| 摘要 | In direct violation of international law, China recently installed antiaircraft and other short-range defensive weapons systems on all of its claimed artificial islands in the South China Sea. On three of the seven features, China is now building structures apparently designed to house long-range surface-to-air missiles.
Beijing’s actions are part of a coercive pattern of tactics designed to enforce its claims to sovereignty over most of the South and East China Seas. In recent months, China seized a U.S. Navy underwater drone operating in international waters, sent increasing numbers of coast-guard ships into Japanese territorial waters around the Senkaku Islands and sailed its aircraft carrier on its longest-ever voyage into the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait to demonstrate growing naval power.
Elsewhere in the region, Beijing has intensified diplomatic pressure on South Korea over its decision to deploy an antiballistic-missile system to defend against North Korean weapons. It stepped up military exercises around Taiwan, struck an arms deal with the Philippines—a longstanding U.S. ally whose current president is signaling a turn toward Beijing—and deepened its military relationship with Malaysia.
These events reaffirm the critical importance of continued U.S. engagement in the Asia-Pacific region, promoted in recent years by the “pivot to Asia” strategy. Strong military, economic and diplomatic engagement with the region is essential to preserving stability and protecting U.S. interests.
Announced by President Barack Obama in 2011 but building upon several Bush-era initiatives, the pivot strategy is intended to defend the “rules-based international order” in the Asia-Pacific region. It has featured several tangible steps: shifting military forces to the region, establishing new basing and access arrangements, participating in more multilateral institutions, building bilateral diplomatic relationships (most notably with Burma and Vietnam), and pursuing stronger trade relationships.
In response, most regional governments have welcomed the strategy and, to varying degrees, enabled each of these efforts. Outside of China, the pivot has been highly popular in opinion polls of regional experts.
In sharp contrast, China’s efforts to shape the future of the Asia-Pacific region have often been unilateral and contrary to international norms. For example, China claims nearly the entire South China Sea, reclaimed 3,200 acres of new land over an 18-month period, has sought to divide its rival claimants by insisting all disputes be resolved bilaterally, and ignored the July 2016 United Nations arbitral tribunal ruling in which its expansive claims were rejected. It has also unilaterally imposed an air defense identification zone in the East China Sea, in contravention of established norms.
China blames the pivot strategy for destabilizing the region. But China’s coercive activities predated the pivot: its leaders have long taken a conditional approach to the rules-based international order and made clear their dislike for the U.S. regional military presence. Without the pivot, Beijing may have acted even more aggressively.
The U.S. approach is vastly preferable to one based on “spheres of influence,” in which powerful states exert their will and disregard fair practices, especially given the extent of China’s ambitions in the region. In the Asia-Pacific region, the creation of a Chinese sphere of influence would compromise the right of the U.S. to trade and travel through the area, undermine America’s economic interests, threaten America’s treaty allies and inevitably generate further challenges that could not be ignored and would tend to draw the U.S. into escalating armed conflict.
Today, the pivot faces some difficult challenges. On the military front, U.S. allies are concerned about the impact of past U.S. defense-budget cuts and the future of cost-sharing agreements. In diplomatic terms, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s apparent gravitation toward Beijing will require skillful management. On the economic front, countries in the Asia-Pacific region are unsettled by the U.S. withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement.
The appropriate response to these challenges is not a reduced American presence but an enhanced one. New economic arrangements that deepen the connection between the U.S. and the countries of the region, while clearly serving the interests of all parties, including the U.S., must be a priority.
Eliminating the current caps on defense spending and expanding the size of the U.S. Navy, as desired by the Trump administration, would send an important signal about U.S resolve while enhancing America’s military capabilities. The U.S. must continue to strengthen its alliances with Australia, Japan, Korea, New Zealand and the Philippines, and upgrade relationships with important partners such as Taiwan.
Meanwhile, the U.S. should continue to build these bilateral relationships into a more powerful multilateral network, an important recent undertaking of the Defense Department. With a new Congress and administration, the pivot may change names, but its objectives remain as important as ever to U.S. security and America’s economic future. |
