The cement is hardly dry on a new policy to forge new Asia-Pacific alliances, and already the endeavor is coming across as a collection of incoherent contradictions. Consider:
*We say we want to build closer ties with China, but our two leading presidential candidates are making political hay out of its trade and industrial policies at just the moment Beijing is struggling to maintain economic growth. President Obama has filed two cases against China at the World Trade Organization in the last two months, one of them just last week. They are both intended as vote-getters in the auto-industry states; neither is expected to make much practical difference.
*We assure the Chinese that America’s new “pivot” to Asia and the Pacific is not aimed at a rising China, but we are forging new defense ties that are clearly intended to make a ring around the mainland. The latest efforts involve docking reciprocity with New Zealand naval vessels and training and military exchange programs with Myanmar (formerly Burma). Look at a map. Myanmar provides China’s southwestern provinces with strategically vital sea access. Would the U.S. like the People’s Liberation Army soldiers training in Mexico?
*Most immediately and explosively, we are standing at the edge of a territorial dispute between China and Japan that could involve American military action if it gets much further out of hand. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta tried to play the honest broker when he visited Tokyo and Beijing last week. The fact is the U.S. is legally bound by the U.S.–Japan Security Treaty to defend Japan in any attack on territory it holds.
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