If the United States attempts to limit or manage China’s expansion in the Asia-Pacific, then fails to back up its demands, it risks losing credibility in that region as it has in the Middle East , Sen. Sullivan, (R-Alaska), a Senate Armed Services Committee member, said Thursday.
Sullivan, a former Marine, said that while the U.S. military’s credibility in the Middle East is “in tatters,” many Asian nations hold it in high regard and have mirrored the U.S. pivot to the Pacific with their own overtures to greater cooperation with the United States.
“In my opinion there will be instances in the future where we will have Syria, redline-type incidents that will undermine our credibility” in the Asia-Pacific, Sullivan said, speaking Thursday at a forum hosted by the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C.
He was referring to President Barack Obama having called the Syrian government’s use of chemical weapons in the civil war there a “red line” that must not be crossed, then failing to act when Syrian President Bashar Assad called his bluff by unleashing sarin gas on Syrian civilians. A similar situation could arise in the Pacific if the United States were to give China an ultimatum about its expansionism in the South China Sea, Sullivan said.
Both Japan and South Korea have committed billions of dollars for U.S. military construction in those nations and on Guam, Sullivan said. Of the $38 billion slated for base construction and troop presence there, $31 billion is coming from the non-U.S. partners, he said. The two nations have pledged $3 billion for construction of military infrastructure on Guam, which is U.S. soil.
“I’d say that an indication of a pretty strong alliance,” Sullivan said.
John Bolton, senior fellow at AEI and former permanent U.S. representative to the United Nations, agreed, saying the United States–through vigilant policing of maritime trade and international disputes–is seen by many nations as the guarantor of a peaceful and prosperous future for all in the nation.
“The U.S. still has a huge number of allies in the Asia-Pacific,” Bolton said. “And they see the United States as the key nation in the region.”
China would like to assume that role, but has not dealt with clear and present dangers like the one posed by North Korea, he said.
Nearly 90 percent of North Korea’s energy comes from China, as well as dearly needed food supplies and other goods it cannot produce for itself. Using those handouts as leverage, China could coerce North Korea to abandon its nuclear programs but has made no such move, Bolton said.
“The basic problem lies in Beijing,” he said. “They are saying one thing an doing another…sowing the seeds for a much more difficult relationship in the coming decades. China has clearly allowed this [North Korean] nuclear program to proceed where they can stop it.”
China is accused of the same duality in regards to its perceived encroaching on fishing grounds and other resources in portions of the South China Sea claimed by other Asian Nations including Vietnam and Taiwan.
China has used its coast guard to expand its territorial claims in the South China Sea, as well as manufacturing islands to artificially broaden the reach of its fishing fleets, coast guard and navy. China claims historical sovereignty over much of the South China Sea and that its expansion there is legal. While much of the world assumes China will grow peacefully and become a steward of the region’s resources in league with its neighbors in the Pacific. Bolton said its behavior is patently bellicose.
“That is the happiest view of China’s policies, but it is not the only scenario and, I think, not the most likely,” Bolton said. “China is pursuing a host of policies that are completely contrary to the notion of a peaceful rise and is hardly behaving like a responsible stakeholder in the region.”
Sullivan called for a creation of a long-term strategy to rebuild the U.S. military’s atrophied powers of deterrence in the Pacific, to counter China’s potential aggression but also to contain and possibly dismantle the North Korean regime.
“North Korea has not been the focus of much discussion and it’s a huge challenge,” Sullivan said. “It is the biggest humanitarian catastrophe in the world and it always gets overlooked.”
Beyond the goal of eventually achieving the peaceful reunification of the Korean peninsula, Sullivan said the Obama administration has no strategy to deal with the rogue North Korean regime. Bolton said the North Korean military is pursuing missile technology capable of delivering a nuclear warhead to the U.S. West Coast. North Korean also is intent on sharing its nuclear knowledge and materials with Iran, he said.
“Obama has not pursued a strategy at all regarding the North Korea nuclear program, which has been proceeding all along,” Bolton said. “We have every reason to believe that the cooperation between Iran and North Korea on missile technology also applies to the nuclear area.”