Great states, wrote US scholar Edward Luttwak, commonly suffer from a condition known as ‘great state autism’: an insensitivity to the feelings and views of other states. Luttwak argued that nowhere was this condition stronger than in China, where he thought the Chinese Communist Party’s lack of domestic political legitimacy bred an overwhelming focus on the security of the Party.
The USS Ronald Reagan, USS Theodore Roosevelt and USS Nimitz strike groups transit the western Pacific with ships from the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force during operations in international waters as part of a three-carrier strike force exercise, 12 November 2017 (Photo: Mass Communications Specialist Anthony Rivera/US Navy).
It appears that China’s greater assertiveness in its international relations — in particular its island building in the South China Sea — has provoked the beginnings of a balancing coalition. In this case, that coalition would be the proposed Quadrilateral Security Dialogue between Japan, India, the United States and Australia. Reports suggest that it may have its first meeting on the sidelines of this year’s ASEAN summit season.
One of Australia’s most articulate proponents of the ‘Quad’ is Peter Varghese, a former senior bureaucrat of Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. In a recent speech, Varghese endorsed a ‘balance of power’ system in Asia and described India and Japan as natural balancers of China due to their history and geography.
While Varghese was careful to stipulate that the Quad should neither be a formal military alliance nor be aimed at China, the risk remains that future governments and leaders who are less nuanced in their policymaking than Varghese will take it in precisely those directions.
While there are profound differences between now and the era of great power rivalry that preceded World War One — most notably the proscribing of force as a legitimate tool of statecraft and the existence of multilateral security institutions — it would be unwise to not consider the parallels.
Europe was fissured into two alliance systems: the Triple Entente of Britain, France and Russia and the Triple Alliance of Prussia, Austria-Hungary and Italy. It was the hardening of these alliance blocs as well as the conduct of so-called secret diplomacy that fostered such intense distrust between Europe’s great powers before the outbreak of war.
China’s recent actions have fed the various security pathologies and anxieties of the Quad states: India’s residual distrust stemming from its 1962 border war with China, Japan’s fear of Chinese revanche over World War Two grievances, the United States’ fear of relative decline and Australia’s perennial anxiety as a sparsely populated nation with populous northern neighbours.
China’s conversion of three South China Sea islands into military airbases has brought Chinese forces 1100 kilometres closer to Australia. It is this along with China’s increasing use of its economic might to dominate the ASEAN region that has most triggered Australia’s latent anxieties.
But has there been an overreaction? Analysis suggests the military value of China’s islands in the South China Sea may be marginal.
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