Asia’s Lagging Leadership

By Robert Sutter

Robert Sutter (sutterr@georgetown.edu) teaches at the School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University. These findings are explained in The United States in Asia (Rowman and Littlefield 2008), where Sutter reviews interviews and consultations with 175 officials from 10 Asia-Pacific countries. He writes the chapter on China-Southeast Asia relations in Comparative Connections, the Pacific Forum CSIS quarterly ejournal on international relations.

Predictions of the 21st century as an Asian century led by burgeoning Asian economic, political, and military powers appear on course with the impressive and growing wealth and power of such rising Asian states as China and India, backed by the already well developed economies of Japan, South Korea, and others that used to be called newly industrialized countries. There also is a great deal of discussion regarding Asian nations asserting leadership in managing regional affairs through regional and sub-regional groups and other means, and thereby challenging and marginalizing the leading roles played by the United States and other world powers and institutions in Asian and world affairs. But the accomplishments are much more limited.

In fact, the record of demonstrated leadership by Asian governments in regional and world affairs seems much weaker than many pundits and commentators would have us believe. And the leadership role played by the United States in Asia does not appear to have been seriously diminished, despite the unpopularity of Bush administration policies, the many foreign policy and domestic problems in the United States, and the rising power of China, India, and other Asian states.

Many factors account for this apparent “leadership deficit” in Asia but close examination of regional dynamics reveals two salient reasons.

First, governments matter in Asia and Asian government officials tend to make the key decisions on whether to assert leadership in regional and world affairs, and other foreign policy questions. The officials are influenced by many forces, including the sometimes lofty ambitions of elite or popular opinion that urge the breaking away from existing power arrangements in favor of new arrangements providing a higher profile for their country.

However, Asian officials generally remain focused on pragmatic quests for effective nation building and preserving the narrow national interests of their countries that provide the foundation for their administrations’ legitimacy at home and abroad. These quests are complicated by forces of globalization and an uncertain security environment in Asia characterized by widespread wariness among Asian states. They also are complicated by internal problems that have led to periodic political gridlock and governance crises among many of Asia’s leading states.

Against this background, Asian government leaders have remained focused on fostering the development and national interests of their countries and generally have eschewed major commitments in managing Asian and world affairs that would involve significant costs and risks to their national development and interests. Even rising China, seen as Asia’s leading power, continues to carefully avoid unwanted risks, costs, and commitments, notably through its “win-win” diplomacy. This foreign policy approach allows China to cooperate with others on existing common ground. With a few exceptions, China does not require others to do things they wouldn’t ordinarily do, and China does not do things (that would involve significant risks, costs, and commitments) it wouldn’t ordinarily do.