed, as President Barack Obama wrapped up his visit to Asia—Japan, the Philippines, Malaysia, and South Korea. A coalition of Asian countries is now forming under the U.S. military’s new focus on Asia, and with it new economic agreements, a rekindling of foreign relations, and the unraveling of tensions, which have historically divided the region.

China is not part of this coalition, however. This is due to the fact that through growing aggression, China has of late made itself the enemy of nearly all its neighboring countries. In the last year, the actions of the last communist empire have unraveled the image Chinese authorities have been trying to build for decades.

“What happened is China abandoned its ‘peaceful rise,’” said Edward Luttwak, an author who has served as a consultant for several U.S. government entities, including the Secretary of Defense, State Department, and the National Security Council.

China’s “peaceful rise” was the line party planners once used when touting the communist regime’s approach to foreign policy. It was based on the idea that China has its way of doing things internally—such as its human rights abuses—but these elements of aggression would not extend beyond its own borders.

China dropped this approach, however, when it began flexing its muscles over territorial claims in the East and South China seas, where many countries have overlapping claims to islands, islets, and reefs.

“This China,” said Luttwak, referring to China’s new aggressive approach for territorial claims, “is a China that brings into existence an anti-China alliance.”

Protesters hold anti-China placards and shout slogans during a rally in front of the building housing Chinese consular offices in Manila on April 2. China warned the Philippines on April 1 after Philippine leaders asked the United Nations to rule in their favor in a maritime dispute. (Ted Aljibe/AFP/Getty Images)

Asia’s Pivot

Three island chains have become an international focus. In the East China Sea, there are the Senkaku Islands, which are grouped with Japan’s Ryukyu Island chain. In the South China Sea, there are the Paracel Islands and the Spratly Islands.

All countries whose shores border the islands lay claim to at least some of them. China, meanwhile, lays claim to all of them.

Tensions came to a boiling point in November 2013 when China announced an Air Defense Identification Zone over the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea. It followed this with new “fishing regulations” in the South China Sea in January.

Chinese leaders said they would defend the air defense zone militarily, and the fishing area with new laws. The surrounding nations, as well as the United States, said they would not recognize either. Tensions grew. Chinese ships have nearly rammed fishing boats and military ships of other nations. Chinese jets track and follow aircraft in the region.

In the end, what China created was an environment of tension—an environment where other countries were meant to fear China, and to abandon their territorial claims according to China’s demands.

The effect, however, turned out to be the opposite.

Luttwak said the current situation differs from similar tensions during the Cold War when the Soviets were threatening Europe. At the time, many U.S. allies in Europe were still recovering from war, Germany was unable to have an army, and the United States was by and large the only country able to challenge Soviet power.

The conflicts today with China are very different.

“In the Pacific you have countries that outnumber China, have more gross domestic product than China, and arguably more technology than China,” Luttwak said. “Combined, India and Japan are greater than China.”

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