One of Monday's posts, Asian Artifacts of World War II, backgrounded the World War II and Cold War antecedents of the current Korean crisis, along with the continuing strain between Japan and Russia over possession of the Kuril Islands.
One more artifact of World War II concerns a concept rather than an actual issue or event. About l940, Japan, dependent upon imports of raw materials for its economic and military survival, developed the concept of a Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, to include Japan, China, Manchuria, and parts of southeast Asia. It envisioned an anti-colonialism, "Asia for the Asians" empire under Japanese control. It sought to establish such an economic/military empire primarily through force -- invasion and conquest. At the time the concept was developed, Japan already occupied Manchuria and the key coastal areas of China. To that it added southeast Asia, including the Dutch East Indies and the Philippines. But Co-Prosperity was one-way trade; take everything and ship it back to homeland Japan.
Of course that Co-Prosperity Sphere collapsed with the defeat of Japan in l945. But today we can see the resurrection of the concept, if not the name, although radically different in design and implementation.
The neo-Co-Prosperity Sphere is based on China's very aggressive economic investment strategy in significant areas of the same part of the world. The obvious difference from the Japanese use-of-force model is China's use-of-money strategy. China has and continues to invest heavily in development of the natural resources in the region, such as bauxite for aluminum in Cambodia, to guarantee its own economic development. Investments in extracting raw materials puts money into a country but does not contribute much to that country's own industrial development. But, while focusing on its own resource needs, China is also investing billions in infrastructure and job-creating activities in the region (as well as in other parts of the world). These latter forms of investments, such as manufacturing facilities in Vietnam, may increase further since China is discovering that labor costs in some parts of southeast Asia are even lower than its own cheap labor costs; that is, China is now exporting jobs.
Thus, China's investment strategy has two tracks. One is exploitive in the same way as the Japanese and the old colonialism approaches; take out the raw materials but leave little development behind. Second, invest in infrastructure and manufacturing facilities that aid China's own emerging economy as well as the less developed economies and thus contain a "Co-Prosperity" feature.
It must also be noted and stressed that this neo-Co-Prosperity Sphere has an important political component in that the economic relationships that have developed also provide a buffer zone to combat the U.S. strategic presence in the region through its military forces as well as alliances with countries such as Japan and South Korea. In a previous post, it was pointed out how during the Cold War the U.S. sought to contain Soviet Union expansion by encircling it with a series of military alliances stretching from Europe through southeast Asia. While these alliances, except for NATO, were ineffective as military deterrents, the idea of a new U.S. containment policy has not been lost on China. Some of China's investments in the region have created some problems between Beijing and host countries. But the growth of such investments continues, creating an economic interdependency that is difficult for the U.S. to match, and thus blunts any possible containment objective. As also noted in that previous post, the U.S. is making it clear to China and the periphery nations that the U.S. plans to maintain its strategic position in the Asia-Pacific area. This will be done through economic investments (public and private), although not equal to China's resources, and the continued presence of strong military forces in the region.
In sum, where the Japanese failed to realize their ambitions for a Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, China today appears to have adopted the concept, implicitly if not explicitly, with better success.
So, we're exporting jobs to China and China is exporting out its own jobs. It sounds like the economic interdependency is going to make that region pretty strong economically. The neo-Co-Prosperity Sphere differed from the original Japanese concept and is more successful. Is the new US containment policy different from the one instituted against the Soviet Union?
ReplyDeleteWhile it isn't really true, there's the old saying that when the tide's in, all boats rise. That's what the high Chinese tide is doing for some of the periphery countries, although like in the U.S. some boats rise and some don't regardless of how high the tide is. Most countries seem to have a permanent underclass that remains beached even while the rest are riding the waves.
ReplyDeleteTo the extent that we have a "containment" policy for China it is very different in that except for South Korea and Japan, there isn't a military component to it. What we seem to be doing is to simply tell the periphery countries that they don't have to become Chinese satellites; we have a continuing strategic interest in the region backed by sufficient force to give it meaning and we will continue to make public and private investments there.
I am wondering if the gain that the countries surrounding China are getting will be make them more loyal to China than anything the US can do. It seems like China is moving outside there sphere and expanding into other areas like Europe where they are bailing out countries in debt. Speaking of that, as an aside, I lost track of what happened in Ireland. China seems to becoming more and more of an economic force throughout the world.
ReplyDeleteI don't think it's a case of becoming "loyal" as much as one of mutual accomodation. For example, Vietnam has a long history of hostile relations with China and that is not likely to go away with the new economic relations. Another thing to be remembered is that the Chinese population is substantial in a number of southeast Asia countries and they tend to a part of the commercial community of these countries. Thus, there is some element of loyalty involved, but this is not the driving force of the relationship.
ReplyDeleteAs to Ireland, the Chinese are not yet involved in that bailout, although that could change if China decides to buy some outstanding Irish bonds. But for now the lead is being taken by the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund. They have put together the package that the Irish have agreed to. The Chinese strategy for European debt seems to be not to buy new bond issues but to purchase bonds already on the market (e.g. Greece) which in turn helps drive down the borrowing costs of the issuing countries.