does the eu need an asian pivot? some reflections
TRANSCRIPT
www.monash.edu/europecentre
Does the EU Need an Asian Pivot? Some Reflections Giles Scott-Smith
Working Paper Series 2013/2
The Monash European and EU Centre (MEEUC) Working Paper Series has been established to contribute to the academic debate on Europe, the European Union (EU), the EU in the world, and comparative regionalism.
This online Series aims to showcase the work in these fields of both current and former staff, students and research/visiting fellows of MEEUC and Monash University. The Series provides an opportunity for scholars to receive feedback on work in progress, and most importantly, offers budding researchers exposure for their work.
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The Monash European and EU Centre is a joint undertaking by the European Commission of the European Union (EU) and Monash University
Papers in this series:
The Politics of Differentiated Integration in the European Union: Origins, Decision Making and Outcomes, Douglas Webber, Oct 2012 (2012/1) The EU’s Higher Education Cooperation with Australia, Monique Breaz, Dec 2012 (2012/2)
Australia and ASEM: The First Two Years, Melissa Conley Tyler and Eric Lerais, May 2013 (2013/1) Does the EU Need an Asian Pivot? Some Reflections, Gilles Scott-Smith, Dec 2013 (2013/2)
ABSTRACT1
The announcement of an “Asian Pivot” or “Re-Balancing” by President Obama and his then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2011-2012 signalled a shift of US interests more to the Asia-Pacific region, in line with the growing importance of the region for global political governance and economic growth. This caused some concerns in Europe that the transatlantic alliance was being reduced to second place by Washington, and raised the question of whether the EU should follow suit with its own “Asian Pivot”. Making use of some recent thinking on the capabilities-expectations gap and grand strategy, this paper covers the debate on this issue, looking at the views and opinion that have been put forward, and asking what an EU “Asian Pivot” might mean in the current context.
1 This paper is based on Professor Scott-Smith’s keynote address at the Australian and New Zealand European Union Centres joint conference at ANU in September 2013. The conference was organised by the EU Centre at RMIT, the Monash European and EU Centre (MEEUC), the EU Centres Network of New Zealand and the ANU Centre for European Studies. The paper is co-published with the Australian National University and also available at http://ces.anu.edu.au/research/publications
MEEUC Working Papers 2012/2
Does the EU need an Asian Pivot? Some Reflections
Giles Scott-Smith University of Leiden
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Introduction
This paper offers a review, a kind of tour d’horizon, of recent studies coming out of transatlantic think tanks, research centres and the media on the implications of the US shift to the Asia-Pacific region, and its meaning for the EU.
Twenty years ago Christopher Hill published one of the most influential pieces of analysis of the EU as an evolving institutional phenomenon: “The Capability-Expectations Gap, or Conceptualizing Europe’s International Role”.2 Hill’s thesis was that “the Community’s capabilities have been talked up, to the point where a significant capability-expectations gap exists” whereby it was perceived by others to fail to achieve all it aspires to. To assess this, Hill looked at Europe’s existing and “conceivable future functions” in the international system. Those functions associated with EU-US relations are of interest here. Firstly, Hill saw the EU as “the single most important actor” for managing world trade, and, crucially, its rising status as “a second western voice in international diplomacy…. because of a perceived need to provide an alternative view to that of the United States, both within the western world and on behalf of it.” Concerning conceivable functions, he outlined a list of six: a replacement for the Soviet Union in the global balance of power; a regional pacifier; a global intervener; a mediator of conflicts; a bridge between rich and poor nations; and joint supervisor of the world economy. Bearing in mind Hill’s thesis, it is worth taking a look at contemporary opinion on the question: does the EU need an Asian pivot in order to enhance its global role?
Leading By Example? The US Pivot
The year 2011 marked what appeared to be a significant shift in the world-view of the United States. The then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton outlined a pivot to Asia in “America’s Pacific Century” in Foreign Affairs, and President Obama was actively projecting his nation as a “Pacific power” in pursuit of a Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement with eight other signatories.3 Both Obama and Clinton emphasised that greater attention to the Asia-Pacific was based on calculations of future economic growth and the substantial benefits of increased engagement with an expanding market for technological developments, trade and investments.
Of course, US foreign policy specialists were quick to point out that George W. Bush had already signalled an “Asian shift” with increased outreach to India and Indonesia. And before
2 C. Hill, ‘The Capability-Expectations Gap, or Conceptualizing Europe’s International Role’, Journal of Common Market Studies, 31/3 (1993), pp. 305-327.
3 Hillary Clinton, ‘America’s Pacific Century,’ Foreign Affairs, November 2011. On the TPP see the Office of the Trans-Pacific Trade Representative at http://www.ustr.gov/tpp.
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that, Bill Clinton had opened the path to rapprochement with Vietnam. Before long, some were claiming that the entire 20th century looked like an Asian century, it being the site of the main wars fought by the US. And you can go further back, to Commodore William Perry and the “black ships” visiting Japan in 1856, and perhaps the dominant motif of American engagement with Asia: John Hay’s “Open Door” notes to China in 1899-1900, insisting on mutual agreement among the powers for an equal and open trading system with China. One could argue that this remains the basis for US policy today – the biggest change, of course, is with China itself.
The military dimension to the pivot has since garnered most of the attention, but Hillary Clinton outlined five other fields of activity that it would involve: strengthening bilateral security alliances; deepening America's relationships with rising powers, including China; engaging with regional multilateral institutions; expanding trade and investment and advancing democracy and human rights. A renewed commitment to a military presence in the region was only one part of the process of bolstering the US as the principal actor in the region with ability to shape (or at least ensure) the direction of the region’s foremost political and economic architecture.
Nonetheless, any increased US military presence in the Pacific was going to raise issues with China as the most obvious competitor. As some have noted, the fact that the Pentagon has been the one government institution to determine what the Pivot meant in practice has attracted more attention for the military dimension than it perhaps deserves.4 Already in mid-2012, at the annual Shangri-La Dialogue, then Defense Secretary Leon Panetta announced that 60 per cent of US naval assets would be moved to the Indo-Pacific region by 2020. His successor, Chuck Hagel, used the same forum in 2013 to add that 60 per cent of overseas-based US Air Force units would be stationed in the Asia-Pacific by the same date.5 These figures are not insubstantial, and have raised concerns whether the US build-up, however benign it may be presented, effectively translates into empowering allies such as the Philippines (in the South China Sea) and Japan (in the East China Sea) into being more belligerent. Instead of stability, instability could result as a visible military presence triggers otherwise avoidable counter-reactions.
Military deployments, naval cooperation, and security dialogues are certainly part of the deal as Washington seeks to bring partners together within overlapping security networks: US Marines in Darwin; Australian participation in US carrier groups; increased collaboration with Indonesia; common vision statements with Vietnam and Thailand; naval exercises with South Korea; the possible return of a US base to the Philippines, with the idea to loosely link
4 Trefor Moss, ‘America’s Pivot to Asia: A Report Card,’ The Diplomat, 5 May 2013, available at http://thediplomat.com/2013/05/05/americas-pivot-to-asia-a-report-card/ 5 Chuck Hagel, ‘The US Approach to Regional Security,’ Shangri-La Dialogue 2013, available at http://www.iiss.org/en/events/shangri%20la%20dialogue/archive/shangri-la-dialogue-2013-c890/first-plenary-session-ee9e/chuck-hagel-862d
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these bilateral manoeuvres under a form of US tutelage; and capped in the short term with the meeting of Association of South East Asian Nations' (ASEAN) defence ministers in Hawaii in 2014. Flexibility, deployability, leverage, and projection are key words here, along with perhaps the central Obama term: Options. Suggestions of Containment as per 1947 do not really work. On the contrary, outreach to the Chinese leadership to deflate concerns have met with some results. Already in the Pentagon’s Sustaining US Global Leadership of January 2012 the Pivot was recast as a re-balancing of assets, something essential with the winding down of the South Asian conflicts and the unnecessary prolongation of a major presence in peaceful Europe. Whereas the ‘pivot’ could be interpreted as a short-term response to immediate concerns (i.e. the rise of China), the casting of US moves as a ‘re-balancing’ fits with Obama’s pitch that this is simply a new chapter in the long-running US role in the Pacific over many decades. This is central to the soft-sell approach directed towards the Chinese. In April 2013 Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Martin Dempsey met with his Chinese counterpart in Beijing to explain US wishes to be “more engaged” as a stabilising power in the region. In August Secretary Hagel and his counterpart General Chang Wanquan announced further military-to-military exchanges and cooperation.6 The Obama-Xi Jinping “informal summit” in June managed to create an apparent air of congeniality even though contentious topics such as cyber-crime and North Korea were tabled, in stark contrast to the current dismal relations and cancelled meetings between the US President and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin. However, few imagine that such photo-opportunity pleasantness will hold when real interests clash – particularly in view of the prognoses that China’s leadership is shifting to a more nationalist-minded elite, less in awe of US power, or US demands.7
There is some merit to Hagel’s claim that the military dimension is no more than part of “primarily a diplomatic, economic and cultural strategy.”8 In March 2013 National Security Advisor Tom Donilon re-calibrated Hillary Clinton’s original five-point blueprint so that there was no emphasis on the military dimension. It is a strategy of smart diplomacy, linking hard, soft, and durable power initiatives to revive long-running, and open up new, security alliances and free trade agreements, and position the US as the central power able to oversee stability and growth in the region. But stability – the maintenance of the status quo – is hardly a neutral term, and is obviously opposed to disruptive moves by rising powers. The military presence is intended to back up a US-orchestrated Asia-Pacific order which includes China, but this is wishful thinking. As one commentator has put it, “the elephant in the pivot-room is that China and the US are still competitors in too many areas. The American vision of an Asia-Pacific is one that China simply does not share. China is not interested in championing the region’s democratic institutions. It feels excluded from US programs, and instinctively
6 ‘Dempsey to China: US Seeks Stabilizing Influence in Asia,’ Voice of America, 22 April 2013, available at http://www.voanews.com/content/dempsey-to-china-us-seeks-stabilizing-influence-in-asia/1646440.html 7 David Sanger, Confront and Conceal: Obama’s Secret Wars and Surprising Use of American Power (New York: Crown, 2012), pp. 413-414. 8 Hagel, ‘The US Approach’.
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leans towards competing with US-led initiatives rather than joining them.”9 China is not interested in the United States profiling itself as the “regional security provider.”10
Rival systems are therefore emerging across the Pacific. The United States has the edge in the security field, as the overall positive response of ASEAN members to American overtures has shown. Those nations remaining cool – most notably India – do so without any pro-Chinese sentiment in mind, or – like Vietnam – have some serious historical baggage to overcome. Economically, however, the cards are held by China. The much-heralded Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is progressing, with Japan joining the group of eleven other negotiating partners in 2013, but the question remains to what extent the TPP can become a hard reality against competing economic frameworks. The China-Japan-Korea free trade initiative, which would link up three economies that represent over 20 per cent of global GDP, potentially cuts right across the TPP, showing that Japan is willing to play all sides in search of growth and the South Koreans are following the economic realities of existing East Asian manufacturing and trade networks. Supply chain economics certainly favour China. In 2013 the Financial Times reported that East Asian states are increasingly tracking the yuan instead of the US dollar. China is the largest creditor and exporter nation and the Chinese currency is now the main trading currency in the region.11
An EU Pivot: Necessary and Desirable?
While debate rages on the causes, merits and durability of these wide-ranging US initiatives, they have certainly raised the question of what Europe should or could do in response. After the first expressions of concern over a US ‘exit’ from European affairs, talk of an EU Pivot or – more modestly – Mini-Pivot has emerged from various commentators and think tanks. As with the US, this drew complaints from those who argued that such a move had already begun years ago. The Commission declared in its 1995 Long-Term Policy for China-Europe Relations that “relations with China are bound to be a cornerstone in Europe’s external relations,” and its 2001 Europe and Asia: A Strategic Framework for Enhanced Partnership targeted increased trade and investments.
Several points emerge from the barrage of think tank and media reports on this since 2011:
1) The US shift is a challenge to fundamental economic interests in Europe.
This is expressed in concerns that the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) will take precedence over the recently-begun Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). The 9 Moss, ‘America’s Pivot to Asia’. 10 Ulrick Speck, ‘Europe, the United States, and Asia,’ Carnegie Europe, 1 December 2011, available at http://carnegieeurope.eu/2011/12/01/europe-united-states-and-asia/bkh1 11 ‘China’s currency is rising in America’s backyard,’ Financial Times, 22 October 2012.
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transatlantic economic circuit involves around 54 per cent of global GDP, two-thirds of global banking assets, and three-quarters of the financial services market. Between 2001-2010 more than 60 per cent of US Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) was channelled to Europe, compared with 3.7 per cent to the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa).12 Now the US has stated that regulatory agreements achieved through the TPP will set the standard for any transatlantic deal. The European Commission sees it as potentially boosting GDP by a modest 0.5 per cent.13 The European Center for International Political Economy estimates US exports to the EU could grow by 17 per cent, and EU exports to the US by 18 per cent. Notwithstanding, the US has now stated that regulatory agreements achieved through the TPP will set the standard for any transatlantic deal. Should the TPP gain agreements first – and it probably will, considering the long-running disputes between the US and the EU that need to be overcome – it could have serious consequences for major sectors of the EU economy such as agriculture and manufacturing. Yet a successful transatlantic deal would once again reinforce the prominence of the US-EU axis in the global economy (and, potentially as spill-over, global public policy in general), and put pressure on others within the stalled Doha round of the World Trade Organization (WTO).14 In some ways the TPP and TTIP represent the real re-balancing that is at stake: does the United States first solidify the dominance of the transatlantic trade axis, or does it rely on that being successful whatever the circumstances and go for trans-Pacific expansion?
2) The US Pivot inevitably brings expectations about the EU’s role.
The United States will continue its Asia-Pacific focus regardless of what the EU does, but it will also be following EU moves to see if they support or cut across their initiatives. Washington sees the EU’s input solely in terms of supporting US initiatives, with the assumption that such a united front will have a more telling impact internationally. But this brushes over the economic and financial competition between the two, and anyway, does the EU simply want to follow the Pivot’s agenda? Does the EU accept the US version of “regional stability”? Determined Atlanticists definitely think it should. As Karl Kaiser and Manuel Muniz put it, “the US cannot be expected to accept European passivity and ‘neutrality’ while carrying the burden of the region's stability,” simply shifting the “burden-sharing” problem – which has been around for fifty-odd years – from the Atlantic to the Pacific.15 To these thinkers it is not primarily about Asia, its about the impact Asia has on the transatlantic relationship.16
12 The Transatlantic Economy 2011: Annual Survey of Jobs, Trade and Investment between the United States and Europe, Center for Transatlantic Relations, Johns Hopkins University. 13 See http://ec.europa.eu/trade/policy/in-focus/ttip/ 14 Daniel Hamilton and Joseph Quinlan, ‘US-EU Free Trade Agreement: Global Game-Changer?’ 23 February 2013, available at http://pjmedia.com/blog/u-s-eu-free-trade-agreement-global-gamechanger/?singlepage=true 15 Karl Kaiser and Manuel Muniz, ‘Europe, too, needs an Asian pivot’, Europe’s World, Summer 2013, available at
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3) The US Pivot raises questions about NATO.
NATO has increasingly been profiling itself as a global security provider since the 1990s, which has been reinforced by its large-scale engagement in Afghanistan and its array of forty-one partnerships and close working relations with Australia, Japan, New Zealand, and South Korea. Secretary-General Rasmussen was keen to expand these relations in order to give NATO a more visible stake in the Asia-Pacific. The proposal for a high-level NATO-China Council to complement the existing Council with Russia is now taken very seriously. Whereas a decade ago it appeared as if Asian security was becoming dominated by a joint China-Russia conglomerate (via the Russian-dominated Collective Security Treaty Organization and the broader Shanghai Cooperation Organization), those fears have now receded as China has proved itself unwilling to be tied to Moscow’s belligerent nationalism.17 Nevertheless, there is still the serious issue of what NATO can actually provide as a distinct organisation separate from US foreign policy. This could encompass training, joint exercises, and information-sharing, but most of the value-added component can be provided by the United States alone or, possibly, via other existing institutions.18 And as US military assets (and strategic concerns) move away from Europe, so NATO as a transatlantic organisation, and particularly the European input, will be put under further strain. As recently as June 2011 the Organization was described as close to being “a collective military irrelevance” by the outgoing Secretary of Defence Robert Gates.19
Does the EU have a Grand Strategy?
Overall, while some claim that there has been a deliberate EU Pivot since 2011, a closer examination reveals a series of moves without any particular agenda or Big Idea, other than coming in on the Obama-Clinton slipstream “as part of a broader US-led strategy aimed at keeping China in check and displaying the unity of the Western liberal-democratic family.”20 The more unkind have simply dismissed it as a kind of “bandwagoning”.21 2012 did give us EU High Representative Catherine Ashton's “Asian Semester” and confirmation in the Guidelines on the EU’s Foreign and Security Policy in June 2012 that “an essential element http://www.europesworld.org/NewEnglish/Home_old/Article/tabid/191/ArticleType/ArticleView/ArticleID/22140/language/en-US/EuropetooneedsanAsianpivot.aspx 16 These authors reiterated the need for “joint rebalancing” in ‘Why Europe also needs an Asian Pivot,’ Project Syndicate, 5 September 2013, available at http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/why-europe-also-needs-an-asian-pivot-by-karl-kaiser-and-manuel-muniz 17 Marcel de Haas, ‘Partners and Competitors: NATO and the (Far) East,’ Atlantisch Perspectief, 3 (2013), pp. 9-14. 18 For example the famed five-eyes arrangement bringing together the intelligence resources of the US, the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. 19 Robert Gates, ‘Reflections on the Status and the Future of the Transatlantic Alliance,’ Brussels, 10 June 2011, available at http://www.securitydefenceagenda.org/Contentnavigation/Activities/Activitiesoverview/tabid/1292/EventType/EventView/EventId/1070/EventDateID/1087/PageID/5141/Reflectionsonthestatusandfutureofthetransatlanticalliance.aspx
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in the security architecture of the region is provided by the US’s network of bilateral alliances” and that the EU has “a strong interest in partnership and cooperation” to back this up.22 Catherine Ashton and Hillary Clinton issued a joint statement at the Asia Regional Forum on cooperation in and with the Asia-Pacific in July 2012. The high-level Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM), active since 1996, has taken on renewed significance, ties within ASEAN’s Regional Forum are improving, and efforts are being made to gain an invitation to the East Asia Summit.
But whereas the US strategy exhibits a multilayered smart power approach, the EU is unable really to claim a strategy at all. A recent assessment of the ten existing strategic partnerships by the Spanish think tank FRIDE (Foundation for International Relations and Foreign Dialogue) reveals a patchwork of ambitious but half-realised agreements with no particular interlinkages.23 Economic interests dominate, and in a way this is not surprising. While the transatlantic region remains by far the pre-eminent axis for investments, in terms of volume EU-Asia trade had already surpassed that of the EU-US in the 1990s. Around one third of EU exports head to the region, and the opening up of Arctic trade routes could provide a further boost. On average, 25 per cent of the holdings of East Asian central banks is in Euro-denominated assets.24 But these facts do beg the question of whether the EU can do more to safeguard these interests, in a more coordinated fashion than simply searching for more free trade agreements. Optimistic observers such as Michael Smith think they perceive an EU grand strategy, linking the pursuit of security, economic, and value-based interests through the promotion of, as stated in the European Security Strategy (ESS), “an international order based on effective multilateralism.”25 There may be some merit to this, considering the EU’s contribution to the creation of the ASEAN+3 forum, the provision of large-scale development and humanitarian aid, and assistance for democratic transitions in Cambodia, East Timor, and more recently Burma. The way forward is partnership, not power. The Europe China Network’s Bates Gill and Andrew Small see a basis for a new trilateralism, echoing the 1970s but this time with China replacing Japan.26
20 Nicola Casarini, ‘EU Foreign Policy in the Asia Pacific: Striking the Right Balance between the US, China and ASEAN,’ EUISS Analysis, September 2012. 21 Laurence Norman, ‘EU looks to its own Asia Pivot,’ 3 May 2012, available at http://blogs.wsj.com/brussels/2012/05/03/eu-looks-to-its-own-asia-pivot/ 22 Guidelines on the EU’s Foreign and Security Policy in East Asia, 11492/12, Council of the European Union, 15 June 2012. 23 Giovanni Grevi (ed.), Mapping EU Strategic Partnerships, FRIDE, 2010. 24 Nicola Casarini, ‘The European ‘pivot’,’ EUISS Analysis, March 2013. 25 Michael Smith, ‘A liberal grand strategy in a realist world? Power, purpose and the EU’s changing global role,’ Journal of European Public Policy, 18/2 (2011), p. 151; A Secure Europe in a Better World, 12 December 2003, p. 9, available at http://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cmsUpload/78367.pdf 26 Bates Gill and Andrew Small, Untapped Trilateralism: Common Economic and Security Interests of the European Union, the United States and China, Europe China Research and Advice Network, 2012.
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Smith’s claim that the EU fulfills the criteria for projecting a grand strategy recognises that all such strategies “are inherently competitive in nature, and must take into consideration the grand strategies of other major powers.” What is more, “as China and Russia do not offer what might be called a comprehensive ‘vision’ for global governance, it may be that the EU’s main challenger here will be the US, at least in the short to medium term.”27 The contrast between the EU and US also produces opportunities, as Nicola Casarini of the European Union Institute for Security Studies (EUISS) has noted:
The European ‘pivot’ provides a broadly complementary – rather than alternative – political presence to that of the US, in particular in promoting sets of multilateral-based rules and standards. Yet there is a major difference between the two: Washington’s rebalancing towards Asia seems primarily aimed at keeping China in check. By focusing on strengthening its security alliances in the area, the US pivot risks (if not properly managed) causing increased polarization and the emergence of zero-sum ‘great games’. The European pivot, by contrast, is untrammeled by binding military alliances and is not aimed at/against any particular country in the region. It is no coincidence that it is in places like Beijing, Seoul, Delhi and the ASEAN Secretariat that the European pivot has found some of its strongest supporters.28In other words, the EU’s lack of a security dimension is an advantage because it avoids involvement in disputes such as the South China Sea. As Jonas Parello-Plesner puts it in the East-West Center’s Asia Pacific Bulletin, “the lack of a substantial military presence in the Asia-Pacific grants the EU greater freedom of maneuver” to pursue its own trade strategy.29 Casarini has also backed such an approach because there is “a window of opportunity” to occupy the space between the two major rivals.30 Evidence supports this, with major free trade deals with South Korea and Singapore secured, and negotiations ongoing with India, Japan and Malaysia. China’s sudden interest in a bilateral investments agreement reflects the rapid increase in Chinese holdings in European infrastructure during the Eurocrisis, and any such agreement could greatly benefit the EU (at present only 2-3 per cent of European outward investments are tied to China).31 Some point to Taiwan, with its considerable economic and financial linkages in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and around the region, as offering still more untapped possibilities.32 One of Christopher Hill´s “conceivable future functions” for the EU was to be a second western voice as an alternative to the US. Maybe Asia is the place to do it.
27 Smith, ‘A liberal grand strategy,’ p. 159, 160 28 Casarini, ‘The European ‘pivot’.’ 29 Jonas Parello-Plesner, ‘What is Europe’s role in Asia-Pacific?’ Asia Pacific Bulletin, 203 (February 2013), available at http://www.eastwestcenter.org/publications/grading-europe-in-the-asia-pacific-european-foreign-policy-scorecard-2013 30 Casarini, ‘EU Foreign Policy in the Asia Pacific.’ 31 European Commission: Trade, available at http://ec.europa.eu/trade/policy/countries-and-regions/countries/china/ 32 Patrick Messerlin, ‘The much-needed EU pivot to east Asia,’ East Asia Forum, 28 March 2013.
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However, this also creates disadvantages. With no confirmed stake in security questions, the EU is susceptible to adapting to other national agendas. In this context the determination of China to keep maritime disputes off the agenda of both ASEAN and ASEM in 2012, and the EU’s acquiescence with this (or, at least, the acquiescence of certain key EU member states), was a potential sign of things to come. Likewise, there is the danger that this approach will simply transplant the security “free-rider” accusation Americans have directed at Europe for many years from the Atlantic to the Pacific (or, worse – double it).
The EU Dilemma: One for All, All for One?
This brings up the most important issue at stake in any talk of a so-called Asian Pivot for Europe: to what extent can it actually be carried out in a coherent fashion? Michael Smith claims it can. He acknowledges that a strategic move like the US “pivot” is usually reserved for nation states, not international organisations, and for good reasons – it depends on the successful coordination of all elements of diplomacy, with coherent and complementary methods and goals.33 He makes a good case for the EU, but also very easily passes over the fact that it has not been functioning very effectively as a single unit in international affairs in recent years.
Other studies verify the gaps between theory and reality on this point. A revealing 2013 report by researchers at the Netherlands Institute of International Relations indicates that the EU’s “effective multilateralism” is little more than wishful thinking. Covering international negotiations since the introduction of the ESS in 2003 on issues such as environmental protection, health, food, water, education and transport, the report gives a “fragmented and weak” picture where EU representatives often either did not pursue anything resembling effective multilateralism, or pursued national agendas instead. Strategic goals were lacking, mainly due to the absence of a joint position. There was a lack of communication and coordination both across different negotiating fora, and between EU and member state levels of activity.34 One might respond that these are matters of low politics dealt with by a diverse array of experts, and that matters of high politics do after all express the necessary unity. But there are problems at that level as well. The EU’s diplomatic presence is looking very cumbersome: the troika of Van Rompuy, Barosso and Ashton, added to which the determination of the larger member states to be present at the major venues, involves a large entourage lacking “one credible interlocutor”.35
33 Smith, ‘A liberal grand strategy.’ 34 Louise van Schaik and Barend ter Haar, ‘Why the EU is not promoting effective multilateralism,’ Clingendael Policy Brief, 21 (June 2013), available at http://www.clingendael.nl/publication/why-eu-not-promoting-effective-multilateralism. The full study will be available as E. Drieskens and L. van Schaik (eds), The EU and Effective Multilateralism: External and Internal Reform (London: Routledge, 2014). 35 Jonas Parello-Plesner, ‘Europe’s Mini-pivot to Asia,’ China-US Focus, 6 November 2012.
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Yet the EU’s influence is perceivable in other ways. A useful study by David Scott has shown how since the 1990s the EU has promoted multilateralism (i.e. a rule-based normative international system) as opposed to China’s greater interest in multipolarity (i.e. opposition to great power hegemony, generally interpreted as US unilateralism). Yet in recent years there seems to have been a convergence in the two parties’ usage, with Beijing adopting a more temperate line. Scott points out that the usage of the term “multilateralism” is not necessarily the same for both, with the EU’s normative stance balanced by China’s more strategic opportunism. Thus “Multilateralism makes China look good, whereas multilateralism serves as a compensation for EU weaknesses to operate in a multipolar Great Power way.”36 However, a socialising effect could be discernible, whereby the EU’s strong advocacy is drawing the Chinese leadership into its normative way of thinking. Perhaps the EU scores better on this point than many realise.
Three points are worth exploring here in slightly more detail: the coordination between the EU institutions and the member states, the security dimension, and the role of the European External Action Service (EEAS).
1) EU – Member State Coordination
As the European Council on Foreign Relations’ Foreign Policy Scorecard for 2013 demonstrates, the coordination problem has come out strongest in relation to China. The two EU-China summits in 2012 were overshadowed by bilateral deals involving Ireland, Poland and Central Europe, and in particular Germany. There is no agreement among the member states on how to approach China – whether to push an agenda shaped by trade interests, democratic values, or regional cooperation and security. The EU is ostensibly pursuing all three through the high level dialogues of the EU-China strategic partnership, but bilateral arrangements have instead set the tone. The hope of many in recent years that China could play a decisive role in ‘solving’ the Euro-crisis (by buying up government bonds) has not been realised, but neither has it completely disappeared. With German-Chinese trade at an all-time high, in 2012 Angela Merkel visited China twice and set herself up as the main leader of consequence for the Eurozone. Both leaderships agree that debt reduction is the only solution, and neither feel they should pay for it either. Merkel has shown an unwillingness to back any move that could damage trade relations, including failing to support her own solar power industry’s anti-dumping complaint against China. Even the intended EU-China investment agreement is regarded lukewarmly by the Germans (and by the British, but for other reasons) as entering territory they would rather manage at the national level. It must be added that this stance has not prevented Germany from continuing to be a vocal proponent of human rights and the Tibetan issue in recent diplomacy, in line
36 David Scott, ‘Multipolarity, Multilateralism and Beyond: EU-China Understandings of the International System,’ International Relations, 27 (2013), p. 43.
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with the EU’s overall position. 37 But this all demonstrates a problematic multi-level diplomacy rather than a coherent platform pursued consistently at the European level. In the view of a European Council on Foreign Relations report it has also split the EU between the “frustrated market openers” and the “cash-strapped deal seekers” and allowed China to exploit the differences.38
2) The Security Dimension
This point also involves Germany, or rather, “Germany’s culture of excessive military restraint.”39 Recent polls have shown that while Germans tend to trust the military as an institution, there remains very low support for actually using it for anything proactive. This has been demonstrated by German reticence to get involved in NATO’s Operation Unified Protector in Libya, and in an absence of input into the development of the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP). The old joke that NATO was established to keep the Americans in, the Russians out, and the Germans down is now outdated because the Germans now seem intent on keeping themselves down better than anyone else could. The large-scale NATO mission in Afghanistan has stretched both the political will and the military capabilities of European nations to the limit, and security issues in Asia – aside from low-key liaison – are predominantly dealt with on a bilateral basis, as with the defence and security agreements signed by the UK and Japan in July 2013. In the words of Christian Leuprecht, the EU has an “underdeveloped security-military imagination,” and in current economic circumstances this is unlikely to change in the short term.40
However, the security dimension is complicated if the issue of the global arms trade is included. From this perspective Europe is very active in Asia, with European defence firms successfully selling land-, sea-, and air-based hardware across the continent. But it is the longer-term partnership arrangements being developed by, for instance, Airbus, Eurocopter, and Saab with nations across the region that point the way ahead. This is not just a competitive market between European and American corporate giants, but the joint development of systems specifically for Asian-Pacific terrain.41 The long-term ramifications of these developments are as yet unclear.
37 EU Foreign Policy Scorecard 2013: China, pp. 25-38, available at http://www.ecfr.eu/scorecard/2013 38 Francois Godement and Jonas Parello-Plesner with Alice Richard, ‘The Scramble for Europe,’ ECFR Policy Brief, July 2011. 39 Kaiser and Muniz, ‘Europe, too, needs an Asian pivot’ 40 Remarks at the Atlantische Commissie International Seminar, ‘Support in Society for the Armed Forces: Perspectives from North America and Europe,’ The Hague, 1 July 2013. 41 Robbin Laird, ‘America Pivots to Asia: Europe Arms It,’ The Diplomat, 16 August 2013, available at http://thediplomat.com/2013/08/16/america-pivots-to-asia-europe-arms-it/
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3) The Role of the European External Action Service (EEAS)
Some see the EEAS as the future solution, able to develop “an umbrella strategy” to bridge both intra-European and transatlantic differences.42 Asia needs to be “mainstreamed” into EU thinking on international affairs, across all policy fields, something that cannot occur through bilateral deals, and EEAS may be the missing ingredient to achieve this.43 But there are clear challenges to overcome. There is the fact that cooperation between the Service and the Commission is not yet optimal, with the latter holding on to its premier status in areas such as trade, development, and global governance. There is the problem of an effective division of labour between the Service and the national diplomatic apparatuses, with the Service entering a crowded diplomatic landscape as if it is representing another state, when it clearly represents more – or less? – than that. Burden-sharing has so far been forced by budgetary constraints rather than any commitment to a deeper integration of foreign policy. Member states still tend to keep the high priority matters for themselves and leave the difficult dossiers such as human rights to the EU, letting the EEAS take the flak. There is also the fact that even within the Service itself the smaller member states feel the agenda and capabilities are being set by the “big three”. As ever, much time and energy is devoted to common-interest formation rather than outreach.44 As a result, the expected transfer of power from national to supranational diplomacy has not occurred, but while to claim synergy between the two apparatuses is perhaps going too far, nonetheless, adaptation is producing a certain complementarity. Germany, Italy, and Sweden have become the main promoters of foreign policy integration, although, as stated above, German commercial policy is determinedly national in outlook. Meanwhile the UK pursues “pragmatic cherry-picking” for its national agenda, and France, with the highest percentage of national diplomats serving in the EEAS (31, representing 3.4 per cent of its total staff), regards it as another tool for furthering national interests in a European guise. Europeanisation is thus second to intergovernmentalism. As a recent report by the European Policy Center put it:
The rise of Asia is broadly reflected in national diplomatic networks, as member states strengthen their presence in China and elsewhere in the region, even if this requires cutting down representation in other parts of the world. While member states rush after emerging trade opportunities, the EU is criticised for making little progress on strategic partnerships with rising powers. The emphasis on economic competition makes political unity harder to reach and does not encourage strategic thinking from a broader European perspective. 42 Speck, ‘Europe, the United States, and Asia. 43 Norio Maruyama, ‘Mainstreaming Asia in EU Strategic Thinking,’ Carnegie Endowment, 23 September 2011, available at http://carnegieendowment.org/2011/09/23/mainstreaming-asia-in-eu-strategic-thinking/8mum 44 Edith Drieskens and Louise van Schaik (eds), The European External Action Service: Preparing for Success, Clingendael Paper No. 1, December 2010, available at http://www.clingendael.nl/sites/default/files/20110200_clingendael_paper_1.pdf. See also the discussion at ‘The European External Action Service and National Diplomacies – Partners or Rivals?’ Finnish Institute of International Affairs, 24 January 2013, available at The European External Action Service and National Diplomacies – Partners or Rivals?
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Partners like Russia and China which have used divide-and-rule tactics when dealing with Europe continue to be successful. Even the EU member states that are the most committed to a common foreign policy fall into the trap of competing national priorities.45
Referring to nationally-driven priorities as a ‘trap’ ignores the fact that the thinking behind them is very deliberate. Competition rather than cooperation sets the current trend.
Conclusions
In terms of Hill’s thesis on Europe’s “conceivable future functions”, the results after twenty years are mixed. The multipolar world has moved beyond any simple notions of a global balance of power. The EU has introduced important regional policies in its neighbourhood but cannot be regarded as a regional pacifier. It does act as a global intervener and mediator of conflicts, but on a limited scale. Its development aid does act as a bridge between rich and poor nations, but obstacles remain to fully open trade agreements. Its role as joint supervisor of the world economy has taken a serious hit with the Eurocrisis. To add a provocative note to this, and to Hill’s thesis in 1993, one could argue that the EU’s capabilities are no longer being talked up – or that if they are, there is less expectation that they can deliver. This may seem overly negative, but it could also be seen as a positive reality check.
45 Rosa Balfour and Kristi Raik (eds), The European External Action Service and National Diplomacies, European Policy Center Issue Paper No. 73, March 2013, pp. 9-10, available at http://www.epc.eu/pub_details.php?pub_id=3385&cat_id=2
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So does the EU need an Asian Pivot? Inevitably, this review of opinion revealed no consensus. Those Atlanticists focused on the transatlantic relationship clearly think so, for fear of risking further EU-US “drift”. EU-focused opinion is more divided, recognising the need for more coordinated action. But even here, it is easier to say what this action should not involve. It should not simply be triggered by a United States following its own interests. It should not mean simply chasing a better transatlantic relationship in the transpacific arena. It should not mean becoming a tool of Asia-Pacific nations looking to manoeuvre amongst themselves and with the US. It should not be based on an assumed superiority. The Eurocrisis has damaged the EU’s profile as the prime example of regional integration, a positive outcome of which would be a more pragmatic and realistic approach to the rest of the world, on an equal basis.46 The UK’s uncertain position, with a referendum on membership looming, and a woeful level of public debate on the EU’s value, could have a major impact on the European Union’s presence in the Asia-Pacific.
Neither is the United States (or China) the only game-changer in town. The growing India-Japan relationship, with the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement of 2011 and this year’s strengthening of the Strategic and Global Partnership in security affairs, has shown once again how fluid global politics and alliances have become in the last decade or so. In December 2012 Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe called for a “democratic security diamond” together with India, Australia, and the United States “to safeguard the maritime commons stretching from the Indian Ocean region to the western Pacific.”47 The security environment is fluid and many actors are searching for new lines of approach.
In this scenario, Ashton’s announcement of an “Asian semester” was probably just right – low key, no grandstanding, declaring the EU’s interest and presence in the region but not seeking to dominate the agenda. Existing capabilities may not add up to grand strategy, whatever the claims of its ardent admirers. The EU is unable to bring all its resources to bear on a definable set of goals in the region, and this is irresolvable due to its very nature as a multi-layered, multipronged, multispeed organisation. Neither do the sum of national interests and strategies add up to a whole – in fact, quite the opposite. Much depends on the development of the EEAS into a credible diplomatic force. Yet this does not mean that the EU has no impact. The stage-by-stage building of partnerships and the gradual secretion of normative systems, across all areas of public policy, represent a “hidden” power that contrasts with the “all or nothing” approach of the United States. Perhaps the “keep calm and carry on” school of thought on Europe’s place in the world strikes the right note after all.
46 Sanne van der Lugt, ‘Approaching an EU-China Deadlock,’ Clingendael: Global Issues and Asia, 15 July 2013. 47 Shinzo Abe, ‘Asia’s Democratic Security Diamond,’ Project Syndicate, 27 December 2012, available at http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/a-strategic-alliance-for-japan-and-india-by-shinzo-abe.
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