The guided missile cruiser USS Bunker Hill anchors in Manila Bay, the Philippines, May 15, 2011

The governments of the Philippines and the United States are in talks about expanding the American military presence in the island nation. The renewed commitment is part of a comprehensive effort on the part of the Obama Administration to firmly establish America as a Pacific power.

Among the options to bolster America’s alliance with the Philippines are deploying more troops to the islands on a rotational basis and operating United States Navy ships from Philippine ports. Some six hundred Special Forces already operate in the Philippines in assistance of local counterinsurgency efforts.

A future agreement would follow the basing of US Marines in northern Australia and the stationing of warships in the port of Singapore. The United States have also reached out to Thailand and Vietnam to discuss military cooperation. It is all part of an effort to back up President Barack Obama’s words with action. He insisted last November that, “The United States is a Pacific power and we are here to stay.”

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has earlier declared stability in Southeast Asia to be of “national interest” to the United States, a claim that drew a fierce rebuke from the Chinese who argued that “China is a big country and other countries are small countries and that is just a fact.”

It’s because of China’s emergence as an economic superpower and regional hegemon that other countries in East Asia welcome America’s security presence to provide balance.

Especially in the South China Sea region, revisionist Chinese border claims have antagonized its neighbors and the United States alike. Both recognize the importance of safeguarding free shipping though this strategically positioned body of water. Officials in the Philippines acknowledged that their priority is to strengthen maritime ties with the Americans to dissuade Chinese saber rattling to their west.

American attempts at mediation have so far failed to significantly change Chinese behavior and may be unlikely to. The country is facing major demographic challenges as well as resource and water scarcities well into the twenty-first century, compelling it to ensure a favorable balance of power in its vicinity and a foothold in Africa and Central Asia where there are natural riches to be secured.

This could pose a threat to the sovereignty and security of China’s neighbors if Beijing is unwilling to share the role of security provider in East Asia with the United States.

The Americans currently have several tens of thousands of troops stationed across East Asia, in Guam, Japan and South Korea.

This article also appeared in The Seoul Times, January 28, 2012.

President Ma Ying-jeou of the Republic of China in Taipei, February 26, 2008 (Daniel M. Shih)

Taiwan’s presidential candidates tried to rally support on Friday ahead of a vote that could impact the island’s foreign policy with regard to China and so, by extension, its relations with the United States.

Although the elections are mostly about economic issues, with the incumbent pointing at Taiwan’s solid growth rate last year and relatively low unemployment and his challenger citing mounting income disparity, Saturday will also be a referendum on the president’s conciliatory China policy.

Ma Ying-jeou, chairman of the Kuomintang Party, has tied the island’s economy ever closer to China’s. He welcomed Chinese tourists to Taiwan and enacted a free trade agreement with the mainland in 2010 that reduced or eliminated tariffs on hundreds of goods. Most of Taiwan’s $124 billion worth of exports to China last year were electronic goods but there has been upsurge in agricultural sales across the Strait as a result of the tariff reductions.

China has entertained Ma’s overtures with largesse because it would rather have the Kuomintang in power than Tsai Ing-wen’s Democratic Progressive Party which is left of center but more adamant about Taiwanese independence.

Tsai has accused the president of undermining Taiwan’s de facto independence in favor of economic ties with the mainland. She has moved to the center in recent days to convince voters that she’s not a hardliner but China regards her election prospects warily nevertheless, especially after the United States announced a “pivot” to East Asia in order to contain China’s rise.

The Chinese still think of Taiwan as a renegade province. After the communists defeated the nationalist Kuomintang in China’s civil war in 1949, the party fled to Taiwan where it established a Republic of China that, until the early 1970s, was recognized as the true China by the United States.

The Americans remain Taiwan’s most important security partners up to this very day although there are voices in Washington calling for a suspension in military aid to the island in favor of more stable relations with the mainland.

The Obama Administration last year conceded to Chinese pressure when it canceled a fighter plane sale to Taiwan while the country had scheduled to retire some 70 percent of its fighter fleet over the course of this decade. China has significantly enhanced its air and missile strike capabilities at the same time, causing a security imbalance to develop across the Taiwanese Strait that America is unlikely to be able to mend with military force alone.

China seeks control of the Strait to enforce its claims to sovereignty over the South China Sea and keep foreign, i.e., American, naval forces out of that body of water. America isn’t giving up on Taiwan for this reason but has to pick its battles carefully as China emerges as the predominant power of East Asia. It may quietly hope for Ma’s reelection on Saturday and thus avoid a showdown with Beijing while a new generation of leadership prepares to take office there. It may see a need to assert itself in the face of what China perceives as Americans encroaching upon its natural sphere of interest. The question of Taiwanese independence would only complicate Sino-American relations while a fifth generation of leadership aims to consolidate power and authority in Beijing.

A similar dynamic plays out in the United States. President Barack Obama stands for reelection this year. If a shift in Taiwanese policy provokes a confrontation with China, that could leave him vulnerable to criticism from the Republican opposition that he’s “soft” on China whereas his challenger would vow to stand firm with America’s ally, Taiwan.

The Ronald Reagan Carrier Strike Group sails in formation with Indian warships during Exercise Malabar, October 22, 2008 (US Navy)

AirSea Battle is taking center stage in the emerging American Pacific regional military strategy. Now that the concept has acquired newfound fame, it has also similarly acquired enemies. Marine Corps War College Professor James Lacey is the latest to attack AirSea Battle as a operational concept elevated to strategy. Bryan McGrath of Information Dissemination has counterattacked in a recent blog post. But there’s the thing: what is AirSea Battle?

Unlike AirLand Battle, its Cold War namesake, AirSea Battle is not clearly defined in a doctrinal publication. There is no equivalent of FM 100-5: Blueprint for the AirLand Battle. AirSea Battle is a nebulous joint concept promoted in military journals, a paper by the Center for Strategic Budgetary Assessments looking at an operational solution for access problems in the Pacific, and a multiservice office. There’s also a Joint Operational Access Concept, which is not necessarily the same thing as an AirSea Battle concept.

So what is AirSea Battle? In the absence of any further information it is probably what its proponents say it is—a military operational concept for dealing with the ability of certain states and groups to prevent the United States from entering conflict areas. These groups use a variety of forms of standoff weaponry in both land, sea and air. While it is strongly suggestive that this concept does, in fact, refer to China, it should be observed that there are other maritime areas in which anti-access and area denial threats exist. AirSea Battle is not a strategy, and it is hard to find anyone who has referred to it as such.

There is, somewhat of a similarity to AirLand Battle in that putting both into operation puts some incongruities of policy into sharp relief. AirLand Battle leveraged emerging military capabilities for deep attack, such as the Assault Breaker and Follow-On Forces Attack, just as AirSea Battle would presumably benefit from increased investment in long range strike across longer operational distances.

But lost in AirLand Battle nostalgia is the fact that it was necessitated by two unpleasant facts: overwhelming Soviet conventional superiority and the political (not necessarily military) desirability of a forward defense. And there was also the dicey matter of engaging in a massive conventional war with a nuclear power, a power that knew that we had previously refused to rule out first use of nuclear weapons to offset conventional weakness. AirLand Battle was the lynchpin of a potential military strategy of conventional defense in northeast Europe and a policy that Western Europe would be maintained free of Soviet expansion. But that military strategy was always precarious.

Similarly, AirSea Battle, at least in the Pacific, is part of an overall military strategy that supports the US policy goals of maintaining its own access to the maritime commons of East Asia and maintaining the balance that has allows the structured ambiguity of American, Chinese and Taiwanese understandings of the One China Policy to continue. Of course, given that the anti-ship missiles are themselves located deep inland and supported by C4ISR battle networks, the crux of AirSea Battle could hinge on striking both. It remains uncertain whether the United States would be realistically commit to such an escalation, or whether it would be wise.

Either way, much of the current debate about AirSea Battle is at this point either speculation or a proxy for a more existential battle in Washington: the Pentagon budget wars. The parameters of the concept will continue to evolve, unfortunately dating most writing on it (including this post, perhaps).

This article originally appeared at Asia Security Watch, December 22, 2011.

A group of American tanks prepares for a mock battle in the Republic of Korea, November 2, 1998

With the death of Kim Jong-il, the hermit state that is North Korea enters the unknown. Kim’s third and youngest son is slated to succeed him but it’s unclear whether the armed forces are prepared to accept his dynastic credentials.

The potential for conflict is high during this period of transition. The military could stage a crisis to prevent Kim Jong-un from assuming control if not the Great Successor himself, as he’s been dubbed by Korean state media, provokes a confrontation with the South and the United States in the process of consolidating power.

North Korea makes a habit out of staging crises if its regime is to assert itself internationally to bolster its legitimacy within. Last year alone, the North sank a South Korean corvette and bombarded a disputed island along the maritime border with the South. Its nuclear weapons program flies in the face of international pressure and sanctions which appear to have done little to alter the North’s behavior.

Roughly a quarter of the country’s annual economic output is devoted to defense. More than a million North Koreans are employed by the military. South Korea’s armed forces, by contrast, claim 4 percent of gross domestic product (although its economy is estimated to be more than two hundred times the size of the North’s) and it has 650,000 personnel in employ. In sheer numbers, including artillery, fighter planes and warships, the North’s army is nearly twice the size of the South’s but in terms of logistics and technology, the latter’s is far more advanced.

North Korea’s leaders may hope that their nuclear program gives them an edge over the South. Their ability to obliterate the capital city of Seoul, which is situated just forty kilometers off the demilitarized zone, with a single strike should deter American and Japanese intervention in the event of renewed hostilities, they could hope. This capacity is theoretical at best however given the difficulties that have plagued the North Korean ballistic missiles program.

The calculation is also misguided in that the United States, a nuclear power itself, would probably not be deterred from intervening if Pyongyang threatens to use atomic weapons. Nevertheless, if the calculation is made on the part of the North Korean leadership, it could easily induce them to initiate a war. The stated aim of keeping the country on a perpetual war footing, after all, is to eventually reunify the peninsula on North Korea’s terms.

Even if nuclear weapons aren’t deployed, Seoul could be leveled under a barrage of artillery charges, potentially with hundreds of thousands of casualties. On the North’s side of the demilitarized zone are stationed several hundred Soviet made tactical ballistic missiles, capable of delivering chemical agents, along with thousands of artillery pieces in hardened dugouts that can fire up to five hundred thousands rounds per hour. More than 70 percent of the North’s military manpower is located at the demilitarized zone. Tunnels are known to have been dug to facilitate an invasion.

Before North Korean tanks could start rolling south, the allied powers, certainly the United States, would have picked up on troop movements and prepared countermeasures. Air strikes against North Korean armor, artillery and military infrastructure would commence before there’s ever an invasion attempt.

North Korea’s air defenses are dense but obsolete. The Americans could probably fly stealth bomber missions from Guam without particular difficulty. The defense systems around Pyongyang are hardened but immobile, making them easy targets for bombardment. Other, purely military targets could be subject to cruise missile attacks launched from American destroyers and submarines based in the Pacific.

The generals in North Korea will be forced to implement their plans with haste if they aren’t to lose the war before it properly began. Artillery along the demilitarized zone will open fire on South Korean defensive lines and the city of Seoul, causing a flood of refugees that will complicate the South’s ability to stage an immediate defense.

After suffering heavy casualties while clearing the massive minefields that line the demilitarized zone on both sides, Northern troops will seek to overrun the South’s defenses within a matter of weeks, before American reinforcements can arrive. This is unlikely to succeed. Southern troops should be able to stave off a North Korean invasion while allied support pours in from Japan and across the Pacific.

The only option North Korea will have to tip the balance in its favor then is to deploy tactical nuclear weapons. Its mechanized divisions are no match for the superior South Korean tanks and what’s left of its air force after American bombardments will not turn the tide of the war. North Korea’s nuclear devices are few and primitive however and their use could prompt the United States to deploy nuclear weapons of their own, devastating the North Korean state.

The allies will manage to stop the Northern offensive, perhaps in less than two weeks, but that won’t be the end of it. American reinforcements and South Korean reserves will be called to battle to crush the North. On their march to Pyongyang, they will likely encounter fierce resistance from army remnants and citizen militias. North Korean’s mountainous terrain is unfavorable to an invasion attempt. On the allied side, the heaviest military casualties could be incurred during this phase when questions will be raised in the West about the need of reunifying the peninsula.

It’s also at this time that China will seek to involve itself in the situation for it cannot tolerate an American bulwark on the Manchurian border. If South Korea and the United States push for regime change in Pyongyang, that’s unlikely to sit well in Beijing where there may be no intention of aiding the North Koreans in a war of aggression but where there is still sympathy for the other communist state.

China won’t seek a direct confrontation with the allies but could move in forces of its own to contain the disorder, stem a North Korean refugee tide and signal to the world that it will not allow a reunification of the peninsula on anyone’s terms but its own.

Whatever China’s intentions, there will be a real threat of escalation if it, too, becomes part of the conflict. The risk of confrontation, accidental or staged by renegades, will remain extremely high until the two superpowers agree on a preferred outcome.

A Second Korean War, one that doesn’t morph into a Sino-American conflict, could be very costly in blood and treasure. When war seemed likely in 1994, it was estimated (PDF) that in the first ninety days of skirmishes, there would be more than fifty thousand American military personnel killed and wounded along with nearly five hundred thousand casualties on the South Korean side. Those numbers would probably have to be revised downward for a war almost twenty years later given the improvements in American and South Korean defense technologies but could increase exponentially if the North does go nuclear.

Kim Jon-un, heir apparent to the North Korean leadership, watches a mass games performance in Pyongyang, October 9, 2010 (AP)

North Korean state television announced the death of Supreme Leader Kim Jong-il on Monday and labeled his son, Kim Jong-un, “the great successor.”

The third and youngest son of North Korea’s former dictator is untested and relatively unknown. He came into the public spotlight in September of last year when his father appointed him vice chairman of the country’s Central Military Commission, one among a myriad of commissions and committees that helm the Stalinist hermit state.

Behind the scenes, the dead leader’s brother in law, Chang Sung-taek, has apparently assumed de facto control of the government since Kim Jong-il suffered a stroke in 2008. A technocrat educated in Russia during Soviet times, he is vice chairman of the National Defense Commission which commands the armed forces and could emerge as a regent while the younger Kim consolidates power.

The third Kim in a dynasty of Korean leaders inherits control of one of the poorest places on Earth. His people are undernourished, ever on the brink of starvation. Energy shortages are a common occurrence. North Korea maintains almost no trade relations with the rest of the world. Its regime is a pariah among nations, surrounded by adversaries in Japan and South Korea, both economic powerhouses and allied to the United States.

By keeping North Korea on a perpetual war footing, Pyongyang justifies spending a gargantuan share of its budget on the military—25 percent of annual economic output compared to just 4 percent in the South.

The alleged threat posed by America, Japan and their brethren in the South is artificially exacerbated every so many years by the North when it invents a crisis to affirm the legitimacy of the regime.

According to analysis from the geostrategic consultancy firm Wikistrat, recent acts of aggression, including the torpedoing of a South Korean corvette and the artillery barrage of a disputed island last year, suggested a determined effort to speedily credentialize Kim Jong-Un among the military leadership that controls much of the government, economy, and, most importantly, mineral exports to, and humanitarian aid from, patron China.

Internationally, however, these crisis coupled with the North’s renegade nuclear program, make it increasingly difficult for its one erstwhile ally to shield the regime from repercussions.

There is mounting discord among the Chinese leadership over how to cope with North Korea’s erratic behavior. On the one hand are hardliners who occupy prominent posts in the military and at Communist Party schools. They suspect that the United States are conniving to deceive China and keep it poor and see in the North a necessary buffer to prevent American troops, permanently stationed along the demilitarized zone, from reaching China’s border.

On the other side, internationally oriented bureaucrats, including many in the foreign ministry and banking sector, argue for peaceful ties with the West and have expressed growing puzzlement and anger about the North’s posturing.

The change of leadership that is expected to take place in China over the next couple of years could enhance or complicate Kim Jong-un’s ability to consolidate power. In an effort to bolster his credentials with the military and stave off the possibility of a coup, the new Kim could instigate crises or organize shows of force which could be interpreted by South Korea and Western powers as provocations, necessitating retaliation.

“Everybody,” Wikistrat predicts, “especially an incoming fifth generation of leadership in Beijing, will want to appear decisive because of the perceived precedent setting nature of the moment—namely, what it says about the future of US military hegemony in the region versus China’s potential for the same.”

China’s incoming leaders may well observe that an offensive on the part of the younger Kim serves their interests as it would force the United States to divert resources from other efforts in the region that limit China’s rise.

If rather they decide that it’s time for China to become the “responsible stakeholder” in international relations that the United States would like it to be, they could rein in the regime’s ability to stir crises but risk ultimately undermining its legitimacy if China suspends food and military aid.

This article also appeared in The Seoul Times, December 20, 2011.

The oil tanker Megalonissos, built in 2004 by Hyundai Heavy Industries at Ulsan, South Korea

For the second time in as many weeks, US officials attempted to sway South Korea’s stance on trade with Iran. Last week in Seoul, South Korea, Robert Einhorn, the US special advisor on nonproliferation and arms control, made it clear that the US hoped to see South Korea cut its petrochemical imports with the Middle Eastern nation, rallying them to consider an eventual reduction in their Iranian crude oil dependency, stopping short of a full recommendation:

“As production capacity increases, it would be possible for countries to reduce their purchases of Iranian crude and to make up the shortfall by acquiring from other countries,” Mr Einhorn said at a news conference. “But we’re very conscious of the energy security needs of countries like South Korea and we don’t want to interfere with those needs.”

Mr Einhorn’s words come only a few weeks after Wendy Sherman, US Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs and Albright/Clinton protégée/advisor, prodded similar action from the South Korean nation.

South Korea imported 350 million dollars of Iranian petrochemicals (2 percent of its total petrochem imports) and exported 450 million dollars of their own to Iran last year. A far higher ten percent of South Korea’s crude oil comes for Iran.

The recommendations by Einhorn and Sherman follow an all out diplomatic assault by the US State Department in recent weeks to shore up its Asian allies and freeze out its regional enemies, including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s recent trip to Myanmar (Burma), which promised improved ties with the repressive nation in exchange for concessions in reducing their North Korean weapons imports.

This author balks slightly on US diplomats’ heavy handed diplomacy in regards to what other nations should or should not do, but the following words are somewhat worrisome in light of Iran’s relationship with North Korea:

Last year, Seoul listed 126 Iranian companies and individuals for economic sanctions, including a major banking operation, in response to US and international pressure. Seoul is reportedly considering imposing sanctions targeting the petrochemical industry following the latest round of sanctions by Washington and other Western powers.

A 10 percent crude oil dependency is not easily shifted but it’s worth the Republic of Korea noting that Iran has been a major trading partner with North Korea in the realms of missile, nuclear and (apparently) submarine technologies for a good many years now.

Continuously waiting for US pressure to ponder sanctions in light of the above relationship is a strange move for a country trying to pry itself out from under America’s shadow but then so is trading with a country that’s helping the nation its still at war with.

This article originally appeared at Asia Security Watch, December 6, 2011.

President Barack Obama talks with his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao during the opening plenary session of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Honolulu, Hawaii, November 13

America’s unwillingness to sell fighter plans to Taiwan could herald a shift in balance across the West Pacific where China’s rise forces a realignment in American strategy.

The Obama Administration conceded to Chinese pressure in September when it announced that the United States would not meet a Taiwanese request for an F-16 weapons sale. The island nation’s existing fleet of fighter aircraft would be upgraded instead which will make them nearly as capable as the new models which Taipei had request. The upgrades, however, will not include improved engines which could make it more difficult for Taiwan to retire its older jets. Some 70 percent of its fighter inventory was supposed to be phased out this decade.

The Taiwanese air force operates 145 F-16s which, by the early 2020s, will average almost thirty years in service.

China, meanwhile, is building a fifth generation stealth fighter to match America’s newest planes and it has invested heavily in enhancing its missile strike capabilities. More than a thousand ballistic missiles are permanently aimed at Taiwan with a hundred added every year.

The United States are obliged by treaty to provide for Taiwan’s defenses. In the near future, neither of the two allies could bring enough fighters to battle to offset China’s quantitative superiority. The Americans simply don’t have enough planes stationed nearby, either in Japan or Taiwan, and could not dispatch a carrier in time to effectively repel a Chinese invasion attempt.

If the Chinese were to stage an invasion—however improbable that may seem—they would be able to obliterate the island’s fixed wing air power in a single strike. Before the United States could have a chance to intervene, China might be in control of Taiwan which would pose a serious dilemma to American policy makers—risk total war with China or give up a key ally in containing its rise in East Asia.

The risk of a Chinese attack may be considered low but is exacerbated by its potential success. Short of deploying military means though, Beijing is set to dominate Taiwan anyway and with it, it could compound the difficulty of maintaining American supremacy in the region.

Relations between Taiwan and the mainland have improved in recent years. More than a thousand commercial flights now take place between China and Taiwan every month and almost a third of Taiwanese exports are destined for the mainland. Although no meaningful progress has been made on deciding Taiwan’s status as either an independent polity or a “renegade” province one day to be reunited with China, strategic planners in Beijing can afford to focus less on recapturing the island and more on projecting Chinese power into the South China Sea. Its ability to back up its revisionist claims in the area will be harnessed as soon as it can deploy an aircraft carrier.

All other nations bordering the South China Sea oppose Chinese attempts to claim this vital body of water, through which passes roughly a third of all commercial maritime traffic worldwide and half of all hydrocarbons destined for Japan and Korea, entirely for itself.

The issue involves some two hundred islands and coral outcroppings. China insists that its exclusive economic zone extends far into the South China Sea which would entitle it to exploit natural riches there. Other countries, which challenge Chinese claims, look to the United States for protection.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared stability in the South China Sea region to be of “national interest” to the United States in July 2010. This stirred a rebuke from the Chinese who argued that “China is a big country and other countries are small countries and that is just a fact.”

It is. China’s unshakable and apparently selfish scramble for resources, whether it’s in Africa, Central Asia or the South China Sea region, is grounded in self preservation. China may be booming but it is already losing its cheap labor advantage to Southeast Asian competitors. Meanwhile, it faces a demographic challenge unparalleled in human history. By the middle of this century, four hundred million Chinese are expected to have retired. That’s more than America’s total projected population by that time.

Whether “small countries” in East Asia like it or not, China believes it has no choice but to secure resources abroad and safeguard maritime access to them. It has to plan for providing several hundreds of millions of seniors while erecting a twenty-first century industrial base that can compete with Korea and Japan. “This is just a fact.” American strategy will have to adjust to this reality.

Due to its sheer size and economic power, China will become a regional power if it isn’t already. The challenge from the perspective of the United States and its allies is not to prevent Chinese hegemony in East Asia but how best to cope with it.

That is why America cannot afford to give up on Taiwan although it cannot serve as a de facto American base eighty miles off China’s east coast anymore. Outright Chinese control of the island would allow Beijing to bolster its claims to sovereignty in the South China Sea and bar foreign military forces from crossing the Luzon Strait.

Direct defense of contested areas in the West Pacific will becoming problematic for the Americans in the near future and eventually nigh impossible. To compensate, strike range will have to increase. The emphasis must shift from prompt defensive measures and direct retaliation, such as dispatching a carrier strike force to the Strait of Taiwan in the case of an invasion, to escalatory options that could draw China and the United States almost in direct armed conflict.

Possible responses include denying Chinese maritime access to the Strait of Malacca, commercial and military, and striking against Chinese assets outside of the mainland. Making clear that an attack against an ally as Taiwan would be interpreted as an attack against the United States could deter Chinese aggression but would necessitate strikes against China proper in the event of hostilities. The question is whether Washington is willing to risk retaliation against the American homeland under such circumstances?

Perhaps the safest way for the United States to contain China to East Asia would be to improve the defense capabilities of its neighbors. Such a strategy could be interpreted in Beijing as an attempt to encircle China but would be the most effective deterrence against immediate Chinese expansionism.

This article also appeared in The Seoul Times, December 7, 2011.

President Barack Obama listens to President Hu Jintao of China at a G20 summit in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, September 25, 2009 (Getty Images)

The most reiterated soundbite that came out of this weekend’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Hawaii was President Barack Obama’s insistence that China behave like a “grown up.”

“Enough’s enough,” said the president. China should stop “gaming” the international system with its manipulative currency policy and sometimes arbitrary trade restrictions. “We’re going to continue to be firm that China operate by the same rules as everyone else,” he told reporters. “We don’t want them taking advantage of the United States.”

Obama’s Republican challengers for next year’s presidential election have mostly lambasted China as well for supposedly “stealing American jobs.” His rhetoric, unusually blunt, may have been intended for domestic consumption but China responded nevertheless by wondering aloud why it should abide by “rules” it had no part in writing.

China’s neighbors are likely to welcome Obama’s bold words because they fear Chinese hegemony in East Asia. Economically, countries ranging from traditional American allies like Japan and the Philippines to emerging markets as Indonesia and Vietnam are increasingly dependent on China but for security, they look to the United States for balance. President Obama reassured them last Saturday that, “The United States is a Pacific power and we are here to stay.”

His words echoed Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s assertion last year that stability in Southeast Asia is of “national interest” to the United States, a claim that was also rebuked by Beijing which argued that “China is a big country and other countries are small countries and that is just a fact.”

Especially in the South China Sea region, Chinese border claims have antagonized its neighbors and the United States alike which both recognize the importance of safeguarding free shipping though this strategically positioned body of water.

American attempts at mediation have not significantly affected China’s posture. It is facing major demographic challenges as well as resource and water scarcities well into the twenty-first century, compelling it to ensure a favorable balance of power in its immediate neighborhood and a foothold in Africa and Central Asia where there are natural riches to be secured.

This could be a threat to the sovereignty and security of China’s neighbors if Beijing is unwilling to share the role of security provider in East Asia with the United States.

In order to deepen America’s engagement in the region, the Obama Administration wants to become part of the Trans Pacific Partnership which seeks to eliminate all tariffs on imports and exports among Pacific nations by the middle of this decade.

To get in, China would have to foster more competition between private companies and its state owned monopolies, allow more foreign investment and improve protection of intellectual property rights. It has shown little progress on these fronts in recent years but if the rest of the region, including North and Latin American nations, were to become a free trade zone, that may encourage the Chinese to open up their economy at a faster pace to realize that free trade, not protectionism, is

Russian president Dmitry Medvedev meets with North Korea's Kim Jong-il, August 24

As democracy sweeps the streets of the Middle East, will the Arab spring move east and repeat itself in the last vestige of Stalinist communism that is North Korea?

The Institute of World Economy and International Relations, a Russian think tank, expects that it will. Their analysts predict that the regime in Pyongyang will collapse within the next two decades and that the two Koreas will ultimately be reunited. That may even be a cautious prediction given that the Arab spring managed to depose of longtime dictators in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia in a matter of months if not weeks.

That a Russian think tank should anticipate the demise of Kim Jong-il’s authoritarian state is ironic given that the North Korean leader visited Russia in August of this year to meet with President Dmitry Medvedev there. The trip was seen as an attempt on the part of the Koreans to fend off any Western hopes of intervention in the peninsula.

Although China, a veto wielding United Nations Security Council member, could prevent international military action against Pyongyang, it does fear an Iraq-style “coalition of the willing” strike against its nuclear bases. By inviting China and Russia to compete for a sphere of influence in the Korean Peninsula, the regime could hope to keep the Americans at distance. If their two main rivals decide to embroil themselves in the delicate balance of power of northeast Asia, there is no reason for the United States to get involved as well.

China historically enjoys considerable sway in Korean affairs. The peninsula was under Chinese influence for much of its modern history until 1895 when Japan conquered it. Japanese control didn’t end until after the Second World War in 1945 when Korea was split into two occupation zones with the Soviet Union administering the northern half and the United States the south. A joint American-Soviet trusteeship government never came into full effect. When the UN Security Council recognized South Korea but not the North in 1950, hostilities quickly ensued.

The North still relies heavily on Chinese support while nearly thirty thousand American troops are permanently stationed in the South up to this very day.

The Eastern Siberia-Pacific Ocean gas pipeline, which transports natural gas from Russia’s Irkutsk Oblast to Daqing in northeast China, gives Moscow a clear strategic interest in the area which, in turn, enables the North Koreans to balance against American and Chinese interference.

The question now is whether the Korean Peninsula will succumb to traditional greater power rivalry before a democratizing “spring” has a chance to blossom there.

Morning in Hanoi, Vietnam, September 2 (Huey Yoong)

As the Americans scramble for allies in the West Pacific to contain China’s rise, its once antagonist Vietnam could prove a tremendous asset.

Joel Kotkin and Jane Le Skaife of the conservative American Enterprise Institute suggest that “Vietnam has emerged as the un-China, a large, fast growing country that provides an alternative for American companies seeking to tap the dynamism of East Asia but without enhancing the power of a potentially devastating global competitor.”

Sino-Vietnamese relations haven’t much improved since the two countries briefly went to war in 1979. Border disputes and regional rivalry continue to be cause for mutual mistrust even as Vietnam joined in a free trade agreement with other Southeast Asian states and China in January of last year. Chinese revisionist maritime border claims in the South China Sea in particular are forcing other countries in the area to seek American protection.

Mere decades after end of the Vietnam War, relations between the country and the United States appear to be improving however. The two have staged naval exercises together and the Cam Ranh Bay naval base was opened to foreign warships last year. But perhaps the greatest thing tying America to Vietnam, write Kotkin and Le Skaife, is people.

After the communists took over South Vietnam in 1975, millions of Vietnamese fled overseas with the majority of them heading to Australia, Canada, France and the United States. Four million Vietnamese live abroad. Half of them live in America.

Vietnamese Americans have done well. Their income is on par with the national average and nearly 65 percent of them owns homes. “Vietnamese are also three times more likely to be in such fields as information technology, science, and engineering than other immigrants, and have one of the highest rates of naturalization—72.8 percent.”

This prosperous diaspora will prove a huge asset to the home economy as it’s moved away from central planning and is now open to international trade. Vietnamese exports have increased from about $5 billion to over $70 billion during the last three decades. America is by far Vietnam’s largest market with more than $10 billion in annual trade.

Despite the cautious liberalization, there are major impediments to growth. The regulatory framework for small businesses has improved but multinationals face import bans and restrictions as well excessive licensing requirements to do business in Vietnam. Foreign investment is either prohibited by the state or requires government approval, a process that is susceptible to bribery and cronyism. Property rights aren’t properly enforced.

On the upside, Vietnamese labor is cheap and 95 percent of Vietnamese are literate which gives the nation a huge edge over China. The government still owns entire industries but total public spending as a share of gross domestic product is less than 30 percent. Taxes and tariffs are low. Improvements are being made but need to happen faster if Vietnam is to capitalize on its demographic advantages in the decades ahead.