Thread by @Gokul_Sahni

Good piece: "none of these prevailing narratives get things quite right. Asia today is uniquely bipolar, dominated by the world’s only two superpowers. Asia is not a European-style concert of powers, a Middle Eastern free-for-all, or a Cold War–era system of opposing blocs." 1/16

https://twitter.com/ForeignAffairs/status/1834674886062567855

"Countries in Asia are for the most part hedging between two giants. The even balance between the United States and China also makes Asia’s power politics the most stable among the major regional theaters." 2/16

"the Lowy Institute created the Asia Power Index, which goes beyond the traditional shorthand measure of economic size... What it reveals is a durable duopoly: the United States has lost primacy in Asia but remains around ten percent more powerful there than China." 3/16

"Scholars have posited that a power transition is triggered when a rising power’s overall strength approaches 80 percent of that of the established power. By 2018, China had already convincingly breached this threshold." 4/16

"But the dynamic is not that of a rising power eclipsing an established one; it is a dynamic of two powers that will likely continue to coexist as peer competitors applying different means of influence: 🇺🇸 mainly uses security partnerships; 🇨🇳 mainly uses economic relationships."

"Asia’s bipolarity has endured even as many have hoped that India & Japan could become pillars in a truly multipolar region. But.. each of those countries has less than a third of China's economic capability.. as well as their technological sophistication." 6/16

"🇮🇳 & 🇨🇳 have the 2 largest militaries in the world by.. personnel. Yet 🇮🇳's ability to project power and influence east of the Strait of Malacca is limited. Neither its military nor 🇯🇵's comes close to matching the capability of 🇨🇳’s PLA or the pace of its recent naval buildup."

"no major powers in the region are able to match China in the absence of the United States as a security guarantor. Without the United States as a balancing force, East Asia would be utterly dominated by China." 8/16

"Yet both Beijing and Washington overestimate the real changes to the United States’ alliance network in Asia. The comparatively small footprint of its alliances—comprising just five countries—has not grown in decades." 9/16

"And the overall size of these U.S. allies’ military forces remains small. When it comes to firepower, as measured by the number of missile launch cells on board ships and submarines, Australia, Japan, and South Korea combined have less than a quarter of the US's capability."

"Washington remains central in every meaningful security grouping in Asia. Most fundamentally, all of the US alliances in Asia continue to be anchored by bilateral security guarantees, in contrast to the collective defense commitment that applies to NATO allies equally." 11/16

"The stability brought about by bipolarity in Asia, which has benefited the United States as much as any other country, is underappreciated. Asia has no shortage of flash points, notably over Taiwan and the South China Sea." 12/16

"these flash points... have not turned into more deadly conflicts. Contrast this relative peace with Europe, where Russia’s war of aggression on Ukraine continues. Moscow, no longer able to wield a veto over Europe’s security architecture, has become its arsonist. 13/16

"If the United States were to retreat from Asia, Beijing would still have no clear route to establishing a stable China-centric order. It has territorial or maritime disputes with at least ten other countries in the region." 14/16

"The US no longer enjoys primacy in Asia. But an effort to restore this primacy would be seen by many Asian countries as disastrously revisionist. Instead, 🇺🇸 should develop a strategy that focuses on shoring up its own position as a status quo power, one of two poles in Asia."

"Washington should continue to invest in alliances as part of a strategy to deter China but avoid overestimating the importance of these alliances to the overall balance of power in Asia." 16/16