Japan and Russia have agreed to expand ties and are trying to work around if not resolve their dispute over the ownership of territories the Soviet Union seized from Japan at the end of World War Two. Russia seems to be hinting that further progress on the islands may be possible after Russian presidential elections later this year. ...
Estrangement between Russia and Japan has been something China could count on since 1945. The thaw in relations between energy rich Russia and technology rich Japan is no doubt ringing some alarm bells in Beijing where, lately, almost all of the geopolitical news has been bad.
This is an interesting development. It makes perfect sense for Japan and Russia to cooperate more and I've been looking for this. China's power is rising but it doesn't mean we are doomed to flee to the eastern shores of the Pacific and wish Hawaii good luck.
What gets me is one of the comments:
This is a vindication of Realist IR thinking. With no central direction or agreement, a containment coalition is forming piece by piece in response to a major system level change — the increase in Chinese relative power. The recent diplomatic initiatives of the USA only worked because of fear of rising Chinese power. China would have needed the utmost delicacy to minimize the perception of menace, which is real, based on ecisting and latent capacities, China has instead indulged in the bluster that all rising powers give vent to.
This is BS and is often cited as a reason for America to do nothing about a foreign problem. Balancing is no automatic thing that we can just count on to protect our interests. Realist IR thinking should have led the world to react to our post-Soviet dominance by opposing us in meaningful ways. The world did not form a containing coalition. Why not if that is how the world just works without investing any effort to do so?
The world did not try to contain us because the world doesn't really fear that we will try to control the world and crush the rest of the world.
Why are China's neighbors reacting to contain Peking? Because those neighbors don't believe China is as safe as America. Oh sure, not all of it is just trusting America and not trusting China. Part of it is trusting how far away we are from them and fearing how close China is. But realist IR thinking should have led countries to see how much we can deploy globally and think about containing us. But whether near or far, we just aren't as threatening.
And for a containment coalition to form, the coalition members have to believe that their coalition can prevail rather than just piss off China and lead to their destruction. The coalition's position all around the periphery of China makes any coalition member against China vulnerable to being isolated and attacked by China on interior lines while the rest of the coalition has to sit by and watch China pick off a weaker member of the herd.
But America's ability to knit together a far flung coalition and support all of them means that it is safer to oppose China rather than dangerous to do so.
It takes a lot of work for things to just happen that benefit us. Don't forget that when analysts tell you that others will naturally contain our common enemies if we slash our military, mind our own business, come home, and let our allies handle the problem. We won't have many allies for long if that is how we treat them.
UPDATE: The Philippines government understands very well that the only reason they have the option to defy China over China's claims in the South China Sea is that America could back them up against Chinese threats:
China could punish it, as the Communist Party-owned newspaper The Global Times has suggested, for turning to the U.S. for more military muscle to counter China’s claims. The Global Times also suggested that the “little countries” in the region should stop challenging China’s interests, or they’ll "hear the roar of cannon fire."
“The Chinese shouldn’t be telling us to get used to that,” Sabban said. “We have been hearing the sound of cannons for 40 years.”
Sabban cited the Vietnam War as an example of a small country can holding out against a superpower, when its core interests are at stake. It can hold out even better — when another superpower stands ready to come to its aid.
Does anybody think that it would be automatic for the Philippines to defy a rising China without America standing ready to stop China?
