“Cooperative Security 2.0 in Asia-Pacific” Summary of the Seminar

Zhou Yiqi,   zhengyingqin,  Ji Yixin   2013/11/12 source：

The section 1 centers on the keynote speech delivered by one Chinese scholar titled “ New Features& New Ideas: China’s Diplomacy in Xi’s administration. The scholar says that despite its continuity, there are several note-worthy changes in Chinese new leaders’ planning and ideas about foreign policy including new strategic thinking, new strategic goal with a focus on strategic concentration, readjustment of strategic layout and theorization of their new global strategy. Based on all these changes, several features of Chinese new leader’s foreign policy can be summarized. The first feature is that China will develop new model of relationships with the major countries. The second is on China’s relationship with its neighboring countries which emphasizes the friendship, sincerity, and inclusiveness. The third is to promote the adaptability and flexibility of the policy while upholding principles. The fourth feature is the bottom line thinking.

After the speech, the participants’ discussion mainly focus on three aspects: the new model of major country relationship, China’s relationship with its neighboring countries and trust building.

As for the new model of major country relationship, one Canadian scholar asks about how the mutual perception of Xi Jingping and Obama changed after their informal meeting at the Sunnylands in last June and another Canadian scholar raises a question about the translation of the term “new model of major country relationship”. In addition to the questions, one Chinese scholar proposes that some new areas of cooperation including nuclear issues and outer space cooperation should be taken into the framework of new model of major country relationship. A Chinese scholar also argues that the new model of major country relationship should not be limited to Sino-US relationship, but be considered in the China-Japan relations.

As for the relationship between China and its neighboring countries, some scholars, especially those from the Canadian side, express their concerns on the current maritime disputes between China and some of its neighboring countries.

As for the issues related to trust building, a Canadian scholar raises a question about the possibility of building trust between major powers. As for that question, Chinese scholar responds that although it is difficult to build trust between major countries, at least a certain degree of trust can still be made between major countries.

In the section 2, the focus of discussion is on the topic of consociational security order. The concept of consociational security order (CSO) is proposed by a Canadian scholar, which refers to the relationship of mutual accommodation among unequal and culturally diverse groups that preserves each group’s relative autonomy and prevents the hegemony of any particular groups.  According to its author, the concept is different from and possesses stronger explanatory power than other models such as anarchy, hegemony, hierarchy, concert and community. The CSO has four conditions: economic interdependence, equilibrium, institutions under shared leadership and elite restraint. Although CSO cannot guarantee that no military conflict will happen in the Asia Pacific region, it can ensure no major warfare like World War II will happen in the region.

As for the validity of the CSO, some scholars think that despite the positive effect of the four conditions of CSO in maintaining stability in East Asia, some other factors may hinder the effectiveness of the four conditions. For examples, economic interdependence may not lead to mutual understanding and it is possible that a deeper integrated regional economy will increase negative feelings among nations in that region. It’s also possible that some political leaders will sacrifice the benefit of economic interdependence in order to pursue their political goals.

Some scholars cast doubt on whether the equilibrium of the balance of power among a group of defensive states can be achieved or not. A Chinese scholar argues that the accommodation between China and the U.S. is difficult to achieve because of the mutual distrust.

Some scholars argue that in the context of democratization of Asian states, the internal political factors such as public opinion, nationalism and other domestic concern will affect the elite restraint.

As for the ways of implementing the CSO, a Chinese scholar argues that the East Asia summit perfectly matches all the conditions of CSO which is worth of a considerate scrutiny. A Canadian scholar suggests that the author of CSO should consider how to persuade the relevant decision makers to accept the CSO concept.

Discussion in section 3 mainly focused on “New Bridges over the Regional Threat Perception Gap”. By analyzing some key concepts such as misperception, confidence, trust building and empathy, scholars illustrated the threat perception gaps existing in both Sino-Japan relations and Sino-U.S. relations, and put forward some suggestions to bridge these gaps.

About threat and threat perception gaps: One of the Chinese scholars pointed out that underestimation, overestimation and misjudgment are three types of common perception gaps, among which, the last two are often seen in the bilateral relations in Asian-Pacific region. The reasons for perception gaps may include factors as follows: trust deficit, insufficient information, the Cold War mentality, exaggeration of the threat as an excuse for military expansion, and lack of crisis management mechanisms. Generally speaking, some of these perception gaps are ingrain, and even DNA-related; while others are more superficial, event-driven and are easier to be bridged. Currently, China and Japan now both have the misperception of each other and a lack of truly effective communication and mutual understanding, which has made the situation even worse. In the case of Sino-U.S. relations, there are also perception gaps, not only in military aspect, but also in economic sector. Militarily, on one side, the exercise of U.S. super and unilateral military power in the region, particularly its involvement in the Taiwan issue, poses a threat in Chinese perception; on the other side, the American media misperceives China’s conducting of its military modernization as an aggressive action as to challenge the U.S. dominance in Asia Pacific. Economically, even China and the U.S. are highly interdependent, threat perceptions also exist: Washington is quite doubtful about the purpose of China's holding of its huge amount of national debts, while China dissatisfies with the U.S. restrictions on high-tech exports to it. Besides these bilateral relations, some scholar cautioned that perception gaps can also be found between different governments, different peoples, different departments within a government as well as between government and its people, in which the last one is the most difficult to be addressed.

Suggestions to bridge these perception gaps: The vital significance of trust building mechanisms (TBMs) for bridging perception gaps is widely recognized by the scholars. Chinese scholars emphasized when dealing with the disputes, all countries are encouraged to have a big picture for the long-term and overall development of their relations with others. Some scholar also stressed that self-reflection is extremely important for mutual understanding. In addition, there were more suggestions provided by the Chinese scholars to bridge the perception gaps, as follows: acquiring adequate information as to better judge other country's ability and motivation, carrying out dialogues on various levels for mutual understanding, establishing truly effective crisis management mechanisms, maintaining the common interests and enhancing the ability of opportunity management as well as building empathy, which also known as the Chinese saying goes, "Treat the others as you would like to be treated ".

As respond to how to bridge the gaps, one Canadian scholar shared his insightful opinions by illustrating the connections among “confidence”, “trust” and “empathy” (which refers to the capacity to see the world from another’s perspective). He especially stresses the importance of empathy, which, according to his observation, is not a term commonly encountered in Asia-Pacific security discourse. In his view, confidence is a permissive condition for empathy, and empathy is clearly a necessary but not sufficient condition for trust. Regarding of this opinion, most scholars contended the vital role of empathy in trust building; however, as for the realization of cultivating empathy among nations, most of them were pessimistic. Some scholars were quite concerned about the negative effects that empathy may cause. One Chinese scholar had further pointed out that there are some challenges to practice empathy. Questions as follows are not easy to be answered：1、Who are the players of empathy conducting, the government or the people？2、How to judge a country's ability and its willingness of empathy building？3、How to define the so-called good information through empathy? 4、How to overcome the difficulties in the communication due to the completely different cultural backgrounds? Additionally, one Chinese scholar argued that we should see things from a historical perspective and notice that the past history of Sino-U.S. relations and Sino-Japan relations reflects something valuable and different from what the concepts tell us. Besides, scholars also present different interpretations on the concept of "trust". Some Canadian scholars believed that there are two ways to understand trust: one is that you understand the other but recognize that you are different, the other is that you understand each other because you share the same values and political institutions. With a different perspective, one Chinese scholar argued that there may be two kinds of trust which are inter-related, political trust and cultural trust. In the case of relations between China and Western countries, they may lack some political trust, but they have good cultural trust based on a common understanding of human goodness.

Cooperative Security 2.0 in Asia-Pacific  Section 4

1.A New Roadmap to Regional Maritime Cooperation

One Canadian scholar considers now is the right time to start conversation about the abstract meaning of the law of the sea for East Asia. The maritime laws have changed since 1990s while dispute-resolving orientated dialogues are not quite constructive due to the pointing-fingers among participants. New roadmap includes the following steps. There are a number of“micro-agreements”on legal principles, whether sovereignty can be compromised or shared or not, the implications of recent arbitration rulings etc. that could be reached in the short term which could in turn convert into medium term consensus around regional functional cooperation on appropriate behavior at sea. Regardless of the results of the maritime disputes, the regional security setting will be improved. And in time, the above outlined efforts should contribute to the political will to negotiate regional maritime boundaries. East Asia is confronting multiple maritime disputes currently, this roadmap can be put into a good use following the steps outlined above.

Chinese scholars make comments on the new roadmap updated by the Canadian scholar. Though Law must be respected and taken seriously, it is a comparatively modern concept that appears much later than territory disputes in East Asia and also not the only effective tool to solve the conflicts. Arbitration is new to East Asia countries and according to the existent cases, the results are not appreciated by all sides. Functional cooperation such as bilateral and multilateral military exercises, disaster relief have been practiced in this region. However, disputes cannot be ignored under the circumstance that Japan denies there is territory dispute and abandons the consensus reached in 1970s between China and Japan, thus ruling out the possibility of negotiation. Some scholar mentions that Relative Security is a more realistic concept than Absolute Security. Decision makers and civilians are potential victims of irrational Nationalism. “Victory”is not the ultimate objection when dealing with territory disputes.

2.Clarification and Wrap-up of concepts derived from the Workshop

Canadian scholars try to seek a counterpart expression in Chinese language of the CSO concept and ask Chinese colleagues to brainstorm and explore the answer based on the author’s emphasis on its realistic side, pluralism and the sprit of sharing leadership. The Canadian scholar says he will enrich CSO with Cooperation Security 2.0 Lexicon concept such as Opportunity Management, New Model of Great Power Relationship, Empathy etc.

Chinese scholars provide several choices: Duo Yuan Gong Cun(多元共存)， Duo Yuan Gong Sheng(多元共生)，Duo Yuan Gong Jin(多元共进)，Duo Yuan Gong Shang(多元共商), Duo Yuan•He Zuo•Gong Sheng(多元•合作•共生). Both sides agree to open the communication channel and try to locate the most appropriate translation.

3.Conclusion

The Chinese side is considering how to upgrade the concept of “cooperative security” into a new level. Terms with Chinese characteristics like Equality, Mutual Trust, Mutual Beneficial which share similar spirits with their western counterparts appear frequently in China’s diplomatic documents in recent years. China becomes capable of providing public goods including intellectual concepts due to its rising position in international arena. Track One mechanisms such as ARF and ADMM Meeting under ASEAN frame work on traditional security issues are fruitful, meanwhile non-traditional security issues including disaster management, maritime dispute, non-proliferation, anti-terrorism, transnational crime etc. are threatening regional security and call for more cooperation and coordination. Workshop like this is both timely and momentous since new concepts and policy suggestions come from here which later might become intellectual support for policy makers. Scholars are suggested to focus their academic research on how to implement concrete cooperation and opportunity management. Players share mutual benefits are not necessarily cooperative on certain issue thus opportunity management, alike crisis management, seeks cooperation. Scholars and research institutes shall focus on constructing and enriching a new cooperation security framework, starting with comparatively easy non-traditional security case such disaster relief, and gradually evolving into difficult ones such as sovereign disputes.