This is the eighth in a series of articles on the growing rivalry between the U.S. and China and its implications for the two Koreas and East Asia. ― Ed.


South Korea should begin a national project to map out a mid- and long-term diplomatic strategy to better respond to the changing political and security landscape in Northeast Asia, said an international relations professor.

Gweon Yong-lib of Kyungsung University pointed to possible scenarios including America’s security commitment in the region being scaled down, though it may not happen in the foreseeable future, and the negative ramifications of the growing Sino-U.S. rivalry.

Amid America’s financial challenges and China’s increasing assertiveness based on its growing military and economic power, analysts have argued that a “power shift” looms in East Asia.

“We never know what would happen in East Asia. Taking into account all possible scenarios, we should start a project to map out a strategy,” Gweon said in an interview with The Korea Herald last week.

“This is what the political circles should push for. But they don’t appear much interested in such crucial work yet.”

Noting the complexity of the regional and global political fabrics, the foreign policy expert underscored that the next South Korean president should be able to view Seoul’s ties with North Korea and other countries from a comprehensive, multi-dimensional perspective, so as to craft a well-balanced external policy.

“When we talk about the Korea-Japan relations, it goes beyond the bilateral relationship. We need to consider the variable involving the U.S., their mutual ally, as well,” he said. “It is like solving simultaneous equations. The president should be capable of weighing all variables involved.”

Touching on the growing discourse about America’s relative decline and China’s rise, Gweon said the U.S. is just “faltering temporarily.” He said America’s technology, soft power and the dollar as a key currency would prevent or delay any rapid descent.

Following are excerpts from an interview with professor Gweon Yong-lib.

Korea Herald: The security and political landscape in East Asia appear to be undergoing some power shift due to the rise of China and America’s relative decline. What is your assessment of the current power dynamics in the region and beyond?

Gweon Yong-lib: The causes of America’s perceived decline include the trade deficit resulting from its waning manufacturing industry and the fiscal deficit stemming from overstretched foreign engagements and defense spending. Failed regulation of the financial industry is another factor.

But what I want to point out is that, due in large part to the media that contrast America’s economic decline with China’s growth and exaggerate the descent of the U.S. itself, only the discourse about its decline is prominent, without paying due attention to “resistance factors” that could delay any precipitous fall.

Compared with other empires in history, the U.S. case is somewhat different. It has unique advantages or resistance factors such as cutting-edge technology, soft power along with its pop culture, higher education and the dollar’s key currency status, to name a few.

Speaking of the dollar, I think there will not be any other currency that could supplant the dollar as a dominant global currency in the foreseeable future. That is due in part to the inertia (in the global financial system). Also noteworthy is that Washington is capitalizing on international politics to weather its financial crisis. An example is the Federal Reserve’s policy of “quantitative easing.”

This has eventually resulted in the appreciation of the Chinese yuan, which obviously helps reduce America’s deficit in trade with China. Washington will keep on inventing ingenious ways to maintain the dollar as a key currency. To recap, I would say the U.S. is faltering temporarily. It is not like the hegemonic power is being degraded immediately to one of great powers.

KH: Discourse about America’s decline has long persisted, hasn’t it?

Gweon: Historically, the U.S. has always been sort of paranoid or obsessed over its possible decline. When the former Soviet Union launched mankind’s first satellite Sputnik in 1957, there was talk of the decline. Some 15 years later, when the U.S. was defeated in the Vietnam War, that talk resurfaced. In the late 1980s when Japan rose as an economic powerhouse, it resurged. As its economy recovered under the Clinton administration, the “decline” discourse subsided, but it returned with the 2008 financial crisis.

The “decline” discourse, to a certain degree, reflects the reality, but also involves America’s psychology associated with its diplomacy: The U.S. has traditionally been anxious about a potential adversary.

KH: What do you think about the Senkaku/Diaoyu dispute in the East China Sea? People are concerned that this dispute could escalate into Sino-U.S. conflict.

Gweon: It is not a simple territorial dispute between China and Japan. The disputed islands lie on the “first island chain,” which China strives to secure as it seeks to bolster its blue-water navy capable of projecting power farther into the Pacific. It is a Chinese term, but is a concept similar to the U.S. Pacific defense line (former Secretary of State Dean Acheson declared in 1950 to connect the Aleutians, Japanese archipelago and Okinawa to the Philippines).

Regarding this line, the U.S. and China have gaps in perception. For China, it is the very first line it should break through to become a maritime revisionist. For the U.S., it is the line covered under its Western Pacific maritime strategy. It is where their interests collide.

America’s renowned geo-strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan underscored in the late 19th century that a sea power would eventually become a global power. What is interesting is that since the late 1990s, there have been quite a number of Chinese who can be called “Mahanites.” China has recently put its first aircraft carrier into service and plans to build and deploy more, and is trumpeting the prospect of its blue-water navy.

KH: How do you think the Sino-America rivalry will unfold?

Gweon: The Sino-U.S. relationship will move on in a two-tier structure. One is the economic tier in which they both compete and cooperate. It is a “mutual hostage system” as they are interconnected in the globalized economic system. One’s economic debacle could deal a direct blow to the other.

In the military realm, however, it is likely to be a mixture of competition and confrontation. If they clash militarily, although it may not occur in the near future, their first military confrontation might come at sea, particularly in the Pacific. Mindful of this, China has been bolstering its naval might.

For the U.S., its post-Cold War era strategic goal is to thwart the emergence of an adversary that could threaten America’s hegemonic status, in a preemptive fashion. That goal would not change unless it goes belly up. In this respect, the U.S. would strive to forestall any conditions conducive to China’s blue-water naval operations. In other words, the U.S. will try to keep the traditional land power (China) from changing into a sea power.

China apparently thinks that the U.S. is taking a hostile policy toward it. It believes the U.S. would, eventually, move in the way that best suits its national interest, despite whatever pledges the two make. For example, although the U.S. has repeated its verbal commitment to recognizing Beijing as the only legitimate government in China since 1972, China takes it as (insincere). Washington still says it wants the Taiwan issue to be settled peacefully, which is in fact to say, “We will intervene if you use force against Taiwan,” from Beijing’s standpoint.

Measures the U.S. has recently taken are part of its “precautionary” actions (to prevent any emergence of a powerful adversary). From China’s viewpoint, that is “containment.” Again, there are their gaps in perception, which are hard to bridge.

KH: What kind of diplomacy does Seoul need to employ amid the growing Sino-America rivalry?

Gweon: Korea could be put into a very difficult position when the two powers clash in the Western Pacific. Korea should ensure that it does not get entangled in unnecessary disputes between them. It is easier said than done. South Korea provides land for U.S. troops. Although it is a U.S. outpost on the peninsula, not a key strategic base like those in Guam and Japan, it may be a “thorn” in the eyes of China.

No matter how we say the outpost is not meant to check China, it may be futile. Do we then need to seek the wholesale withdrawal of U.S. forces? That means the breakup of the Korea-U.S. alliance. Unfortunately, Korea will inevitably be in a passive position while hoping the two powers would not go on a confrontational path.

KH: Do you have any foreign policy advice for the next Korean president?

Gweon: I hope he or she looks at diplomatic relations through the lens of international politics ― as if to try to solve simultaneous equations ― not in a simple, one-dimensional way. There are many variables in international relations including the ties with North Korea, and the president should be capable of comprehensively weighing all variables.

The most vulnerable spot in Korea’s diplomacy is its verbal diplomatic statements. China pays very close attention to U.S. verbal statements. Korean leaders have not been well trained or versed in diplomatic expressions. They have to be more prudent and circumspect about them.

KH: What challenges does the U.S. face that could hamper its exercising of a global leadership? Some talk about its parliamentary deadlock, pointing out China’s state-controlled capitalist system or decision-making process could be more efficient in some sense.

Gweon: Of course, the Congress holds the key to the state coffers. But in the diplomatic, military realm, the U.S. president’s authority is by no means weaker than that of the Chinese president. When the U.S. military operations require taxpayers’ money, they should first secure parliamentary approval. That could put the U.S. at a disadvantage. But the U.S. president is constitutionally the commander in chief. Under the constitution, the Senate is to declare a war, which the president, then, executes. But past cases show the president immediately deployed troops and the legislature approved it afterward or backed it with a resolution, as seen in the Iraq War.

KH: Is there anything else that could hamper America’s superpower status?

Gweon: The biggest challenge is, of course, the economy. Although an economic crisis looms large, it appears to have been exaggerated. The U.S. national debt is currently at around $16 trillion. The problem in the international sphere is America’s foreign liabilities, which amount to more than $4 trillion, half of which is held by China and Japan.

China holds the U.S. treasury bonds worth around $1.2 trillion while Japan holds a little less than that. China’s holding of the U.S. bonds is not small, but those who hold the largest amount of the treasury bills are the U.S. Social Security Trust Funds and the Federal Reserve Board. In regards to America’s trade deficit, as long as the U.S. dollar maintains its key currency status, Washington would be able to manage it.

KH: What are the changes in Obama’s foreign policy compared with his predecessors?

Gweon: America’s foreign policy does not change fundamentally from government to government. The changes we talk about are at the surface level. America’s world view and its global interest do not hinge on who holds the presidency. What I wanted to see from Obama’s foreign policy was a departure from that of the Bill Clinton administration. That has not happened yet.

The Clinton administration’s foreign policy was “putting our national interest first.” It had focused too much on recovering its domestic economy. Rather than spreading the democracy and human rights that it had trumpeted as universal values during Cold War, it had concentrated instead on globalizing America’s economic interest through the globalization of financial systems and market economics.

In the process, it had pressured its trade partners, especially Japan, rather than making efforts to rectify its own internal problems. Amid all this, the U.S. missed out on a chance to easily secure its global moral leadership in the early post-Cold War era.

KH: During his second term, Clinton appeared willing to intervene in humanitarian crises such as the Kosovo conflict.

Gweon: The U.S. did intervene in the Kosovo conflict in 1999; that was not a direct intervention, but one through NATO operations. While stressing humanitarian intervention, it fell short of doing that. It was because traumatic memories of the Vietnam War and the 1993 “Black Hawk Down” fiasco in Somalia were still potent. America’s military intervention was only limited as its precondition for that was to prevent any fatalities. Thus, the U.S. refused to intervene in the brutal Rwanda genocide in 1994.

The Obama administration did not depart from Clinton’s foreign policy. Its formation of foreign policy staff, above all, is an extension of the Clinton government. Obama himself has focused on tackling economic issues since the outset of his presidency in 2009, leaving him with little room to tackle issues of universal values, which his predecessor Bush was negligent of.

KH: How specifically has Barack Obama not departed from Clinton’s foreign policy?

Gweon: If it had departed from Clinton’s, the Obama government might not have put the North Korean issues on the back burner. The Clinton administration negotiated the Agreed Framework in 1994, but doubt has lingered over whether it was really serious (about it) given that at the time, the U.S. apparently expected the North to collapse.

It is well known that the North would not stop or abdicate its nuclear programs before any concrete steps to ensure its political and military security are guaranteed internationally. This is because the nuclear weapon is the only diplomatic weapon left for Pyongyang.

But due to its deep-rooted distrust toward the repressive, monolithic regime in the North, Washington has consistently demanded “abdication first” to it as a precondition for resuming negotiations. The North is, of course, responsible for its failure to keep past deals with the international community and aggressive behavior motivated for its survival. If there is no fundamental policy shift on the part of either side, the stalemate will continue.

But only the stronger nation can take the initiative to break a deadlock and resume the stalled negotiation process. There have been few cases in which dialogue proposed by a weaker state succeeded.

For Seoul, it should be aware that the U.S. looks at the North Korean issue from two perspectives. One concerns national security, as its nuclear weapons could threaten the U.S. directly or indirectly. Washington also sees the North Korea issues from the perspective of managing politics of Northeast Asia. We often do not take both dimensions into account, assuming the U.S. would think about North Korea issues as we do.



KH: Some argue that the world, amid the “rise of the rest,” is increasingly becoming multi-polar. What is your forecast of the future international order?

Gweon: My personal view is that around in the mid-21st century, there may be a globalized Vienna System (a diplomatic consultative system in Western Europe that involved Austria, France, Russia, Britain and Prussia in the early 19th century to settle their major issues). Its new version may include the U.S., Russia, China and the EU ― though uncertainty looms over the future of Europe due to financial and other challenges. They may have to go in that direction due to their deepening economic interdependence.

KH: Which of America’s domestic issues do you think could impact its external policy?

Gweon: First, America’s national identity is changing with the rapidly increasing Hispanic population. One out of three U.S. citizens is expected to be Hispanic around 2050. Hispanics, with their origins rooted in Latin America, are different from those with European pedigrees. Hispanics may acculturate. But the question remains over the extent of their acculturation. With their growing political power, their world view, cultural orientations and dispositions could affect America’s foreign policy traditions at large.

Second, economic decline, if not curbed, will seriously limit America’s global commitment because defense spending is not mandatory but discretionary. If the military expenditures dealing with China exceed its strategic and economic interests, the U.S. could withdraw from or leave only a minimum level of security commitment in East Asia, rather than wasting money on containing its potent, geographically distant adversary. Though not probable in the near future, what would happen to Korea if the power balance between China and the U.S. in East Asia is lost? We need to prepare long-term scenarios regarding Northeast Asia to map out foreseeable diplomatic contingencies.

Gweon Yong-lib

● Gweon, a political science professor at Kyungsung University, is well known for a series of insightful articles, commentaries and books on U.S. foreign policy, political history, civilization and nationalism.

● He has conducted extensive research and lectured at the Busan-based school for nearly three decades since 1985.

● His articles include “Will It Die Out?: “Reinterpreting the Bush Doctrine as Another Face of American Nationalism (2009)”; “The Changing Perception of America in South Korea: Transition or Transformation? (2004)”; and “Reflection and Projection: The Character of United States’ Nationalism (2003).”

● Among his popular books are “The U.S. as a Political Civilization (2003)” and “A History of the U.S Foreign Policy 1776-2008 (2010).”

● Gweon graduated from the department of political science and international relations at Seoul National University in 1977. He obtained his master’s degree and Ph.D. in international relations from the same school in 1982 and 1990, respectively.

By Song Sang-ho (sshluck@heraldcorp.com)