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In Search of the Indo-Pacific: Commentary from 2018 IISS Shangri-La Dialogue

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Donald K. Emmerson
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The 2018 IISS Shangri-La Dialogue was held in Singapore, June 1-3. Shorenstein APARC's Donald Emmerson was in attendance; some of his observations from the the 17th Asia Security Summit are provided below.

NOTE: This post is forthcoming from YaleGlobal.

 

The 2018 Shangri-La Dialogue on 1-3 June in Singapore might as well have been renamed the “Indo-Pacific Dialogue.” In the plenaries and the panels, in the Q&As, corridors, and coffee breaks, not even the imminent Trump-Kim summit hosted by Singapore could compete with the “Indo-Pacific” among the attendees. Although the toponym itself is old, its sudden popularity is new, reflecting new geopolitical aspirations for the region. 
 
What explains the latest revival and rise of the “Indo-Pacific” in the international relations of Asia? What does the term now mean, and why does it matter?  In March, China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi dismissed the “Indo-Pacific” as “an attention-grabbing idea” that would “dissipate like ocean foam.”  Is he right?  And is the “Indo-Pacific” purely maritime, or does it have legs on land as well?  Is the strategy Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s way of labeling his shift from “looking east” to “acting east” – and perhaps his hope of looking and acting westward past Pakistan toward Africa as well?  Does the term frame a potential rival to China’s 21st Century Maritime Silk Road?  Is it an American rebranding of former President Barack Obama’s “pivot” or “rebalance” toward Asia?  In the “Free and Open Indo-Pacific” that Washington favors, what do the adjectives imply?  Is the “Indo-Pacific” a phoenix – a Quadrilateral 2.0 meant to reunite Australia, India, Japan and the US in leading roles?  Could the strategy someday morph into a five-sided “win-win” arrangement with “Chinese characteristics”? 
 
Understandably, the officials who spoke at Shangri-La preferred not delve into such controversial and speculative questions. Satisfactory answers to some of them are not possible, let alone plausible, at least not yet. But the dialogue, a summit on Asian security, did stimulate thought and discourse about just what the “Indo-Pacific” means, for whose purposes, and to what effect.
 
It is easy to load the “Indo-Pacific” with geopolitical intent. Having accepted the invitation to keynote the dialogue on 1 June, Modi became the first Indian prime minister to speak at Shangri-La since the event’s inception in 2002.  Many at the gathering read the prefix “Indo-“ as a geopolitical invitation to India to partner more explicitly with states in an “Asia-Pacific” region from which it had been relatively absent, and thereby to counterbalance China within an even larger frame. 
 
Perhaps aiming to mend relations with China after the Wuhan summit, held in April, Modi unloaded the loaded term. “The Indo-Pacific,” he said, “is a natural region. …  India does not see [it] as a strategy or as a club of limited members.  Nor as a grouping that seeks to dominate.  And by no means do we consider it as directed against any country. A geographical definition, as such, cannot be.”  Modi flattened the Indo-Pacific to a mere page in an atlas – the two dimensions of a map – while widening it to include not only all of the countries located inside “this geography” but “also others beyond who have a stake in it.”  Modi thus drained the toponym of controversially distinctive meaning. India’s rival China could hardly object to being included in a vast “natural” zone innocent of economic or political purpose or design. 
 
Not so, countered US Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis. Unlike Modi, he explicitly linked ideology to geography by repeatedly invoking a “free and open Indo-Pacific.” Nor did these qualifiers apply only to external relations – a state’s freedom from foreign interference and its freedoms of navigation and overflight under international law. For Mattis, “free and open” implied internal democracy as well – a state’s accountability to an uncensored society. In Singapore during his question and answer period, Mattis acknowledged the “free and open press” that had thronged to cover the dialogue.   
 
In corridor conversations, understandings of the “Indo-Pacific” ranged widely, from an inoffensively natural region on the one hand, to a pointedly ideological one on the other. Will the real Indo-Pacific please stand up?  
 
The rise of the “Indo-Pacific” in American policy discourse amounts to a rejection, a resumption, and a desire.  Because Donald Trump cannot abide whatever his predecessor did or said, Barack Obama’s “rebalance” to the “Asia-Pacific” could not survive. The “Indo-Pacific” conveniently shrinks Obama’s “Asia” to a hyphen while inflating the stage on which a celebrity president can play. Yet Mattis also, without saying so, reaffirmed the result of Obama’s “pivot” to Asia by assuring his audience that “America is in the Indo-Pacific to stay. This is our priority theater.” Alongside that rejection-cum-resumption, the prefix “Indo-” embodies the hope that India as a major power can help rebalance America’s friends against what Mattis called China’s “intimidation and coercion,” notably in the South China Sea. 
 
In Honolulu, en route to the dialogue, Mattis had added the prefix to the US Pacific Command – now the Indo-Pacific Command. But continuity again matched change in that the renamed INDOPACOM’s area of responsibility was not extended west of India to Africa. As for Modi, while recommitting his country to “a democratic and rules-based international order,” both he and Mattis ignored the Quad – the off-and-on-again effort to convene the United States, India, Japan and Australia as prospective guardians and agents of the Indo-Pacific idea.
 
The first effort to create the Quad died at the hands of Beijing and Canberra.  Quietly in May 2007, on the sidelines of an ASEAN meeting in Manila, the four governments met at a sub-cabinet level, followed that September by an expanded Malabar naval exercise in the Indian Ocean among the four along with Singapore. Early in 2008, however, then-Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, bowing to pressure from Beijing, withdrew Australia from Quad 1.0 and it collapsed. 
 
It took the subsequent upbuilding and arming of land features in the South China Sea by China to re-embolden the quartet. Beijing’s maritime militancy, Trump’s disdain for Obama-style “strategic patience,” the worsening of Japan’s relations with China, and alarm in Australia over signs of Beijing’s “sharp power” operations there all came together to motivate a low-key, low-level meeting of a could-be Quad 2.0 on the margins of another ASEAN gathering in Manila in November 2017.  
 
The question now is whether the quartet will reconvene in Singapore during the upcoming November ASEAN summitry and if it does, whether the level of representation will be nudged upward to cabinet status. Trump’s addiction to bilateralism, mano a mano, may be tested in this four-way context. Or his one-on-one real-estate developer’s proclivity could cripple the Quad from the start. 
 
More grandiose is the idea that the “Indo-Pacific” could shed its cautionary quote marks and become a rubric for building infrastructure on a scale rivaling China’s own Belt and Road Initiative to lay down railroads, roads and ports from Kunming potentially to Kenya. That surely is, so to speak, a bridge too far.  
 
In short, the temptation to read multilateral diplomatic content into a map of the “Indo-Pacific” drawn in Washington should be resisted. Having objected to any reference to “the rules-based international order” in the June G7 communiqué that he refused to sign, Trump is unlikely to fit the “Indo-Pacific” into any such frame. Nor is it likely to think that he would wish to augment a resuscitated Quad by adding China. Not to mention that Beijing might fail to see the humor in belonging to a five-sided “Pentagon” whose name is a metonym for the American Department of Defense. 
 

Donald K. Emmerson heads the Southeast Asia Program at Stanford University where he is also affiliated with the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law.

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The Global Economic Order before (and after) Western Hegemony: Chinese-Middle Eastern Relations from the Silk Road to "One Belt, One Road"

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The Western, or liberal, international order which emerged after World War II reflects the culmination of a centuries-long process of European, and later American, economic and political development.  But how can we understand global trade and economic ties before the "Rise of the West" -- and what does the decline of the Western international order mean for global economic relations?  A decline in the economic and political hegemony of Western powers has provided an opening for the revival of trade ties between China and the Middle East, the world's economic hegemons before Europe's rise.  The creation of a new economic zone which touches half of the world's population speaks to the growing relevance of "South-South" economic ties.
 
Lisa Blaydes is Associate Professor of Political Science at Stanford University and Director of the Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies. She is the author of Elections and Distributive Politics in Mubarak’s Egypt (Cambridge University Press, 2011) andState of Repression: Iraq under Saddam Hussein (Princeton University Press, 2018).  Her articles have appeared in theAmerican Political Science Review, Governance, International Studies Quarterly, International Organization, Journal of Theoretical Politics, Middle East Journal, Studies in Comparative International Development and World Politics. During the 2008-9 and 2009-2010 academic years, Professor Blaydes was an Academy Scholar at the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies. During the 2015-16 academic year, she was a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. She holds degrees in Political Science (PhD) from the University of California, Los Angeles and International Relations (BA, MA) from Johns Hopkins University. 
 
To register, please visit: https://yoopay.cn/event/26611553
 

Stanford Center at Peking University
The Lee Jung Sen Building
Langrun Yuan
Peking University
No.5 Yiheyuan Road
Haidian District
Beijing, P.R.China 100871

Lisa Blaydes Associate Professor, Department of Political Science Stanford University

APARC Says Farewell to 2017-2018 Corporate Affiliate Visiting Fellows

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On May 24, Shorenstein APARC hosted the final three research presentations by this year’s Corporate Affiliate Visiting Fellows. What had been months in preparation was at last over; any indications of nervousness or anxiety now gave way to jubilant smiles and celebratory thumbs-ups for cameras. The journey that began for many nearly a year ago had come to a successful end.

Established in 1982, the Corporate Affiliates Program introduces personnel of Asian organizations that have become APARC corporate affiliates to American life and institutions. Over the span of a year, Corporate Affiliate Visiting Fellows have the opportunity to immerse in daily interaction with specialists, students, and scholars from Stanford and abroad. In turn, the practical experience and international perspectives that Visiting Fellows bring with them enrich and inform intellectual exchange at both Shorenstein APARC and Stanford at large. 

The 2017-2018 Visiting Fellows came to APARC from 14 different organizations including government agencies, state-owned enterprises, and private sector industry corporations from four countries: China, India, Japan, and Korea.

 

Academic Engagement

Group Photo 2The Corporate Affiliates Program is ideal for mid-career professionals looking to expand their knowledge and international experience. Visiting Fellows participate in a structured, yet individualized year of academic exploration. Elements of the program include creating individual research projects, auditing classes, attending exclusive seminars, and visiting local companies and institutions.

Following summer intensives and orientation, Visiting Fellows embark on their nine-month research projects under the guidance of an APARC faculty advisor. Fellows are matched with an advisor based on the research project subject and/or their professional background and region of employment.

“The best thing about this program is that I have one entire year to focus and to manage my own time,” observed a previous Visiting Fellow.

The months of thorough research culminate in a paper and its public presentation. Fellows present their research findings before an audience of APARC faculty and researchers, Stanford community members, and their “fellow Fellows.” Over the course of five days in May, audiences heard presentations on a wide variety of subjects ranging from the impact of U.S. Supreme Court decisions on the AI Industry to regulatory requirements for bio-similar products, and from the role of large industries in Urban Air Transport to the benefits of shifting a government’s focus from economic growth to people’s happiness.

Presentations were well received by APARC faculty, though not before standing up to the rigorous follow-up questions from a highly engaged audience.

 

University Enrichment

For Corporate Affiliates, the year was not exclusively about their research. Fellows found ample opportunities to take advantage of non-academic pursuits, both on-campus and in the greater Bay Area.

Group Photo 3One way to further encourage exploration was a team-based activity designed by the program. Fellows were broken up into groups of five, each tasked with coordinating an excursion to take the rest on. Facilitated trips included a hike to Stanford’s famous radio telescope (“the Dish”), an exploration of the Berkeley neighborhood and its local industries, and a visit to NASA’s Ames Research Center at Moffett Field.

Stanford Jazz OrchestraIn addition to their professional experiences, Fellows also enriched the Center and university community through their personal pursuits. Takahito Inoshita, for example, brought his musical talent to Stanford along with an extensive experience in engineering. While researching how cities could identify policy needs via natural language data, he also performed with the Stanford Jazz Orchestra as lead trombonist at a November performance at Stanford’s Bing Concert Hall.

Next year’s Visiting Fellows are scheduled to begin arriving in mid-June, and include personnel from government, SOEs and private industries, but also the military and non-profit sector as well. For now, however, the Center is still saying goodbye to the 2017-2018 Fellows as they leave to join a distinguished, ever-growing alumni network of government and private sector professionals throughout Asia.

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The Hoover Institution's Area 45 Podcast: anticipating global insecurity with Amy Zegart

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Amy Zegart
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In a world complicated by terrorism, cyber threats and political instability, the private sector has to prepare for the unexpected. Amy Zegart, CISAC co-director, the Hoover Institution’s Davies Family Senior Fellow, and co-author (along with Condoleezza Rice) of Political Risk: How Businesses And Organizations Can Anticipate Global Insecurity, explains lessons learned in keeping cargo planes moving, hotel guests protected – and possibly coffee customers better served.  

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Why did Kim Jong Un blow up his nuclear test site?

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Siegfried S. Hecker
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STANFORD, Calif. — When President Trump abruptly canceled the summit with North Korea last week, it overshadowed the closing of North Korea’s nuclear test site just a few hours before. Although it is not irreversible, blowing up the site’s tunnels, sealing the entrances and removing test site facilities and equipment was nevertheless a serious step toward denuclearization. What possessed North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to take this step now?

Read the rest in the Washington Post's World Post 

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CDDRL Weekly Research Seminar featuring Honor Student Awardees

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TITLE:  The China Wide Web:  The information Dilemma and the Domestsication of  Cyberspace

 

Qitong Tom Cao
Major:  Political Science; Computer Science (minor); MS&E (Computational Social Science) (coterm)

 

Abstract:


In order to preempt severe public discontent, an authoritarian government needs its citizens to convey their true political attitudes. But it does not want their attitudes to be communicated among themselves, which may trigger protests or even subversion in case widespread dissatisfaction exists and becomes citizens common knowledge. This information dilemma thus poses a fundamental threat to the stability and governance of all authoritarian regimes. This thesis, however, argues that the Chinese government is resolving the information dilemma through an innovative approach  by domesticating its internet. On this domestic cyberspace, social media companies delete unfavorable content and report user data to the regime, which can be analyzed to reveal citizens true political attitudes. As such, the government manages both to restrict communication of discontent and to gain knowledge of the political inclination of the public. I will demonstrate formally that this domestic cyberspace presents an optimal solution for authoritarian regimes, and that the Chinese government could attract the bulk of their internet users to the domestic cyberspace despite its inability to fully block access to foreign websites. Finally, I will show empirically that domestic social media also helps increase propaganda efficacy, which reduces perceived level of discontent and further consolidates regime stability. Together, this strategy may potentially afford the regime an information advantage enormous enough to secure its stability without fear of overthrow.

 

TITLE:  Whose California?  Power, Property Rights, and the Legacy of the 1851 California Land Act

 

Marin Callaway
Major: International Relations; Spanish (minor)
 

Abstract:

 

In 1848, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ended the Mexican-American War and ceded over half of Mexico's territory to the United States. But, the valuable new lands gained by the United States were not empty. With the changing border, the country gained a sizable Mexican and Native American population. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo guaranteed the protection of property rights and civil rights of Mexican nationals living on the newly acquired lands. But, in California, the much-delayed California Land Act of 1851 put the burden of proof on Mexican landowners to receive a formal U.S. patent to their land. Landowners, who had received private land grants or ranchos from the Mexican government, underwent lengthy litigation. This thesis evaluates the Land Act's impact on Mexican land ownership, measures the extent to which original grantees were able to retain their lands, and describes the contentious evolution of land and power in California in the nineteenth century. In an effort to add empirical evidence to the historical literature, I find that 58% of patented ranchos remained in the name of the original grantees by the patent date with greater retention in Southern California than Northern California. However, the finding that less than 20% of ranchos in Los Angeles County were owned even in part by original grantees by 1888 reveals that land loss became even more pronounced after patents were issued. The findings of this thesis both support and contradict traditional claims about the fate of Mexican land grant ownership in California throughout the nineteenth century. By determining what the rates of land grant retention were for original grantees throughout California and in individual counties, it is possible to better understand the legacy of the Land Act and how it interacted simultaneously with other social, economic, and political phenomena to ultimately result in significant loss of Mexican land ownership in the state. This thesis treats nineteenth century California as a case study of minority rights in annexed land. It ultimately argues that Mexicans and Mexican-Americans suffered most under a lack of rule of law and uncertainly surrounding property rights and citizenship. The California Land Act of 1851 upheld property rights but was too little too late for a group that was by 1851 the minority in the state.
 

 

Qitong Tom Cao
Marin Callaway
Seminars

Essential Interpersonal Dynamics China Program

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One of most acclaimed and long-running programs at the Stanford Graduate School of Business that students consider life-changing is “Interpersonal Dynamics”, known to many as “Touchy Feely”. It aims to help increase our ability to forge strong relationships with others, to improve emotional intelligence and leadership through better communications with self and others.

Dr. David Bradford, Stanford Graduate School of Business Eugene O'Kelly II Senior Lecturer Emeritus in Leadership and Co-founder of the Interpersonal Dynamics Program, and Leslie Chin, Interpersonal Dynamics faculty member and Lecturer in Management, is collaborating with Stanford Center at Peking University (SCPKU) Executive Director Josh Cheng and Stanford Graduate School of Business China Director Frank Hawke to bring the condensed version of this program, titled “Essential Interpersonal Dynamics”, to SCPKU, opening the first chapter of Touchy Feely in China.

Stanford MBA alumnus Gu Ji will act as Founding Program Director and will lead the Essential Interpersonal Dynamics program in China. The program is being launched following a 2-year pilot overseen by Leslie Chin in which the program design was adapted to Chinese culture and context. Previous students include founders of listed companies, internet company CEOs, investment executives of large financial companies, noted angel investors, as well as founders of international schools, strategic firm partners, international law firm senior partners and other outstanding individuals.

The first 4-day program will begin on July 19th, 2018. Participants will be awarded a certificate issued jointly by David Bradford and SCPKU. Please click "Read More" to apply this program.

To register, please fill in the form by June 30th:  https://wj.qq.com/s/2134848/fb7d

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Theora Trio 2018 China Tour Concert

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Date:        July 3rd, 2018

Time:        17:00 – 17:45 Performance; 17:45 – 18:20 Sharing and discussion 

Registration link: https://yoopay.cn/event/78672656 

The Theora Trio is a dynamic group of Stanford students who share a deep love and appreciation for classical music. They are the first prize winners of the 2013 American Protégé International Competition (Chamber Music Division) and the 2013 Schoenfeld International String Competition (Youth Chamber Music Division).

“We are a group of Stanford students who keep finding ourselves coming back to classical music. Admist the iPhones and the Fitbits, we keep hammering away alone in dimly lit practice rooms on these clunky instruments made of wood.

Why? A computer could effortlessly produce the sounds we labor so intensely to make. Maybe we’re crazy. Maybe we’re onto something. We don’t have definite answers. But we’re still playing, so join us as we wonder aloud, through music and words, about what in this centuries-old art keeps speaking to us in these fast-moving times.”

 

Danna Xue, Cello

Danna is a junior student at Stanford University studying Mechanical Engineering. She has previously researched with Stanford’s Computer Science Department and worked at StartX.  Danna studied with her mother Pin Fei Tang, professor at La Sierra University, and Cal state LA for nine years. She currently studies with professor Christopher Costanza at Standford , cellist of the St. Lawrence String Quartet. Danna  received first prize in the 2017 Stanford Concerto Competition, 2013 ASTA-LA competition, the 2014 Colburn Music Academy Concerto Competition, the 2013 American Protégé International Music Talent Competition, and the 2013 Schoenfeld International String Competition at Youth Chamber Music Division and Youth Aficionado Division.

Niuniu Teo, Piano

Niuniu Teo studied piano with Yoshikazu Nagai at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music for six years, and continued her studies under Thomas Schultz at Stanford. She has participated in competitions at state and national levels, winning first place at the Pacific Musical Society’s Centennial Competition, as well as first place at the MTAC 2015 Concerto competition, among others. At Stanford, she participated in several chamber music groups and won first place in the Stanford Symphony Orchestra’s annual concerto competition in 2015, and performed as their soloist in 2016 in Bing Concert Hall. She graduated from Stanford in 2016 with a major in History and minors in Creative Writing and Economics. She recently earned her Master’s in China Studies from Peking University and will continue her study as a History PhD student at the University of Chicago next year.

Shannon Xue, Violin

Shannon Xue graduated from Stanford with a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and from the Stanford School of Medicine with a Masters in Science in Community Health and Prevention Research in 2018. She is the founder of former director of SHIFT and health++ and the General Director of ImpactMed. In fall 2018, Shannon will be joining McKinsey’s healthcare team in Silicon Valley. Shannon has studied violin with her father, professor Suli Xue, violinist at the Los Angeles Philharmonic since the age of seven. She has been studying her violin at Stanford with Professor Geoff Nuttall, the first violinist of St. Lawrence String Quartet.  In 2013 Shannon won first prize in Solo and Chamber Music at American Protégé International Music Competition, and Schoenfield International String Competition in Youth Chamber Music Division and Youth Aficionado division in Hong Kong.

 

Program

1)  Piano Trio No.4 in Bb Major Op. 11                                                    L.V. Beethoven

         3rd Movement (Theme and Variation)           

2)  Theme from The Butterfly Lovers                                      He Zhanhao, Chen Gang

                                                                                                      Arr.  Jiang Yan / Jiang Yin

3)  Five Pieces for violin, Cello and Piano                                         Dmitri Shstakovich              

4)  Trio No.1 in B Major,   Op.8                                                             Johannes Brahms

        1st Movement  ( Allegro con brio)

5)  Jasmine Flower (Chinese Folk Tune)                                             Arr.  George  Chen

6)  Invierno Porteno   (Winter)                                                                   Astor Piazzolla

7)  Primavera Portena   (Spring)                                                                 Astor Piazzolla

 

 

Stanford Center at Peking University

The Lee Jung Sen Building
Langrun Yuan
Peking University
No.5 Yiheyuan Road
Haidian District
Beijing, P.R.China 100871

 

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