Bi-Lateral Relationships in Asia
Charles W. King
Events in recent years including North Korea’s nuclear development and Shinzo Abe’s push for reform of the Japanese Constitution have prompted some to re-examine the nature of the United States’ bi-lateral relationships and alliances is Asia. The nature of America’s relationships in Asia varies; bases in South Korea and Japan, extensive military relations and arms sales to Taiwan and the Philippines, more limited military-to-military relations with India, Singapore, and Malaysia. It is easier to establish these relationships but they can be more fragile, as the recent decline in U.S.-Philippine relations demonstrates.
It is important to understand why bi-lateral relationships exist and how the U.S. can benefit from the strategic flexibility they offer. The re-militarization of West Germany and Japan after World War 2 established the nature of American relations in Europe and Asia. The Korean War required the re-militarization of Japan as base for American and allied operations, but the war was on the Korean Peninsula. The People’s Liberation Army’s “volunteers” were not the same kind of threat to Japan that the Soviet Army was to West Germany, France, and the Low Countries in 1950. The nature of the Korean War required expedient bi-lateral relations with Japan and South Korea to conduct a war in Korea, not the deterrent value of a large multi-lateral alliance.
Bi-lateral relationships have been the norm in Asia for centuries. From the 16th through the 20th centuries European powers used diplomacy, trade, and military force to establish bi-lateral relationships in Asia, to the exclusion of other colonial powers. The Portuguese, Dutch, English, and French all used bi-lateral trading and colonial relationships to extract resources from Asia. In the wake of the Boxer Rebellion the Western powers carved up bi-lateral spheres of influence in China as well. Earlier the tribute system established a structure of Chinese hegemony, client states, and trade between Imperial China, Korea, Japan, and their neighbors. In this era tribute to and trade with regional hegemons like China, and to a lesser extent Japan, was extensive. Relations and trade between tributary states in Asia was limited. Part of the reason for this was geography; Chinese tributary states had few other neighbors and none with the might or wealth of China. For hundreds of years the geography, balance of military power, and trade patterns of Asia made bi-lateral relationships within hegemons’ spheres of influence the dominant form of diplomatic relations.
It is not surprising that bi-lateral relationships remain the norm for the United States in Asia. Bi-lateral relations in the orbit of regional hegemony have been the norm in Asia through the Imperial, Colonial, and Cold War periods. While it will be important to rally multi-lateral support to confront certain issues—North Korean nuclear development, claims in South China Sea—the United States must recognize that there are historical factors that make bi-lateral relationships the norm in Asia. These trade relationships and alliances can be fickle, but they can also be turned to the United States’ advantage through a willingness to be flexible and examine each relationship strategically.
Further Reading:
David Kang, East Asia Before the West: Five Centuries of Trade and Tribute (New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2012).
Kenneth Pomeranz, The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000).
Japan Examined: Perspectives on Modern Japanese History, ed. Harry Wray and Hillary Conroy, (Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press, 1983).
John W. Dower, Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II, (New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Co., 2000).
Thomas J. Christensen, Worse than a Monolith: Alliance Politics and Problems of Coercive Diplomacy in Asia, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press: 2011).