Chapter 5 Neither In Nor Out:Regionalism and the Ambivalent US Role in the Struggle for a New East Asian International Order

Abstract

About thirty years after the downfall of the Soviet-led comm-unist bloc,the US-led Western liberal order as it had since been spreading across the globe,is now seen as coming to an end,and faces challenges with rapid socio-economic and political changes in the Asia-Pacific region.This study examines the role of the US in East Asian regional initiatives to create multilateral institutions and cooperative frameworks for the building of a new order.When and how has the US provided support,active or passive for East Asian regional cooperation? Based on an analysis of three cases,we find that US policymakers’ ambivalent,if not opposing,stance toward East Asian initiatives,combined with their reluctance to take the lead in establishing alternative frameworks,has thwarted the establishment of new regional institutions.Hence,we argue that the stability of international order and the East Asian order in particular will depend on US policymakers’ active and constructive engagement with multilateral regional initiatives,and on East Asian states coming together for enmeshing rising and declining great powers.

About the authors

Nicole Jenne is an Assistant Professor at the Pontificia Univer-sidad Católica de Chile,Institute of Political Science,and a researcher at the Centre for Asian Studies (CEAUC) of the same university.She holds a PhD in International Relations from the European University Institute.Nicole's research and teaching interests are in the fields of International Relations theory,interstate conflict,regional security and the role of the military in contemporary inter-national security,with a geographical focus on Latin America and the Asia Pacific.Amongst her recent publications are “Peacekeeping,Latin America and the UN Charter's Chapter VIII”,International Peacekeeping26(3),2019,and “When conquest would have paid:domestic mobilization and political constraints in the Thai-Cambodian border conflict 2008-2011”,Global Change,Peace & Security30(1),2018.

Dr.Christian Wirth is a Research Fellow at the GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies and an Adjunct Research Fellow at the Griffith Asia Institute.He previously held positions with the Swiss Federal Government and taught at Sophia,Tohoku and Leiden Universities.His research interests focus on manifestations of knowledge and power structures in the maritime sphere and the conse-quences of socio-economic change for state legitimacy.Dr. Wirth's recent publications include the monograph Danger,Develo-pment and Legitimacy in East Asian Maritime Politics:Securing the Sea Securing the State(Routledge,2018),and the journal articles “Emotions,International Hierarchy,and the Problem of Solipsism in Sino-US South China Sea Politics”,International Relations(2019); “Whose ‘Freedom of Navigation’? Australia,China,the United States,and the Making of Order in the ‘Indo-Pacific’,”The Pacific Review (2018),and “Securing the Seas,Securing the State:Hope,Danger and the Politics of Order in the Asia-Pacific”,Political Geography(2016).

Introduction