Clouds in the East
The rapidly deteriorating situation in the Asia-Pacific/Indo-Pacific threatens peace and prosperity in the rest of the world, too. Can Europe do anything to prevent further sliding?
‘The Asia-Pacific/Indo-Pacific (AP/IP) is the future’. That gospel has been, and is resonating in Europe, too. More than ever in the past, Europe’s prosperity, and relative peace worldwide as a prerequisite thereof, will depend on continued peaceful ascendancy of the East.
Lately however the news from the Great East could not be worse in the European perspective. There are four, Asian but also US made calamities that threaten world peace.
The future of Hong-Kong, and closely related that of Taiwan, will show, way beyond the fate of these Chinese yet democratic and liberal country-like entities, whether the masters in Beijing are ready to allow for self-determination, diversity and thus the only real basis for private enterprise. Unfortunately, the signs are not good. In a diplomatically coated speech, Joerg Wuttke, Chairman of the European Chamber of Commerce in China, recently warned the Chinese authorities of the ongoing take-over of the economy by the state (PDF). Contrary to what the expectation was when China joined the WTO in 2002, the country did not really open up its economy. And that was not only, as it is often claimed nowadays the expectations of overly optimistic and/or naive Western liberals, but of the ‘rest of world’, too, encouraged by respective Chinese pronouncements. I know, as I assisted the fateful Doha-Conference of 2002 as a delegate at the time.
These unfulfilled Chinese promises lay at the root of the second ongoing crisis mentioned above, the US -China trade war. Here is one of the very few international policies where President Trump is basically right: China should allow for a level playing field for foreign economic interests and cease unlawful transfer of know-how. It’s the tools the Trump administration employs that are wrong. Not tariffs but a united front of the Western industrialized countries is the only way to convince Beijing of its errant ways. Alas, to realize that appears impossible at this time as both US leadership and European unity towards Beijing are sadly lacking.
The main culprit behind the recent severe falling-out between Japan and Korea is clearly the former. Japan has never really repented its past when colonizing the Asian mainland for some 25 years in the first half of the 20th Century. Tokyo could do no better than to study the ways and means the Federal Republic of Germany has employed since the 2 nd WW. when making up for the unspeakable crimes and brutal aggression its predecessor government under Hitler committed. While there are serious points remaining, e.g. the recent Greek reparation claims, no one in Europe questions the honesty both with regard to governmental action as well as popular feeling, at least of a great majority, that the Germans were guilty and thus had, and still have to make up. The same cannot, at least in the view of the historically affected countries of which Korea is in the first line, be said of the present Abe government.
On both sides of the Japanese Straits the conflict plays into internal politics, too. President Moon, relatively unsuccessful on the economic front whips up anti-Japanese feelings to reaffirm his electoral base and PM Abe caters to his conservative voters who still see nothing wrong with the Japanese imperial past.
The only one who could knock heads in Seoul and Tokyo together to keep this vital anchor of Northeast-Asian resistance against Chinese expansionism in place are of course the US. Yet Trump is neither willing nor capable to do so, even though remaining American might in the AP/IP would still give him the necessary means. Looking at the frenetic armament race in the region, that might no longer be the case years down the lane.
The fourth and probably most urgent hotspot to defuse for the AP/IP are the current tensions in the Persian Gulf. The overwhelming amount of energy resources passing the Strait of Hormuz flows to Asia. A severe interruption which might happen overnight given the current tensions, would knock out the base under an untold number of supply chains to and from the AP/IP and the rest of the world and could bring world trade to a shuttering halt.
So, why aren’t the Europeans, with the exception of the UK where Johnson tries to please his sole remaining international friend, rushing to join an international coalition of the willing to provide security in the Gulf? There is one simple reason: Trump. His ill-advised decision to withdraw unilaterally from the Nuclear Agreement of 2015, preventing Iran from manufacturing respective armament, is largely responsible for the current crisis. Not that anybody in Europe doubts the nefarious role of Iranian proxies in several Middle Eastern countries. But to prevent further nuclear
proliferation in the Middle East was, and remains of overriding importance. The Nuclear Agreement also allowed for restarting positive engagement with Iran, a country the size, the resources and the history of which make regime change, by boycott or military means, a very remote possibility.
Can Europe, can the EU do more to counter these threats? Not unless its German-French political directory leverages Europe’s economic weight for political purpose. President Macron has shown the way with regard to Iran. The new German government will have to follow, assisted by the new German-led EU-Commission.
Picture: Slices of Light