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US-China relations
CommentAsia
Mark J. Valencia
Mark J. Valencia

Opinion | By rising to US bait, China has lost its soft power advantage in Asia

  • China is economically and politically poised to be Asia’s leading soft power, but its aggressive stance in the South China Sea has pushed neighbours towards the US
  • Beijing can still win its diplomacy contest with Washington, but it will need to regain trust in the region

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Illustration: Craig Stephens
Mark J. Valencia

With the advantages of geographic permanency and burgeoning economic and political clout, China has a soft power edge in Asia. Its rival – the US – is hobbled by the tyranny of distance, its preoccupation elsewhere, its blatant self-interest and its overly militarist approach to international relations.

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But China has played its diplomatic hand poorly. It got arrogant and impatient, and overreached, playing right into the US campaign to isolate and demonise it. Now it is reaping the whirlwind of its foreign policies and actions in Asia.

Indeed, driven by the push of Sinophobia and the pull of US offers to protect them, countries from Australia to Japan and from India to Indonesia are rapidly coalescing into an anti-China security camp.

Japan has crossed the defence policy Rubicon vis-à-vis China. It has declared China “the greatest” strategic challenge. According to Japanese Foreign Minister Hayashi Yoshimasa “its foreign policy to recreate international order to serve its self-interest is a grave concern”.
To respond to this “threat”, Japan will nearly double its defence budget over the next five years. More worrying for Beijing, Japan’s Self-Defence Forces are being integrated into the US “defence” strategy intended to deter China. In particular, the US will now supply Japan with long-range missiles that can hit ships at sea and even targets inside China.
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Some of these missiles will be placed with more mobile US Marine littoral regiments in Japan’s southern islands, extending their reach. These regiments will also carry out joint exercises and surveillance in the disputed East China Sea and near Taiwan.

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