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Background Briefing: The New Asian Cold War: To Be or Not to Be? Carlyle A. Thayer March 7, 2014

Stephan Frhling (When a Cold War in East Asia is not a Cold War, East Asia Forum, March 4, 2014*) criticizes the use of the expression new Cold War to describe the emerging strategic rivalry between China and the United States and its allies as inappropriate. He takes specific issue with an article I wrote for a special edition of The Security Times published for the annual Munich Security Conference held in Germany. My name was not explicitly mentioned by Frhling but his first hyperlink takes the reader directly to my article: http://www.iacspsea.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/A-Maritime-Test-ofStrenght-East-Asias-New-Cold-War-31st-January-20014.pdf. For my post see: http://www.scribd.com/doc/205768185/Thayer-A-Maritime-Testof-Strength-East-Asia-s-New-Cold-War. Frhling bases his argument on a European-centred historical view of the Cold War and thus rejects what he takes to be my analogy linking present day strategic rivalry in Asia with the European-centered strategic rivalry of the past. ' As Fred Halliday points out in his entry on the Cold War in the second edition of The Oxford Companion to Politics of the World (2001) there are at least two meanings of Cold War. Halliday writes, Cold War was, however, also used in a more analytic sense, not to denote a very particular phase of East-West rivalry but rather to denote the very fact of the rivalry between the communist and capitalist systems itself, one that involved competition and confrontation, but not all-out hot war (p. 149). I used the term Cold War as an analytic devise to draw attention to the contemporary strategic rivalry between China and the United States that definitely includes competition and confrontation. I also qualified my use of the term Cold War by referring specifically to the new Asian Cold War. By new I meant that it had distinct features from the European Cold War and that it was a nascent phenomenon. I wrote, The new Asian Cold War is maritime in character with a geographic focus on the so-called first island chain that runs from the Kurile islands north of Japan to the Philippine archipelago in the south. The new Asian Cold War is more fluid than its European counterpart. It involves confrontation between China and two bilateral

2 alliances, one between the U.S. and Japan in East Asia and the other between the U.S. and the Philippines in Southeast Asia. Frhling argues that todays conflict is about status, not ideology. My article did not address this point. But on reflection I would disagree with Frhling. China is motivated by what I might term nationalist ideology with Chinese characteristics. China is presently challenging East Asian regional order - and the legal norms that underpin it - on the basis of historically derived notions of indisputable sovereignty. I concluded my article with these words, China has instigated a new maritime Asian Cold War to disrupt the network of alliances linking Japan and the Philippines to the United States. China seeks to demonstrate to Tokyo, Manila and other regional states that the U.S. lacks both the will and the capacity to respond to Chinas continual assertions of sovereignty over remote islets and shoals. China does not expect quick results and is preparing for a prolonged test of U.S. resolve. I rest my case. There is a new Asian Cold War in the making with Chinese not Soviet characteristics. Carlyle A. Thayer, Emeritus Professor The University of New South Wales at ADFA *http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2014/03/02/when-a-cold-war-in-east-asia-is-not-acold-war/#more-40518

Suggested citation: Carlyle A. Thayer, The New Asian Cold War: To Be or Not to Be?, Thayer Consultancy Background Brief, March 7, 2014. All background briefs are posted on Scribd.com (search for Thayer). To remove yourself from the mailing list type UNSUBSCRIBE in the Subject heading and hit the Reply key. Thayer Consultancy provides political analysis of current regional security issues and other research support to selected clients. Thayer Consultancy was officially registered as a small business in Australia in 2002.