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Open Access 2024 | Open Access | Book

Cover of the book

The Transformation of the Liberal International Order

Evolutions and Limitations

Editors: Yuichi Hosoya, Hans Kundnani

Publisher: Springer Nature Singapore

Book Series : SpringerBriefs in International Relations

Part of: Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" , Springer Professional "Technik" , Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

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About this book

This open access book aims to emphasize the potential for Japan, Europe and Indo-Pacific countries including the US to respond to shared domestic and international challenges on finding joint ways to uphold and develop the liberal international order (LIO) in the Asian Pacific region and the world. It explores how these countries and the region (the EU) can work together to promote solidarity and cooperation to advance democratic standards and rules-based norms globally.

The US understands the LIO in a political sense and centers its focus on democracy, aiming to build a coalition of democracies opposed to China and Russia which represent a kind of authoritarian axis. The US aims both to defend the LIO and respond to the China challenge and to build a coalition of countries that will do both. In contrast European countries aim at defending the “rules-based order”—a term preferred because they fear that the concept of the LIO might alienate or antagonize non-democratic countries. They face a dilemma between working with China to reform the LIO or, in seeking to defend it from China, excluding China. Germany and France differ regarding whether to play a passive or active role in the Indo-Pacific, the former choosing to preserve peace and stability for continued exports, and, until recently, doing little to contribute to security. Its views echo those of the ASEAN countries, which are unable or unwilling to take an active role in protecting the LIO. On the contrary France, along with the UK, actively carries out presence operations in the Indo-Pacific. Rather than upholding US dominance, France supports a multipolar order that will also reduce China’s influence in the region, with France acting as a balancing power and offering an alternative to the choice between China and the United States. Japan and India show interest in European views with the former leaning more toward its allies, the US and AUKUS, and the latter seeing Europe less as an alternative to the status quo and more as a complement of QUAD. This book concludes that the US needs to build coalitions rather than forcing allies and neighbors to choose sides, while Japan, Asian countries, and Europeans should more actively reform the LIO.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter
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Open Access

Chapter 1. Introduction: Japan and the Reform of the Liberal International Order
Abstract
Facing the rise of authoritarian states—namely Russian and China—the liberal international order has arguably declined and retreated during the last decade. The United Nations adopted a resolution condemning Russia’s invasion in Ukraine on March 2, 2022, but forty nations either voted against or abstained. Countries labelled as global swinging states or the global south criticize the liberal international order of being dominated by Western civilization. The following chapters of this book aim to find possible shared perceptions and junctures between Japan, Europe, the United States and Indo-Pacific countries, which could reform the liberal international order, giving it a more global outlook and a better reach.
Yuichi Hosoya
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Chapter 2. American Strategy and the Liberal International Order
Abstract
Is the world unipolar, bipolar, or multipolar? This is a fundamental question for international relations scholars, many of whom stress the importance of structure on patterns of state behavior (see, for example, Kenneth N. Waltz, Theory of International Politics, Waveland Press (1979)). But on this critical issue, Americans are deeply divided. Furthermore, there are substantial differences between the views of Americans and those of key allies and partners abroad. As a result, there is a growing divide between how many Americans see the world—as either unipolar or bipolar—and how it is perceived by most others: increasingly multipolar. This has substantial implications for U.S. strategy. Most importantly, it will impede efforts to build strong and sustainable coalitions, which are necessary to bolster the liberal international order.
Zack Cooper
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Chapter 3. East Asia, Europe and the High Sea: The Geostrategic Trinity of the U.S.-Led Order
Abstract
The U.S.-led international order rests on a geostrategic trinity, that is: “command of the sea,” and the other global commons such as airspace, outer space and cyber-space, and the preservation of favorable balances of power in East Asia and Europe. The U.S. and its allies’ powers and institutions underpin the international order, while the economic and political rise of China is leading to greater contestation of that order. The Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific are increasingly interconnected, which could create a basis for Europeans to make more of a contribution to security in the Indo-Pacific. The Euro-Atlantic allies should avoid the trap of overpreparing to fight the war in continental Europe, and focus more on how they may contribute to deterring a future war in East Asia, and to the preservation of command of the commons.
Luis Simón
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Chapter 4. The EU’s Connectivity Strategy 2.0: Global Gateway in the Indo-Pacific
Abstract
The EU’s Global Gateway—launched in 2021—goes back to the Connectivity strategy launched in 2018, and addresses the challenge of a rising China, especially its bid to increase its influence through the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The Global Gateway provides target states with a safer bet than the BRI and meets the infrastructure needs in the Indo-Pacific region. Based on three core principles—sustainable, comprehensive, and rules-based—the EU is able to combine economic growth with strengthened liberal values, thus maintaining and improving its global economic competitiveness and strategic advantages especially in the Indo-Pacific. The regulatory aspects of the Global Gateway are also important, as these regulations, especially in the digital domain, will have democratic values integrated within them which directly challenge the digital authoritarianism of China. Whether the EU can be successful in implementing this agenda will depend on its ability to work with the United States, Japan, and like-minded partners in the Indo-Pacific.
Maaike Okano-Heijmans
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Chapter 5. Germany’s Indo-Pacific Turn: Towards a Contribution to the Rules-Based Order?
Abstract
Germany has shown significant interest in the Indo-Pacific region since around 2020, when it published policy guidelines focused on this region. In that context, one of Berlin’s professed objectives has been to contribute to the rules-based international order. Whereas its policy was dominated by economic and trade issues in the past, Berlin has shifted more attention to security issues. The deployment of a frigate to the Indo-Pacific in 2021–2022 underlined the Federal Republic’s growing interest in the region, although it is questionable as to what extent it contributed to the rules-based order. Germany’s Indo-Pacific policy goes beyond this deployment, however, covering a broad range of issues encapsulated by a whole-of-government approach. Disaggregating the concept of liberal international order into the three major elements—security order, economic order, and human rights order—this chapter shows that Germany’s policy reflects support for all three dimensions in the region. Nevertheless, Berlin will need continued refinement of its approach, such as determining the extent of policy cooperation with Washington or engagement with minilateral frameworks in the region.
Alexandra Sakaki
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Chapter 6. France’s Indo-Pacific Approach: Salvaging the Rules-Based Order and Staying Relevant
Abstract
As a P5 country and an Indo-Pacific nation, France aims to act as a balancing power that would offer an alternative to the choice between China and the United States, which is increasingly faced by countries around the world, especially in the Indo-Pacific. The “Macron Doctrine” is set to make France consolidate its role as a balancing, united, radiant, influential power, a driving force for European autonomy that preserves the multilateral mechanisms based on international law. The trilateral security pact between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States (AUKUS) shock of 2021 was a blow for Paris, but France distances itself from upholding a continued U.S. dominance, and defines its strategy as complementary with that of the U.S. Seeing China as a destabilizing factor in the Indo-Pacific (French Defense Strategy 2021) and a systemic rival (National Strategic Review 2022) of liberal international order, France supports a multipolar order that would allow for it to pursue its own approach, while also reducing China’s influence in the region.
Céline Pajon
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Chapter 7. India, the Quad, and the Liberal International Order
Abstract
After the Covid-19 pandemic and Russia's invasion of Ukraine, China stands out as the predominant challenger to India's international interests and the international order. Despite its tradition of a post-colonial, developing democracy that was non-aligned during the Cold War, India upholds the rules-based international order together with the U.S., Europe and Japan. Quad is one of the most important new arrangements to upheld a rules-based international order in the Indo-Pacific. At the same time, India has sought to retain a leadership role in the Global South, given concerns about China’s growing influence. Besides defending the rules-based international order, India has also been a staunch defender of national sovereignty, and believes that the open trading system has not always offered a level playing field. India will simultaneously seek cooperation with the Quad, the middle-powers outside the Quad and the Global South, so that critical technology and best practices necessary for India’s transformation and increased leverage are secured.
Dhruva Jaishankar
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Chapter 8. Countering Chinese Economic Coercion and Corrosive Capital in Southeast Asia
Abstract
Southeast Asian nations, at this point, are unable or unwilling to take an active role in protecting the rules-based liberal international order (LIO) from China-led threats, including territorial disputes. They prioritize economic growth and trade over security or geopolitical concerns, and are not willing to put their economy at risk. Southeast Asian nations are willing to accept Chinese investment because, with the exception of Japan which counters China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in aiding infrastructure and energy projects, there is not a viable alternative. The threat of Chinese economic coercion and fear of losing a key export market run high. Europe and America have mostly withdrawn from investing in Southeast Asia, but the EU’s Globally Connected Europe and the U.S.-led Build Back Better World initiative in 2021 provide hope. A joint U.S.-Europe-Japan-led alternative to the BRI can create new standards for transparency, along with clear mechanisms for fair arbitration, debt financing, and judicial processes. A clearer link between the rules and institutions underpinning the LIO and economic growth needs to be shown.
Nithin Coca
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Chapter 9. The Challenge of China for the Liberal International Order
Abstract
China is willing to talk about the “rules-based order” by crowning it with the skeptical term “so-called,” thus criticizing it as a system established by the U.S. for the ultimate benefit of the U.S. and its allies. Beijing thinks the global system must be modified to suit their interests, or otherwise it will conspire against them and corrode their grip on power at home. The country has benefited more than anyone from the post-Cold War liberalization of the economic order. While downplaying human rights, democracy and shared values, China attempts to set global rules at the UN on international economy and finance, regional cooperation, and emerging areas such as the oceans, the poles, cyberspace, and outer space, and, where it sees further chances, launch rival or parallel bodies—the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation, and the BRICS, for example. Beijing had once accommodated the rules-based order, but now it feels that the rules-based order must accommodate China.
Richard McGregor
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Chapter 10. Northeast Asia’s Energy Transition–Challenges for a Rules-Based Security and Economic Order
Abstract
Would the rise and political convergence of a dominant gas supplier (Russia) and an outsized consumer (the People's Republic of China) prohibit or facilitate the rise of multilateral energy governance in Northeast Asia? We revisit conventional views on challenges to interstate cooperation on managing energy demand and related infrastructure provision among Japan, South Korea (ROK), and the People's Republic of China. Through a “geoeconomic” analysis that tracks the interplay between national energy transition and the securitization of energy policies, we suggest that Northeast Asia energy interdependence relations are in the process of being drawn into a Eurasian Arctic and heartland framework that mediates great power competition across energy, financial, and diplomatic domains. Against these pressures, Japan, the European Union and the U.S. would need to reconceptualize the geographical basis of a regional liberal institutional order as defined in this book.
Kun-Chin Lin, Tim Reilly
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Chapter 11. The Liberal International Order and Economic Security
Abstract
The economic rise of China has made the country occupy a pivotal place in global supply chains, making Japan and the U.S. vulnerable to Chinese economic coercion in the form of sanctions and embargoes. Japan has created a new position of minister for economic security in the quest to reduce its dependence on China by diversifying supply sources for key materials and products, and augmenting stockpiles of strategic supplies. Such choices stem from the reality that China has joined the World Trade Organization (WTO) and enjoyed economic benefits from the free trade system, yet rejected its shared values and the rules of the liberal regime. The WTO mechanism is unable to identify and punish a member country’s violation of the WTO rules, making it reasonable for Japan and the U.S. to strengthen their economic security and develop industrial policies in such a way that protects their industry. These steps should be understood as essentially protectionist; however, Japan intends to play its role as the leader of the free trade system and the rules-based international order by strictly limiting protections to “strategic” goods.
Kazuto Suzuki
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Chapter 12. The Future of the Liberal International Order
Abstract
Asia, Europe and the United States differ in their views about whether they should “decouple” from authoritarian states like China and Russia and thus defend a core liberal international order, or maintain an order that is “thinner” but universal. With these differences in their views on how to defend the liberal international order and how to respond to the rise of China, the U.S. is encouraged to build coalitions with a more inclusive approach to order-building rather than forcing allies to choose between itself and China. Germany and France aim to prioritize the rule-based order but are reluctant to emphasize democracy as the Biden administration does. Germany puts economic interests first, while France pursues an active military presence in the Pacific and aims to offer an alternative to a choice between China and the U.S. Those countries belonging to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) are closer to the German position, while Australia, Japan, and India are becoming closer to the U.S. by prioritizing the trilateral security pact between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States (AUKUS) and the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad).
Hans Kundnani
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Metadata
Title
The Transformation of the Liberal International Order
Editors
Yuichi Hosoya
Hans Kundnani
Copyright Year
2024
Publisher
Springer Nature Singapore
Electronic ISBN
978-981-9947-29-4
Print ISBN
978-981-9947-28-7
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-4729-4

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