East Asia: Is the San Francisco System collapsing?

Since the last World War, East Asia and the Pacific has sustained a US-centric geostrategic set up. At least until recently, however, the situation is changing rapidly.The USA under Trump administration is determined to ensure America’s interestat the cost of her traditional alliancewithher East Asian and Pacificcountries, foretelling its unreliability to them. On the other hand, the historical disputes among the East Asian US-allies, not resolved and swept under the carpet for the sake of ‘unity’ against a common enemy, are driving the countries on an implacable line. And all this is happening amidst the ‘rise of China’ and her growing economicmightchallenging US’ San Francisco System.

With the conclusion of the Second World War, the United States took up responsibility to ensure Western interests in East Asia and the Pacific region following the fall of China to the communists, the inconclusive Korean War and the spread of communist insurgency in the Southeast Asian countries. Initially putting hope on Chiang Kai-shek’s China during the World War, the US turned to Japan to ensure herpost-war strategic interests in the region following the collapse of the Chiang regime in China to the communists in 1949, which the US perceived as a fillip to Soviet plot in Asia. Thus she concluded a peace treaty with her war-time enemy Japan at a conference in San Francisco in September 1951 providing for a bilateral security arrangement. This arrangement was informally termed as the San Francisco System or the ‘hub-and-spoke’ system underlining a US centric pact with common geostrategic and security considerations of the US and Japan. Soon the system expanded throughout the region with similar agreements, termed as mutual defence treaties, concluded between the US and the countries of the region- from South Korea in the north to Australia and New Zealand in the south (ANZUS) and Thailand in the west to the Philippines in the east (SEATO). In this way the USheld a dominant position in the Pacific waters during the cold war periodso as to handle China and the Soviet and also North Korea, the common factor binding all the US-allies. The key feature of the San Francisco System was the right granted to the US for basing operations in and regular consultations with the allied countries of the region. Thus the US had bases in South Korea and Japan in the north and the Philippines and Australia in the south. And it was a welcome arrangement for the host countries who, afraid of the internal communist menace and their external supporters, took refuge under the US protection umbrella. Such an arrangement was helpful for the US during the Vietnam War when almost 60,000 Australian soldiers took part in the US-led decade long bloodbath. That was the era of fighting the communist ‘peril’.

Things took a new turn in the post-cold war period with the Philippines Government, under pressure from the Senate, asked the US to withdraw from the Subic Bay in the early 1990s. However, no other country of the region followed suit. On the contrary they wanted the US to stay back. Why did the San Francisco System continue in the post-cold war era? The simple reason was the China factorwhich bothered the Asian allies during the cold war period. China being a bigger concern for East Asia, now familiar withher assertive character depicted in the South China Sea region in the 1990s, the US was considered vital to balance the emerging Asian giant. The San Francisco System now became China-oriented in the post-cold war period. On the other hand, the dependence on guaranteed US protection, did not encourage the US allies of East Asia and the Pacific to invest much in their defence, apart from the economic considerations, weakening their defence power in any case. And with the growing might of China, the dependence grew. Also, the US realized the continued importance of the System in order to maintain her geostrategic dominance amidst rising Chinese challenge in the region reflected in Barack Obama’s Asia Pivot policy.
But, as the saying goes, there are no permanent friends or enemies, only permanent interests.
The enthroning of the Trump administration in Washington in 2016 turned a new chapter in the global geostrategic network so diligently knitted by the US since 1945. Riding on the ‘America first’ policy, the American government under President Donald Trump is now vocal against the ‘US taken advantage of’ by her allies. President Trump has termed military exercise with South Korea unnecessary and ‘a waste of money’ and even questionsthe fairness of Washington’s defence pact with Japan. His North Korea policy also seems to side-line Japan whose national interestis integral to any development in the Korean Peninsula. Nonethelessit has not beenaone way street. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s scurrilous innuendos against President Obama followed by his instruction to the US forces to ‘pack up and leave’ his country in 2016 cast shadow over the San Francisco System in the new century. To add to this is his continuous inclination towards China notwithstanding internal displeasure, brushing territorial disputes under the carpet. Although it is too early to prophesy the demise of the System, things may not be the same again. The System is being challenged from within. The mercurial Donald Trump and his ‘America first’ policy has made his country unreliable to her decades-old allies, globally. To add to the mayhem is his trade war strategy which is encouraging two US allies, South Korea and Japan, to follow suit against each other. With China craving for military might so as to displace the US in East Asia and the Pacific regionif not the larger Indo Pacific (there is a growing opinion that the US is ill-prepared to challenge the Chinese in the Indo-Pacific), the traditional US allies are in a dilemma. At a time, when economically China is indispensable, they cannot afford to overlook US’ protection guarantee, yet are unsure of any guarantee.Besides, they are not in favour of any zero sum game either, unlike the cold war period. They are looking for a middle path as well asself-reliance in defence, at least, in case of Australia where Hugh White’s recent book How to Defend Australia has reignited the debate whether the country needs nuclear arms for self-defence amidst ‘big strategic shifts in Asia’.

The new Asia Pacific of the twenty-first century seems to veer away from the old US-centric order, expressed in terms of ‘us v/s they’. There is a need to balance and contain, rather than confront China today. On the other hand, the policy of the Trump government to redirect American policy in East Asia by befriending North Korea (keeping China in mind?) even downplaying its missile tests, which make its neighbours jittery, the growing unreliability of US protection guarantee (which is not exclusive to the Trump administration and can continue after him) and most importantly the almost certainty of China replacing the US as a dominant Pacific power in near future—all seem to indicate the demise of the San Francisco System of the cold war era. The unpredictability of the US, the developingSouth Korea-Japan rivalry in an era of ultra-nationalism threatening US alliance and facilitating a rethink about China as asuccour or a nightmare,in sum,are impeding collective actions under the old San Francisco System.

Subhadeep Bhattacharya
Adjunct Researcher
AGA