How to Spark a War in Asia

Ted Galen Carpenter

Security, Asia

Both Washington and Beijing need to prevent their allies from creating security crises.

A major challenge for a great power is preventing allies and client states from creating unwanted security crises. No matter how close or friendly an ally might be, it has its own policy agenda, and that agenda may differ from that of its great power protector. Failure to rein in a client can be calamitous. Serbia’s pursuit of a stridently nationalist parochial agenda against Austria-Hungary in the years before World War I, for example, was a major factor in eventually entangling its patron, Russia, in the conflict.

Both the United States and China need to be cognizant of this danger as they conduct their overall policies in East Asia. North Korea’s provocative and disruptive behavior, especially Pyongyang’s multiple ballistic missile and nuclear tests, highlights the problem for Beijing. Chinese officials appear increasingly frustrated as their North Korean “ally” seems determined to engage in such conduct despite China’s pleas, requests, and warnings to refrain. It would not be surprising if apprehension is rising in Chinese leadership circles that Kim Jong-un’s regime might do something truly reckless that triggers a war on the Korean Peninsula. The problem is that unless Beijing is willing to adopt draconian measures, such as cutting off North Korea’s food and energy supplies, the influence it can exercise over its rambunctious ally is decidedly limited.

The United States faces somewhat more subtle dangers with two of its allies in East Asia, but the dangers are still very real. Taiwan is one of those allies--or more accurately a protectorate under the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act. U.S. officials had become accustomed to cooperative behavior from Taipei during the eight-year administration of Kuomintang President Ma Ying-jeou. Ma went out of his way to placate Beijing and always kept Washington in the loop regarding various initiatives.