China Should Prioritize Improving Its Relationship with the ASEAN Countries - Essay Example

?China should prioritize improving its relationship with the ASEAN countries Over Its Relationship with The US’. Discuss. Introduction It is often said that no country is an island. This does not make reference to the geographic concept of an island but to the fact that no country can depend on its internal resources alone to survive (Leffer, 1995). It is for this reason that countries have aligned themselves to other countries in a number of ways. Even though there are several regional blocks within the collective sector of the United Nations by which countries relate to each other, there are a number of other means also by which one country gets along with colleague countries. It is indeed, an open secret that the relationship between some countries is more cordial, integrative and coordinated than others. Commonly, a nation will consider a number of factors before deciding the type of countries it would forge alliance or relations with. Over the past decade or two, the need for economic advancement and growth has become one of the most paramount factors considered in the stake for selecting partner (Hyer, 2004). Political factors have also been very influential as a means of seeking political dominance. Like all other countries, China has its own international partners and coordinated countries. China’s relations with the United States for instance have been one of the most talked about over the past decade. Apart from the United States, China also has had a higher level of relationship with the Association of South Eastern Asian Nations (ASEAN). In this essay, there is a careful scrutiny to the relationship that exists between China and the United States as well as China and ASEAN to discuss why prioritizing her relationship with ASEAN would do more good to China than a prioritized relationship with the United States. Overview of International Relations International relation is basically the study of relationship that exists between countries. International relations may be discussed s both an academic and public policy phenomenon but in respect to this paper, the public policy aspect of international relations is given much attention. As far as public policy aspect of international relations is concerned, it has been said that international relations is a pathway that leads to and brings about an essential and itemized formulation of foreign policy strategy (Dowdy and Trood, 2007). What this means is that countries engage in relationships with other countries as a means of forging and achieving long term foreign policy plans to rule their nations. Commonly, countries want to achieve political and economic power over others. But to make political dominance possible, the counties ought to have several representation and seats in as many international organizations and institutions as possible (Prakash, 1994). To this end, they would relate with other countries so as to gain voting support when the need arises for such international office elections. For economic dominance to be possible also, it is important that countries have as many international markets as possible as the size of a country’s market is proportional to the size of its economy (Shenon, 2005). Against this backdrop also, countries would want to have as many international partners as possible. Indeed, as long as the phenomenon of the League of Nations through the United Nations Organization continues to exists, there is the tendency that such flexibility and allowances that make easier inter-national relations will continue. History of China-US relations The relationship between China and the United States dates back to 1844 when it took place in the form of the Treaty of Wanghia in 1844. Among other factors, the treaty and for that matter relationship was necessitated as a means as allowing much and easier accessibility of the movement of people and good to and from the two countries. To this end, there was the fixing of trade tariffs for the two countries. Citizens of the United States were also allowed the freedom or right to construct public infrastructure including churches, bridges and hospitals in specific Chinese cities (The Economist, 1995). The treaty was also clear and loud on the fact that under no circumstance would a United States national be tried in a Chinese court. Instead of the Chinese courts, trials were to be held in the United States consular’s office (Asian Survey, 2006). At the earlier stages of the relations, many were those who criticized the fact that the China-United States relations was more beneficial to the United States than it was to China. Due to this, several other treaties and amendments came to being; permitting that China would also gain as much access to the United States market and human capital as possible. Such new times in the relations came during the Cold War in the 1960s and have actually existed till date. Some of the highlights in the form of historic relations events include the support that China had from the United States during the Second Sino-Japanese War and for that matter the Second Wolrd War. The friction that developed between the two nations during the Korean War can also be emphasized as China was on the side of North Korea as the United States supported South Korea. Factors that have accounted for enhanced China-US relationship in the past decade To better discus why prioritizing relationship with ASEAN would do China more good than prioritizing its relationship the United States, it is only fair that factors that have accounted for an enhanced China-US relations over the years will be discussed. This part of the discussion will give a balanced idea on why a shift from the United States will be challenging, as well as emphasizing why the shift would mean a shift towards a path that allows almost the same level of benefit and advantage. In this direction, the very first factor that will be mentioned as influencing the China-US relationship over the past decade will be named as the Beijing Consensus. Cooper (2004) notes that since 2003, a new global phenomenon dubbed the Beijing Consensus has developed sharply to replace what used to be the Washington Consensus. With the Beijing Consensus, a new political attitude that is driven “by a ruthless willingness to innovate, a strong belief in sovereignty and multilateralism, and a desire to accumulate the tools of 'asymmetric power projection'” has evolved sharply (Cooper, 2004). Indeed, through this consensus, China has been perceived to have amassed so much global power, capturing the excitement of most countries through renewed and innovative strategic foreign planning. In effect, any associations with China have been noted to be more of a beneficial move than a risky one. To this end, the United States also seeking to retain its long held place as the world’s super power has increased its bound with China as a way of becoming part of the beneficiary countries. It has been explained that particularly after the September 11 attack when in the administration of former President Bush, there were as many as three meetings between President Bush and Chinese President Jiang Zeming, there became a shift in China’s international ideologies from confrontation to promoting cooperation (Naidu, 1994). What this means is that the nation of China came to see much in common with the United States when it came to international relations and policies. This union of ideologies has been an important factor in the ever growing ties and international bond that the people of China have had with the people of the United States. In international relations as an academic concept, one of the most important principles is to ensure that you flock with nations that hold the same international policies and principles as you do. This is because as it is said in common parlance, birds of the same feathers flock together. And so once the State of China came to realize that it indeed had a lot in common with the United States in terms of trade cooperation, the relationship between those countries have grown since. In effect, what had been explained by the Bush campaign team as a strategic competitor, referring to the US-China relationship later became appreciated as a strategic partnership (Xuecheng, 2002). Finally, the issue of cross need satisfaction can be highlighted. Cross need satisfaction is a term that was coined by a writer to signify a situation whereby between two countries, one finds its current needs in the other and the other also finds its pressing needs in the other and so decides to partner as a means to enhancing an easier and more flexible exchange of needs (New York Times, 2005). For example when the Chinese manufacturing market began growing to take up global competition spot, China saw the need to push more human capital into the area of manufacturing to meet up the demand that its market was receiving. At the time, a major competitive advantage that China held was the fact that China was a manufacturer of relatively cheaper goods and products that met international standards. Within that same time that China was flourishing with increased productivity and need for human capital, United States was also looking for a market where it could buy cheaper goods, especially in the area of information technology for refurbishing and onward exportation. For the United States, its major competitive advantage was known to be in the quality of products due to the additional refurbishing that always took place. As a way of ensuring that their needs were equally met, China and the United States improved their international relations to ensure that trade on the Chinese market by United States entrepreneurs were easier, whiles transporting human resource to China as an exchange of benefit. The ASEAN History ASEAN is the acronym for Association of South East Asia Nations, formed in 1967 by Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. Before the now known Association of South East Asia Nations was formed, there was what was referred to as the Associated of Southeast Asia, called ASA for short. This association was made up of an alliance that involved Philippines, Malaysia and Thailand (Far Eastern Economic Review, 1996). The Association of Southeast Asia was formed in 1961 with a set of aims and objectives that could very much be likened to what exists for the Association of South East Asia Nations today. This means that the quest to have a system within the Southeastern part of Asia that will be responsible for the economic and political wellbeing and integration of nations have lived for long. The bloc was formed as a result of a meeting between the foreign ministers of five major countries in the Southeastern part of Asia namely Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, Philippines and Malaysia in Bangkok where the ASEAN Declaration was signed. Due to the location of the meeting for the signing of the declaration, it has commonly been referred to as the Bangkok Declaration. The association began experiencing rapid growth when some other countries within the region began to join the membership. For example, on January 8, 1984, Brunei Darasussalam became the sixth member of the association. Some other countries that would later on join the association were Vietnam, Laos and Myanmar and Cambodia. After the bloc had become more powerful through the achievement of its common goals, it was ready for even bigger challenge when Malaysia proposed the formation of East Asia Economic Caucus to be made up of the ASEAN, China, Japan and South Korea. Though this initial proposal failed there was the successful creatin of ASEAN Plus Three in 1997. Thematic objectives There are six major thematic objectives that can be attributed to the ASEAN. These thematic objectives cover the areas of economic growth, cultural integration, education and human development, media cooperation, sports development, and defense. Economic wise, the ASEAN has an objective of ensuring an evenly balanced economic growth and development across member countries by way of ensuring the easy flow of goods and people across the various borders of member countries. It is not surprising therefore that by the year 2015, the bloc envisions having the creation of an ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) to further push for the dream of achieving economic integration. In terms of culture, the member countries identify key cultural heritages and dimension that can help in fostering the identity of member states of nations from the Southeastern part of Asia. After such identifications are made, there are a number of activities and programs organized across member states to ensure that those cultures are protected and as well promoted. With reference to education and human development, various ministries of Education in member states have outlined common educational and human development needs that are needed to champion the common achievement of growth and development within the bloc. Through the ASEAN Education Ministers for example, there is presently what is referred to as four point educational priorities for ASEAN, spanning around the areas of citizenship awareness, strengthening identity, human resource building and empowerment of ASEAN University networking (Ball, 1994). The media in the ASEAN is seen as a very powerful tool through which the image and identity of the bloc can better be sold to the outside world. To this end, there are different efforts that are made to ensure that there is a collective objective of strengthening the media in member countries and using the media as a tool for promoting the ASEAN dream. Even more, the ASEAN Media Cooperation (AMC), which has been set up as the mandatory regulator for media practices seeks to achieve an objective of ensuring that the media is used to promote the cultural dynamism of the people within the southeastern part of Asia. As a result of this, the cooperation sets digital television standards, policies for broadcast transmission as well as defines the perspective of exchange of media content. In terms of sports, the bloc recognizes sports as a major tool for achieving and enhancing the unity and understanding that exists among member countries. This is because sports have generally been identified as a tool that fosters coexistence and interpersonal relationship (Alan, 1975). It is in light of this that the bloc has a number of specialized sporting activities that are organized for member countries alone. Examples of these are Southeast Asian Games, ASEAN Para Games, FESPIC Games / Asian Para Games, and Football Championship. Also, the bloc has announced an interest to bid for the 2030 World Cup. Finally, the bloc has an objective of promoting its trans-border and intra-border defenses through the ASEAN Defense Industry Collaboration, which has gained much support from international organizations and nations including the United States (Far Eastern Economic Review, 1996). ASEAN competition A very unique component of the ASEAN bloc and for that matter all other international relations organizations is the need to promote a common goal and objective in terms of socio-economic development. However, this does not mean that on an individual basis, member states do not have the right to compete among themselves to ensure economic and socio-political supremacy. Political scientists have actually described this kind of competition as a healthy competition that brings about individual growth, which may collectively contribute to the consolidated growth of the bloc (Cloughley, 2005). To this end, there is a similar kind of competition within the ASEAN bloc, aimed at ensuring that member states target growth rates that are above what other states undertake. One way of promoting such competition is that even though there are decisions that are taken at the ASEAN level, there are equally key decisions on issues of budget preparation, interior defense, financial strategic planning and local politicking that are exclusively reserved to be undertaken on a local basis. As these forms of local decision making processes are undertaken, they contribute to the subjective growth and measure of economic development of the member countries through individual macro and micro economic indicators. Factors that have negated the China-ASEAN relationship in the past 2 decades One of the loudest criticisms that have gone against the ASEAN in term of its relationship with other countries and for that matter China has to do with the notion that the ASEAN is more open to member states than it is to non-members. Due to this, most countries including China have had the idea that should they prioritize their international relationship with ASEAN, they will not get the full benefits that they may seek to get. As far as this essay is concerned, it will be mentioned that it is very important for the member states to work towards winning the trust of non-member states in terms of their alliance with ASEAN. Once such trust is developed and there is much cooperation with ASEAN, the eventual benefactors are going to be the ASEAN bloc (Far Eastern Economic Review, 1996). Clearly, in international relations, you plant your seeds where you are sure to get the best of yield (Hyer, 2004) and so until such a time that ASEAN can become globally acclaimed for playing it clean with all nations, regardless of the fact that they are member states or not, the preference that countries are going to have for them is going to be minimal. Benefits of prioritized China-ASEAN relationship Even though there is a level of international relationship between China and the ASEAN, it can be said that the existing relationship is not one that can be said to be prioritized (Far Eastern Economic Review, 1996). This is because in comparison to the United States for example, China seems to have more international relational connections and links with the United States than it does have with the ASEAN states. In the opinion of the writer however, there are major benefits that spans across political, economic, social and environmental benefits that China would have in a manner that it does not currently experience from the United States if it decides to prioritize its relationship with ASEAN states. The major highlighting aspects of these benefits are discussed below. Political benefits Politically, commentators have said that China has a more according and similar political ideology with the ASEAN than it has with the United State (Hyer, 2004). This means that China has a better chance of having its political ideologies and political decisions supported by the ASEAN than the United States would. A clear indication of some of the shortfalls that China has experienced at the hands of the United States as a result of political ideological differences is the friction that ensued between the two countries during the Korean War, where China supported North Korea and the United States supported South Korea. Still on the political benefits, it would be noted that even though the United States is seen as a superpower in the United States hierarchy, in terms of voting for any international position, votes of countries count as one; whether or not these are powerful nations. What this means is that if China wants to take up any international position within the United Nations or any other international body or organization, if it gets the support of the ASEAN, it will be holding the support of over ten countries whiles a support that comes single handedly from the United States would be only vote. Politically therefore, China will be better placed in prioritizing its relationship with the ASEAN as compared to the United States because the bloc has more agreeing political ideologies with China than the United States has and the bloc commands larger international representation that the United States. Economic benefits China has started enjoying major economic benefits from the ASEN and stands the chance of enjoying even more benefits should it prioritize its international relationship with the ASEAN bloc over the United States. It has been said that the major indicator of glooming economic benefits that China stands to benefit from are reflected in the current economic stand of the ASEAN as well as the economic variables of the ASEAN (Dowdy and Trood, 2007). Indeed, as far as favorable economic variables are concerned, the ASEAN is tagged as one of the world’s most promising economic prospects. For instance it is known that in terms of free trade agreements (FTA), ASEAN FTA currently ranks as one of the worlds lowest when it comes to international trade tariffs (Shenon, 2005). What this means is that when doing business or undertaking any trade with ASEAN as an investor, there will be more to save in terms of tariffs to be paid on goods and commodities. Looking at the size of China as a country and its economy, it would really need such low tariff savings to guarantee further growth. In terms of population also, an ASEAN-China pact forms the largest FTA in terms of population with a total of over 1.9 billion people (Shenon, 2005). Apart from the human resource abundance that this statistics represents, the ASEAN-China pact has also been labeled as the world’s third largest FTA economic size, having an accumulated GDP of over US $5.8 trillion (Dowdy and Trood, 2007). It will be noted that the only FTA that has any margins of economic size larger than the China-ASEAN pact are the EU and North American FTA. Indeed, these economic statistics are important indicators for economic growth should China prioritize its international relations with ASEAN. In terms of global trade, it is on record that in the year 2008, ASEAN-China contributed a total of US$4.3 trillion to global trade, a percentage of which was 13% of global rate. Social benefits Social commentators and political scientists have said that the best form of social benefit exist among any two countries when those countries have closer proximity in terms of geographic location (Roy, 2008). This is because of the variables involved in any social factors in a typical PEST analysis, which of course includes a trans-border movement of people for the exhibition of social identifies. Between the ASEAN and China and between the ASEAN and the United States, it can be noted that there is much geographic proximity between China and ASEAN than there is between China and the United States. To this end, no matter how flexible the United States makes cross-border movement for the promotion social activities between the two countries, not many in China can take advantage of the package. Quite apart from the geographic proximity limitation, there has been the argument of social purpose as a factor that would not encourage more Chinese nationals to move to the United States for cross-border social reasons. On the other hand, due to cultural similarities between the ASEAN and China as both come from the Asian continent, there is much that the citizenry of China has in common with the ASEAN in terms of social purpose. To this end, apart from the fact that cross-border movement will be easier from China to ASEAN states, there would also be a social purpose for which Chinese nationals would want to move to ASEAN states. As all of these are said, it is important to state that any form of well coordinated social program such as cultural exchanges and tourism also have their own economic benefits that will be beneficial to China as a nation. Environmental benefits The need for environmental protection has arguable become the world’s most prominent subject of global generational protection topic in the past few years. A number of reasons could be cited as to why this is so including the fact that scientists have confirmed the fast depletion of the earth’s natural resources including the ozone layer (Shenon, 2005). Geographically, countries in Asia as a continent has much related environmental needs and concerned than in comparing an Asian country with any other country outside of Asia (Russett and John, 2001). The most logical implication that could be given to this finding is that China would achieve more in terms of environmental benefits if it aligns its self in the fight against any form of environmental destruction with Asian countries than it does with any country outside of Asia, including the United States. Meanwhile, the ASEAN presents its self as not just an Asian country but a collaboration of Asian countries that have well laid down environmental principles and conditions of operation, that are much in line with what China seeks to achieve (Scobell, 2005). Indeed, issues of water resources, deforestation, energy efficiency, biodiversity, population, pollution, desertification and climate change are all environmental problems that China battles. Meanwhile, the ASEAN already has pollution regulations that are in force among member states that conform to the very goals that China wants to achieve in terms of environmental protection (Russett and John, 2001). An example of these compliance modules is the spirit of CITES Convention (Scalapino, 2001). Conclusion From the discussions so far, it has been realized that there are numerous advantages that comes with a prioritized China-ASEAN relationship. Even though the existing China-US relations have its own advantages, there are equally beneficial advantages that China would get as a result of paying particular attention to ASEAN. But for such a relationship to be merited of all its potential advantages and benefits, it is recommended that both the ASEAN and China put their houses in place in overcoming some of the basic factors that militate against a successful international between these two entities. It has been noted that lack of consensus ideology is the greatest challenge that has negated the successful growth of the US-ASEAN relationship over the years. Once such scores are settled, it will be easier for the two parties to forge ahead for common economic, social, environmental and political good. To conclude, the quantitative advantage in China, giving the ASEAN its maximum attention far outweighs the quantitative advantage of concentrating on the United States alone or on any other single State or country. As it is said in a proverb, two heads are better than one; and so the advantage that will come to China as an associate for a number of countries far outweighs the advantage that will come to China as an associate of just one country, no matter how powerful that country may be. REFERENCE LIST Alan L, 1975, China's Foreign Relations Since 1949, World Studies Series London: Routledge pp.62/63. Asian Survey. "The Philippines in 2005,", vol XXXVI, no.2, February 2006, p.148. 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