• Home
  • About RSIS
    • Introduction
    • Building the Foundations
    • Welcome Message
    • Board of Governors
    • Staff Profiles
      • Executive Deputy Chairman’s Office
      • Dean’s Office
      • Management
      • Distinguished Fellows
      • Faculty and Research
      • Associate Research Fellows, Senior Analysts and Research Analysts
      • Visiting Fellows
      • Adjunct Fellows
      • Administrative Staff
    • Honours and Awards for RSIS Staff and Students
    • RSIS Endowment Fund
    • Endowed Professorships
    • Career Opportunities
    • Getting to RSIS
  • Research
    • Research Centres
      • Centre for Multilateralism Studies (CMS)
      • Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies (NTS Centre)
      • Centre of Excellence for National Security (CENS)
      • Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies (IDSS)
      • International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research (ICPVTR)
    • Research Programmes
      • National Security Studies Programme (NSSP)
      • Studies in Inter-Religious Relations in Plural Societies (SRP) Programme
    • [email protected] Newsletter
    • Other Research
      • Future Issues And Technology (FIT)
      • Science and Technology Studies Programme (STSP) (2017-2020)
  • Graduate Education
    • Graduate Programmes Office
    • Overview
    • MSc (Asian Studies)
    • MSc (International Political Economy)
    • MSc (International Relations)
    • MSc (Strategic Studies)
    • NTU-Warwick Double Masters Programme
    • PhD Programme
    • Exchange Partners and Programmes
    • How to Apply
    • Financial Assistance
    • Meet the Admissions Team: Information Sessions and other events
    • RSIS Alumni
  • Alumni & Networks
    • Alumni
    • Asia-Pacific Programme for Senior Military Officers (APPSMO)
    • Asia-Pacific Programme for Senior National Security Officers (APPSNO)
    • SRP Executive Programme
    • Terrorism Analyst Training Course (TATC)
  • Publications
    • RSIS Publications
      • Annual Reviews
      • Books
      • Bulletins and Newsletters
      • Commentaries
      • Counter Terrorist Trends and Analyses
      • Commemorative / Event Reports
      • IDSS Paper
      • Interreligious Relations
      • Monographs
      • NTS Insight
      • Policy Reports
      • Working Papers
      • RSIS Publications for the Year
    • Glossary of Abbreviations
    • External Publications
      • Authored Books
      • Journal Articles
      • Edited Books
      • Chapters in Edited Books
      • Policy Reports
      • Working Papers
      • Op-Eds
      • External Publications for the Year
    • Policy-relevant Articles Given RSIS Award
  • Media
    • Cohesive Societies
    • Great Powers
    • Sustainable Security
    • COVID-19 Resources
    • Other Resource Pages
    • Media Highlights
    • News Releases
    • Speeches
    • Vidcast Channel
    • Audio/Video Forums
  • Events
  • Giving
  • Contact Us
Facebook
Twitter
YouTube
RSISVideoCast RSISVideoCast rsis.sg
Linkedin
instagram instagram rsis.sg
RSS
  • Home
  • About RSIS
      • Introduction
      • Building the Foundations
      • Welcome Message
      • Board of Governors
      • Staff Profiles
        • Executive Deputy Chairman’s Office
        • Dean’s Office
        • Management
        • Distinguished Fellows
        • Faculty and Research
        • Associate Research Fellows, Senior Analysts and Research Analysts
        • Visiting Fellows
        • Adjunct Fellows
        • Administrative Staff
      • Honours and Awards for RSIS Staff and Students
      • RSIS Endowment Fund
      • Endowed Professorships
      • Career Opportunities
      • Getting to RSIS
  • Research
      • Research Centres
        • Centre for Multilateralism Studies (CMS)
        • Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies (NTS Centre)
        • Centre of Excellence for National Security (CENS)
        • Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies (IDSS)
        • International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research (ICPVTR)
      • Research Programmes
        • National Security Studies Programme (NSSP)
        • Studies in Inter-Religious Relations in Plural Societies (SRP) Programme
      • [email protected] Newsletter
      • Other Research
        • Future Issues And Technology (FIT)
        • Science and Technology Studies Programme (STSP) (2017-2020)
  • Graduate Education
      • Graduate Programmes Office
      • Overview
      • MSc (Asian Studies)
      • MSc (International Political Economy)
      • MSc (International Relations)
      • MSc (Strategic Studies)
      • NTU-Warwick Double Masters Programme
      • PhD Programme
      • Exchange Partners and Programmes
      • How to Apply
      • Financial Assistance
      • Meet the Admissions Team: Information Sessions and other events
      • RSIS Alumni
  • Alumni & Networks
      • Alumni
      • Asia-Pacific Programme for Senior Military Officers (APPSMO)
      • Asia-Pacific Programme for Senior National Security Officers (APPSNO)
      • SRP Executive Programme
      • Terrorism Analyst Training Course (TATC)
  • Publications
      • RSIS Publications
        • Annual Reviews
        • Books
        • Bulletins and Newsletters
        • Commentaries
        • Counter Terrorist Trends and Analyses
        • Commemorative / Event Reports
        • IDSS Paper
        • Interreligious Relations
        • Monographs
        • NTS Insight
        • Policy Reports
        • Working Papers
        • RSIS Publications for the Year
      • Glossary of Abbreviations
      • External Publications
        • Authored Books
        • Journal Articles
        • Edited Books
        • Chapters in Edited Books
        • Policy Reports
        • Working Papers
        • Op-Eds
        • External Publications for the Year
      • Policy-relevant Articles Given RSIS Award
  • Media
      • Cohesive Societies
      • Great Powers
      • Sustainable Security
      • COVID-19 Resources
      • Other Resource Pages
      • Media Highlights
      • News Releases
      • Speeches
      • Vidcast Channel
      • Audio/Video Forums
  • Events
  • Giving
  • Contact Us
  • instagram instagram rsis.sg
Connect

Getting to RSIS

Map

Address

Nanyang Technological University
Block S4, Level B3,
50 Nanyang Avenue,
Singapore 639798

View location on Google maps Click here for directions to RSIS

Get in Touch

    Connect with Us

      rsis.ntu
      rsis_ntu
      rsisntu
    RSISVideoCast RSISVideoCast rsisvideocast
      school/rsis-ntu
    instagram instagram rsis.sg
      RSS
    Subscribe to RSIS Publications
    Subscribe to RSIS Events

    RSIS Intranet

    S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies Think Tank and Graduate School Ponder The Improbable Since 1966
    Nanyang Technological University Nanyang Technological University

    Skip to content

     
    • RSIS
    • Publication
    • RSIS Publications
    • Two Summits: Enter the US’ Sinocentric Era
    • Annual Reviews
    • Books
    • Bulletins and Newsletters
    • Commentaries
    • Counter Terrorist Trends and Analyses
    • Commemorative / Event Reports
    • IDSS Paper
    • Interreligious Relations
    • Monographs
    • NTS Insight
    • Policy Reports
    • Working Papers
    • RSIS Publications for the Year

    CO21093 | Two Summits: Enter the US’ Sinocentric Era
    Adam Garfinkle

    11 June 2021

    download pdf
    RSIS Commentary is a platform to provide timely and, where appropriate, policy-relevant commentary and analysis of topical and contemporary issues. The authors’ views are their own and do not represent the official position of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), NTU. These commentaries may be reproduced with prior permission from RSIS and due credit to the author(s) and RSIS. Please email to Editor RSIS Commentary at [email protected].

    SYNOPSIS

    The Sinocentric era in US foreign policy has truly begun, with the first face-to-face White House visits of the Biden administration from the leaders of two Asian security treaty allies: the prime minister of Japan and the president of South Korea.


    Source: freepik

    COMMENTARY

    BENEATH THE inevitable distractions that attend the start of any US administration ─ a mini-war in Gaza, a virtual climate summit show and an Afghanistan withdrawal decision drama, for examples ─ is a policy priority template about to unfurl; wise observers can discern this by focussing on the order of early presidential attention and time allotted to foreign leaders. That President Joe Biden’s first two face-to-face bilaterals have been with major treaty allies in East Asia is not without significance.

    Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga’s visit on 16 April 2021 and South Korean (ROK) President Moon Jae-in’s arrival on 21 May, signal that the Sinocentric era in US policy is clearly upon us. These meetings should be seen as the first acts in a globe-sprawling drama bound to play out long before us.

    Irking the Dragon

    It helped that both summits followed on the heels of the testy language offered up during a meeting between Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan with China’s top diplomats, CCP foreign affairs chief Yang Jiechi and China’s State Councilor Wang Yi, in Anchorage, Alaska on 18 March. Senior US officials usually do not quietly rejoice when headlines report “barbed exchanges”, “war of words”, and “rage”.

    This time, however, the headlines fit the purpose of teeing up productive summits. Chinese behaviour at and on the sidelines of the virtual Climate Summit of April 22-23, at once dissimulative and condescending, helped further as Suga departed and Moon prepared to arrive. A frothing common adversary does wonders for bilateral security alliances.

    That said, Biden’s meetings with Prime Minister Suga and President Moon could hardly have differed more in tone. China, along with North Korea (DPRK), loomed large in both, yet larger still was the impact of domestic politics on all sides. Unlike the case in the US and South Korea, Japanese politics today are notably not polarised or out of sync with US assumptions and expectations. But Japanese and South Korean diplomatic postures are polarised, making US efforts to triangulate effective alliance strategy in Northeast Asia a persistent chore.

    This is the more so when Korean politics churns up a leader at odds with US security premises. Thus, despite some enduring differences of view, the US-Japan summit was a love fest compared to the US-ROK affair, where dissonance snuck through despite the exertions of diplomatic etiquette.

    Suga Sweet

    Suga has been prime minister only since September 2020, having been Chief Cabinet Secretary under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe from 2012 to his elevation as prime minister. At age 72, Suga seems a compromise candidate within the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, and a transitional figure waiting upon the next generation to sort itself out.

    Experienced US officials fret that Suga’s might be one in a series of short-lived and therefore weak prime ministerial tenures, as was the case between the end of Junichiro Koizumi’s time in office in 2006 and Abe’s consolidation of authority in 2012. Presaged by the sherpa-like 16 March Tokyo visit of Secretary of State Blinken and Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin, Washington recognised these limits, so focused on making digestible incremental improvements in the relationship.

    The two joint statements, of 16 March and 16 April, thus tracked well as lines of talk without much in the way of deliverables. Most notable was how strongly anti-Chinese both were. Much US-based commentary ranked this as an American achievement, but in truth the Japanese preferred the more muscular US approach of the Trump period to that of the inert second Obama administration, and hoped to bind the Biden administration to that toughened tack.

    That proved easy, for the politics of being anti-PRC now resonate loudly ─ too loudly, perhaps ─ for Democrats against the populist-infused optic of trade issues; dissing China has become a centrepiece of the “foreign policy for the middle class”.

    Japan’s Two Concerns

    The final section of the 16 April Joint Statement, “An Alliance for a New Era,” which emphasised the “non-traditional” aspects of national security so dear to many Democratic foreign policy thinkers, punctuated the point in a decidedly novel way.

    At US behest, the allies formed a “Competitive and Resilience Partnership” focused on “competitiveness and innovation, COVID-19 response, global health, and health security, climate change, clean energy, and green growth and recovery”.

    Behind such high-sounding if very broad language senior Japanese officials espy two trends of potential concern.

    First, gone are the trade deficits harangues of the Trump era, but a mercantilist tilt yet abides in the fact that all these new elements are tied to US economic interests as perceived by key domestic constituencies. (The same was true for the multiple new international projects mooted within the rubric of the Climate Summit.)

    What the Executive Branch is doing via diplomatic initiatives the Democrats in Congress are doing through the budget process: bend all rubrics and category slots to politically resonant domestic economic priorities. It makes sense: Lose the political battle at home, in 2022 and especially 2024, and security policy authority will be lost with it.

    Jeopardising Deterrence and Defence

    The Japanese also note that Washington has yet to apply to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership ─ now the CPTPP without US accession ─ or has even abrogated the absurd Trump-era punitive tariffs levied against Canada for being “a threat to US national security”. When Trade Representative Katherine Tai was asked why not, she answered “leverage”. Officials in Tokyo cannot have been pleased to hear that word.

    Second, they wonder whether pursuit of non-traditional portfolios may eventually jeopardise deterrence and defence. They don’t cheer a Navy budget asking for fewer new ships and declining 2.2 percent in real terms against inflation, for it may presage requests that Japan reach deeper into its own pocket for the common defence.

    They worry, too, about US officials switching out the aim of “denuclearising North Korea” for the “denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula”; that would threaten a much leaner US strategic deterrence posture in Northeast Asia supposedly made safe by unredeemable hopes that “putting diplomacy first” will persuade the DPRK out of its nukes.

    Doomed to Succeed

    That is the wider context for understanding Suga’s post-summit remark that he had a “meaningful debate” with Biden about democracy, human rights, rule of law, and what the elements of a stable Sino-American relationship truly are. The Japanese are enlightened realists and disparage lighter-than-air idealists no less than “America first” cynics. They are right to do so.

    Most US-Japanese summits are doomed to succeed. Both sides need them to succeed for political reasons, and if palpable deliverables cannot be arranged, words must suffice.

    We thus got no significant advance in coordinating US-Japanese naval command-and-control capabilities, nor any new joint forum acknowledging Japan as a co-equal security policy development partner. We did get agreement that no blue sky would show between US and Japanese strategic priorities ─ so, for example, no missile deal with North Korea leaving out short-range rockets that can reach Japanese but not US soil.

    In sum, we got modest advances in the evolution of greater Japanese security responsibility in a widening geographical orbit. That’s all to the good, Suga sweet ─ for the US-Japan relationship is the linchpin for the entire Indo-Asian security network. It is not without major import for every Asian nation desirous of an open and free Indo-Pacific region. Now comes the hard work: concretising dulcet words into concrete achievements.

    About the Author

    Adam Garfinkle is a non-resident Distinguished Fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School for International Studies (RSIS) at the Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore.

    Categories: Commentaries / Country and Region Studies / International Political Economy / International Politics and Security / Americas / East Asia and Asia Pacific / Global / South Asia / Southeast Asia and ASEAN

    Last updated on 11/06/2021

    comments powered by Disqus
    RSIS Commentary is a platform to provide timely and, where appropriate, policy-relevant commentary and analysis of topical and contemporary issues. The authors’ views are their own and do not represent the official position of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), NTU. These commentaries may be reproduced with prior permission from RSIS and due credit to the author(s) and RSIS. Please email to Editor RSIS Commentary at [email protected].

    SYNOPSIS

    The Sinocentric era in US foreign policy has truly begun, with the first face-to-face White House visits of the Biden administration from the leaders of two Asian security treaty allies: the prime minister of Japan and the president of South Korea.


    Source: freepik

    COMMENTARY

    BENEATH THE inevitable distractions that attend the start of any US administration ─ a mini-war in Gaza, a virtual climate summit show and an Afghanistan withdrawal decision drama, for examples ─ is a policy priority template about to unfurl; wise observers can discern this by focussing on the order of early presidential attention and time allotted to foreign leaders. That President Joe Biden’s first two face-to-face bilaterals have been with major treaty allies in East Asia is not without significance.

    Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga’s visit on 16 April 2021 and South Korean (ROK) President Moon Jae-in’s arrival on 21 May, signal that the Sinocentric era in US policy is clearly upon us. These meetings should be seen as the first acts in a globe-sprawling drama bound to play out long before us.

    Irking the Dragon

    It helped that both summits followed on the heels of the testy language offered up during a meeting between Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan with China’s top diplomats, CCP foreign affairs chief Yang Jiechi and China’s State Councilor Wang Yi, in Anchorage, Alaska on 18 March. Senior US officials usually do not quietly rejoice when headlines report “barbed exchanges”, “war of words”, and “rage”.

    This time, however, the headlines fit the purpose of teeing up productive summits. Chinese behaviour at and on the sidelines of the virtual Climate Summit of April 22-23, at once dissimulative and condescending, helped further as Suga departed and Moon prepared to arrive. A frothing common adversary does wonders for bilateral security alliances.

    That said, Biden’s meetings with Prime Minister Suga and President Moon could hardly have differed more in tone. China, along with North Korea (DPRK), loomed large in both, yet larger still was the impact of domestic politics on all sides. Unlike the case in the US and South Korea, Japanese politics today are notably not polarised or out of sync with US assumptions and expectations. But Japanese and South Korean diplomatic postures are polarised, making US efforts to triangulate effective alliance strategy in Northeast Asia a persistent chore.

    This is the more so when Korean politics churns up a leader at odds with US security premises. Thus, despite some enduring differences of view, the US-Japan summit was a love fest compared to the US-ROK affair, where dissonance snuck through despite the exertions of diplomatic etiquette.

    Suga Sweet

    Suga has been prime minister only since September 2020, having been Chief Cabinet Secretary under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe from 2012 to his elevation as prime minister. At age 72, Suga seems a compromise candidate within the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, and a transitional figure waiting upon the next generation to sort itself out.

    Experienced US officials fret that Suga’s might be one in a series of short-lived and therefore weak prime ministerial tenures, as was the case between the end of Junichiro Koizumi’s time in office in 2006 and Abe’s consolidation of authority in 2012. Presaged by the sherpa-like 16 March Tokyo visit of Secretary of State Blinken and Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin, Washington recognised these limits, so focused on making digestible incremental improvements in the relationship.

    The two joint statements, of 16 March and 16 April, thus tracked well as lines of talk without much in the way of deliverables. Most notable was how strongly anti-Chinese both were. Much US-based commentary ranked this as an American achievement, but in truth the Japanese preferred the more muscular US approach of the Trump period to that of the inert second Obama administration, and hoped to bind the Biden administration to that toughened tack.

    That proved easy, for the politics of being anti-PRC now resonate loudly ─ too loudly, perhaps ─ for Democrats against the populist-infused optic of trade issues; dissing China has become a centrepiece of the “foreign policy for the middle class”.

    Japan’s Two Concerns

    The final section of the 16 April Joint Statement, “An Alliance for a New Era,” which emphasised the “non-traditional” aspects of national security so dear to many Democratic foreign policy thinkers, punctuated the point in a decidedly novel way.

    At US behest, the allies formed a “Competitive and Resilience Partnership” focused on “competitiveness and innovation, COVID-19 response, global health, and health security, climate change, clean energy, and green growth and recovery”.

    Behind such high-sounding if very broad language senior Japanese officials espy two trends of potential concern.

    First, gone are the trade deficits harangues of the Trump era, but a mercantilist tilt yet abides in the fact that all these new elements are tied to US economic interests as perceived by key domestic constituencies. (The same was true for the multiple new international projects mooted within the rubric of the Climate Summit.)

    What the Executive Branch is doing via diplomatic initiatives the Democrats in Congress are doing through the budget process: bend all rubrics and category slots to politically resonant domestic economic priorities. It makes sense: Lose the political battle at home, in 2022 and especially 2024, and security policy authority will be lost with it.

    Jeopardising Deterrence and Defence

    The Japanese also note that Washington has yet to apply to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership ─ now the CPTPP without US accession ─ or has even abrogated the absurd Trump-era punitive tariffs levied against Canada for being “a threat to US national security”. When Trade Representative Katherine Tai was asked why not, she answered “leverage”. Officials in Tokyo cannot have been pleased to hear that word.

    Second, they wonder whether pursuit of non-traditional portfolios may eventually jeopardise deterrence and defence. They don’t cheer a Navy budget asking for fewer new ships and declining 2.2 percent in real terms against inflation, for it may presage requests that Japan reach deeper into its own pocket for the common defence.

    They worry, too, about US officials switching out the aim of “denuclearising North Korea” for the “denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula”; that would threaten a much leaner US strategic deterrence posture in Northeast Asia supposedly made safe by unredeemable hopes that “putting diplomacy first” will persuade the DPRK out of its nukes.

    Doomed to Succeed

    That is the wider context for understanding Suga’s post-summit remark that he had a “meaningful debate” with Biden about democracy, human rights, rule of law, and what the elements of a stable Sino-American relationship truly are. The Japanese are enlightened realists and disparage lighter-than-air idealists no less than “America first” cynics. They are right to do so.

    Most US-Japanese summits are doomed to succeed. Both sides need them to succeed for political reasons, and if palpable deliverables cannot be arranged, words must suffice.

    We thus got no significant advance in coordinating US-Japanese naval command-and-control capabilities, nor any new joint forum acknowledging Japan as a co-equal security policy development partner. We did get agreement that no blue sky would show between US and Japanese strategic priorities ─ so, for example, no missile deal with North Korea leaving out short-range rockets that can reach Japanese but not US soil.

    In sum, we got modest advances in the evolution of greater Japanese security responsibility in a widening geographical orbit. That’s all to the good, Suga sweet ─ for the US-Japan relationship is the linchpin for the entire Indo-Asian security network. It is not without major import for every Asian nation desirous of an open and free Indo-Pacific region. Now comes the hard work: concretising dulcet words into concrete achievements.

    About the Author

    Adam Garfinkle is a non-resident Distinguished Fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School for International Studies (RSIS) at the Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore.

    Categories: Commentaries / Country and Region Studies / International Political Economy / International Politics and Security

    Last updated on 11/06/2021

    Back to top

    Terms of Use | Privacy Statement
    Copyright © S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies. All rights reserved.
    This site uses cookies to offer you a better browsing experience. By continuing, you are agreeing to the use of cookies on your device as described in our privacy policy. Learn more
    OK
    Latest Book
    Two Summits: Enter the US’ Sinocentric Era

    SYNOPSIS

    The Sinocentric era in US foreign policy has truly begun, with the first face-to-face White House visits of the Biden administration from the leade ...
    more info