China and the Asia-Pacific region

UCLA International Institute, January 22, 2015 —​ China’s economic growth has defined the rise of the Asia-Pacific region in the last two decades.

An upcoming conference at UCLA, to be co-hosted by the UCLA International Institute, the Burkle Center for International Relations, and the Australian Consulate-General in Los Angeles (http: //www.losangeles.consulate.gov.au/losa/home.html), will focus on the rise of the region as a whole in the 21st century.

“Assessing the Future of the Asia Pacific,” part of the ongoing U.S.-Australian Dialogue series, will be held January 30 in the Grand Horizon Ballroom of Covel Commons. (Pre-registration (http: //www.eventbrite.com/e/us-australian-dialogue-assessing-the-future-of-the-asia-pacific-tickets-15007113681) is required.) Additional UCLA cosponsors include the Luskin School of Public Affairs (http: //luskin.ucla.edu/), the School of Law’s International and Comparative Law Program (https: //www.law.ucla.edu/centers/international-law-and-human-rights/international-and-comparative-law-program/about/) and the Anderson School of Management (http: //anderson.ucla.edu/). 

The following interview with Kal Raustiala highlights a number of the topics that will be explored at the conference. Raustiala is associate vice provost of the UCLA International Institute, director of the Burkle Center and professor of law at UCLA. He teaches in both the School of Law (http: //law.ucla.edu/) and in the Global Studies Program of the International Institute.

Question: How has China’s increasing economic might changed the political calculus of nations in the region? Of western Pacific powers?

Raustiala: China is by some measures the world’s largest economy. It remains a very poor society in some ways, with huge wealth inequality, but at the same time it is home to a huge and booming middle and upper class. Indeed, there are more than 250 billionaires in China right now.

Asian nations know this better than we do. The big difference between the United States and China in the region is that China lives there. The U.S. presence in the western Pacific is a product of distant wars and economic and political ties built over many decades. China has been in Asia for millennia.

American troop and economic presence can change; geography cannot. So China will always be at the top of the minds of other Asian states. That said, over the last decade interest in a robust U.S. connection to Asia has grown, not shrunk, as China has grown in wealth and power. Many states want us in Asia as a counterbalance and check on China.

Question: It seems that the Asia-Pacific region will be the site of a very complicated, high-stakes political game over the next half century or so. Are the nations of the region prepared to effectively pursue their national interests in competition and/or cooperation with their powerful neighbor?

Raustiala: I think every Asian nation is very focused on China and how to compete and coexist with it. China was traditionally the center of Asia — the self-described Middle Kingdom — and treated what are now neighboring sovereign states essentially as tributary states.

For some nations, like Vietnam and Korea, there is a very long and fraught history of conflict and coexistence. For others, there is more recent and unresolved history, as with Japan and the legacy of World War II. But no Asian state can ignore China, and all are focused on China’s current power, and also, I suspect, on how China’s possible future disarray may impact them.

The obvious but very important point is that the economic center of the world is Asia, and will be Asia for a very long time. With wealth comes power, especially in the contemporary world.

Question: Since his appointment as Chinese president, Xi Jinping has adopted a more aggressive foreign policy, particularly with respect to China’s claims to disputed islands and waters in the East (and South) China Sea. How has this change affected the long-range strategic thinking of nations in the region and of western Pacific powers?

Raustiala: The biggest effect is to strengthen the desire for a stronger U.S. role in the region. We are the only realistic military check on China. For a nation like the Philippines, for example, which has a very checkered history with the United States, we seem much more appealing today than, say, two decades ago, when Clark Air Force Base and the Subic Bay Naval Base were closed.

Question: Western powers have consistently criticized China for being unwilling to shoulder the political responsibilities of being a major world power. Do you see China changing in that respect?

Raustiala: The desire for China to be a “responsible stakeholder” is an old one. The problem is that the architecture of the international system is really of American design. So it is not surprising that China doesn’t always want to play by the existing rules or strengthen or support existing institutions, many of which, like the World Bank and IMF, are designed to protect American interests. But China is increasingly active around the world and certainly much more involved in global governance than it was in the 1980s or 1990s.