Senior officials from China, South Korea and Japan will soon meet in Tokyo to try to establish a more formal relationship, replete with security and economic benefits. Informal talks had already been held between China and Japan, so it appears the two found enough to agree on in principle to proceed to the next level. In practice, it’s unclear what a partnership entails. Japan has said it wants to increase agriculture exports to China and to force North Korea to abandon its nuclear program. Naturally, the latter point brought South Korea into the talks.
Beijing is in a dangerous geopolitical position. The emerging U.S.-Russia entente leaves China in an isolated position at a time when its economy has weakened dramatically. Contrary to appearances, Russia and China have never been truly aligned. Russia has been a threat to China throughout history, and several wars have been fought between them. Not even the commonality of communism could unite them. Under Mao, China was outright hostile to Russia, which it accused of betraying communism during the Khrushchev era.
Geopolitically, Mao worried that a U.S.-Russia detente would preface a joint policy against China. So when Henry Kissinger visited China to open relations in the 1970s, heavy fighting broke out along the Russia-China border – a significant row that lasted several months. Russia meant for the attack to pose as a warning to China about what could happen if its relationship with the U.S. threatened Russian interests. China understood it as such.
China opened diplomatic relations with the United States shortly thereafter in a move that would prove critical to China’s eventual emergence as a global power. The Chinese economy was in shambles at the time of Mao’s death. His successor, Deng Xiaoping, passed a series of reforms that resurrected the Chinese economy, thanks in no small part to the U.S., which first allowed Chinese products into its massive market and later invested heavily in Chinese industry.
The problem was that this was not a sustainable process. China’s meteoric rise was accompanied by a commensurate surge in military power. And under President Xi Jinping, China’s rhetoric toward the U.S. has tended to be more hostile the worse the economy is. This rhetorical hostility, coupled with the post-COVID-19 economic downturn, has led to declining levels of U.S. investment in China, as well as to capital flight, which has triggered crises in banking and the economically vital real estate industry.
Meanwhile, China’s relationship with Russia stayed mostly the same. It didn’t see Moscow as a threat, but neither did it see it as an economic savior. China’s stance on the Ukraine war could be described as rigorously neutral; rather than siding with Russia after the invasion, it abstained from the United Nations vote to denounce it. China sold weapons to Russia but never deployed troops.
It’s possible that this status quo could change. For China, even the prospect of reconciliation between the U.S. and Russia is a nightmare. A two-pronged threat from Russia and the U.S. would put China in an untenable position, and because the extent of the possible reconciliation is unknown, China has to act fast. Thus followed the Chinese initiative to form an Asian security and economic bloc.
Japan and South Korea are military allies of the U.S., and both sides want to maintain the arrangement. China cannot join a bloc with Japan and South Korea without abandoning its military posture – including dropping its bluff to invade Taiwan. But with a possible U.S.-Russia entente, China’s future becomes uncertain, and being in a security relationship with two of the United States’ closest allies may make China much safer than without. And this is to say nothing of the economic opportunities that would be available to China from its new partners.
I have consistently written that, despite its gigantic military, China is not much of a military threat to the U.S. (So far, I’ve been right.) And a formal Asian grouping might soften the U.S. position on China. So unless South Korea and Japan want to fully break with the U.S. and become completely dependent on China for their defense, the U.S. has nothing to lose. In a best-case scenario, Japan and South Korea could have a moderating effect on China, since challenging the U.S. would put both countries at risk.
Tellingly, Chinese Premier Li Qiang, who had not met with U.S. business leaders for two years, met with a delegation led by U.S. Senator Steve Daines that included the heads of Boeing, Qualcomm, Pfizer and Cargill. He did not meet with corporate heads of any other countries. A close Trump ally, Daines is on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and has done extensive business in China. The meeting might have been driven by China’s fears over U.S. tariffs, or it might be a sign that Japan and South Korea are less motivated by forging a local arrangement and more by moving into a different relationship with the United States.
To be sure, nothing could come from the meeting in Tokyo. There is tension between the U.S. and its Asian allies: Japan has resisted U.S. demands to increase military spending, and South Korea resents being designated a “sensitive nation” – that is, a nation engaged in nuclear weapons development. And diplomatic actions are just gestures. Still, even gestures can have significant meanings. In this case, they suggest China has been forced to reconsider its geopolitical imperatives and move closer to the U.S. Either way, it’s further evidence that in an unanchored world, countries are searching for an anchor.
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