How do you convince the American foreign policy establishment, squarely fixated on China, that the regional context in which US-China competition takes place matters? And how do you unpick the battle of narratives about how that regional competition is playing out?
That was the task Susannah Patton and I set ourselves in an article published this week in Foreign Affairs.
Fatalists believe China is already an unassailably dominant force in Asia. US primacists see China as weak, vulnerable and ultimately containable. Others, including US allies such as Australia and Japan, champion a third way – a multipolar Indo-Pacific that could arrest China’s ambitions for regional hegemony.
But the six editions of the Asia Power Index, the latest of which will be released on Monday, point instead to a more durable duopoly. The dynamic is not that of a rising power eclipsing an established one. Rather it is of two powers that will likely continue to coexist as near peer competitors.
In the words of Singapore’s Defence Minister Dr Ng Eng Hen at the Shangri-La Dialogue in June, “the US and China are dominant protagonists to decide Asia’s fate for this decade and beyond”.
A comparison with other regions makes this plain.
Unlike in Europe, the comparatively small footprint of America’s alliances in Asia has not grown in decades.
In the Middle East, a handful of players – China, Iran, Israel, Russia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia – are jostling for advantage as the United States continues to retreat. But no regional power reigns supreme. Call this messy multipolarity.
In Europe, a cohesive multipolarity prevents any single country from posing a hegemonic threat. Russia is banking on faltering US support for Ukraine, but it does not have the resources to launch a direct conflict with a much larger bloc of EU and NATO countries aligned against it.
By contrast, no major power or constellation of Asian partners comes close to being able to match China in the absence of the balancing role of the United States.
Asia’s topography of power, defined by its twin peaks, is often missed by the flat earthers of national security wonks – those who believe in the emergence of a single global theatre of multipolar contestation, or a fusion of the Indo-Pacific with the Euro-Atlantic. The fact is, when it comes to power politics, regional dynamics still count for more than the spillover between them.
Asia’s bipolarity also stands in contrast to the multipolar makeover that the Biden administration has sought to give its Asian alliance network. As US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan put it in 2021, a new “latticework of alliances and partnerships” is enabling third countries to contribute more to the region’s security and to push back against China. For his part, President Xi Jinping has drawn a parallel between the expansion of NATO in Europe and the United States’ alliance-building efforts in Asia.
Yet both Beijing and Washington overestimate the changes to the United States’ defence network in this part of the world. Unlike in Europe, the comparatively small footprint of America’s alliances in Asia has not grown in decades. And upgrading alliances alone cannot deliver a decisive additional advantage to the United States in its competition with China.
The balance between the United States and China creates a big disincentive for competition to spill over into outright war.
The good news is that Asia does have, to use one of Foreign Minister Penny Wong’s preferred terms, a certain (but not infallible) strategic equilibrium. The stability brought about by bipolarity is underappreciated in at least three ways.
First, the balance between the United States and China creates a big disincentive for competition to spill over into outright war. China has no shortage of flash points in the region, notably over Taiwan and the South China Sea. What is surprising, however, is that they have not yet turned into more deadly conflicts.
This is not to be complacent about the risk of great power conflict. But we should recognise that things could be worse. Contrast Asia’s relative peace with Europe and the Middle East.
Second, Asia has two poles, but an absence of strong blocs. There is no European-style concert of powers, Middle Eastern free-for-all, or Cold War–era system of walled division. Instead, Asia’s version of bipolarity allows most countries to swim between the world’s superpowers without fully committing to either.
This matters to the balance of power because non-aligned countries are the majority in Asia and at the heart of its regional institutions. “Asymmetric multipolarity” is a mouthful of a term, but that may be how active hedgers such as Singapore and Vietnam are exploiting their options and choices. This too has a stabilising effect.
Finally, even from China’s point of view, Asia would be more dangerous and chaotic without the influence of the United States. A US retreat from Asia would leave China dominant but with still no clear route to establishing a stable Sino-centric order. Beijing has territorial or maritime disputes with at least ten other countries. And without the US security umbrella, South Korea – and possibly even Australia or Japan – might seek to develop nuclear weapons.
What does all this mean for Washington? An effort to restore US primacy would be seen by many Asian countries as disastrously revisionist. To find a lasting strategic equilibrium will instead require that America focus on shoring up its position as a status quo power, one of two poles in Asia. By giving allies greater confidence in US commitments and the endurance of a bipolar balance of power, Washington can help prevent them from seeking dangerous alternative pathways to security in a Plan B world.
Washington’s biggest challenge, however, is to redress the shift away from the United States by the region’s non-aligned players. Doing so will not restore US primacy but can help ensure that bipolarity – the least bad option for America and the region – endures.
This article is based on a longer essay by Susannah Patton and Hervé Lemahieu in Foreign Affairs. Please follow this guest link for free access to the essay, valid for 30 days.
