Guest Post: Amy Searight on the Politics of Climate Change in Asia

The Politics of Climate Change in Asia

This is a guest post by Amy Searight, Adjunct Fellow at the Japan Chair of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and Adjunct Professor at the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University.

The comparison of climate change politics across Asia’s widely disparate countries has yielded some fascinating insights. Asia-Pacific countries divide roughly into two groups. The first group consists of more ambitious countries, with governments willing and able to take a forward leaning stance on climate change policies, including Korea, Japan, Indonesia, and to some extent Australia under the Labor government. The other group includes those countries facing severe domestic constraints and reluctant to take the lead in climate change policy, such as China, India, and the United States. 

Interestingly, this grouping does not break down along lines of advanced versus emerging market economies or between more and less economically developed countries. The analyses of these scholars highlighted the ways in which countries define their interests differently and uniquely, depending on perception of opportunities at the international level, as well as the domestic political situation faced by governments at home.

One common strategic constraint facing all countries in international collaboration on climate change is the collective action dilemma. No country wants to assume an unfair burden by contributing more than their “fair share” of carbon reductions. This common problem is made more acute by concerns over competitiveness and carbon leakage – the risk that self-imposed limits on carbon emissions will drive up local industrial costs higher than countries (notably China) that insist on less stringent restrictions.  All countries want to avoid a “suckers payoff” in the strategic game of climate change cooperation.

And yet, despite this common strategic dilemma, the politics of climate change policy are playing out quite differently across these countries. Several key Asian governments have sought to use climate change to their domestic and international advantage. Rather than focusing on costs and constraints, these governments are framing the issue as one of opportunities. Korea and Japan, for example, are both seeking to take leading roles in global efforts to mitigate climate change. The current governments in both countries see several advantages to positioning themselves as “green leaders.” First, playing a lead and constructive role in global talks on climate change is an opportunity to boost international stature and augment their “soft power” by being seen as “green powers.” Second, both countries see first-mover advantages in restructuring their economies to promote green technologies. Despite substantial opposition from industry in both countries, the governments of President Lee in Korea and the Prime Minister Hatoyama in Japan are able to frame their ambitious environmental agendas in ways that are sustaining broad public support.

Another comparatively forward leaning country is Indonesia. President Yudhoyono has proposed ambitious unilateral reduction targets for emissions, and has offered even higher reductions with international support. Like Korea, Indonesia sees an opportunity to play a leading role in international climate change discussions as a “bridge” between diverse countries, as a developing country, an oil producer, and an archipelago highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. The government is also motivated by the prospect of gaining international financial support, as well as the comparatively low cost of mitigation policies that would come from tackling the problems of deforestation, forest fires and peatland degradation, which contribute more than half of Indonesia’s greenhouse gas emissions.

As these examples illustrate, the comparison of these seven Asia-Pacific countries suggest that variables on both the international and domestic levels are central to explaining national variation in climate change politics. In addition to the international opportunities and constraints discussed above, the key domestic political variables include:

—The government:  how does the current government view climate change policies in terms of partisan electoral considerations?  Are leaders personally involved in and committed to policy outcomes?  Are bureaucratic rivalries shaping policies in positive or negative ways? 

—Opposition:  Are groups opposed to climate change policies organized and coherent, or fragmented?  Is there a strong political party who stands against the government on the issue?  Is the business community unified in opposition to climate change, or is it divided by competing interests?

—The broad public debate over climate change:  Where does public opinion stand on the issue of global warming and climate change?  How much acceptance vs. skepticism of scientific beliefs on climate change is expressed by the public?  Is the question of cost (in monetary terms) clearly defined in public discussion over climate change policies?  To what extent are concerns about competitiveness and carbon leakage the focus of public debate?  How do cultural understandings and environmental features of each country shape the public debate?

Further comparative analysis on these questions will yield additional insights into the likely trajectories of climate change policies in key Asian nations.  These in turn may help identify possible roadblocks to international efforts on climate change, as well as suggest potential areas of cooperation on the global and regional level.

Through the Politics of Climate Change in Asia project, CSIS is looking in-depth at how the Asia-Pacific region can work together to address the challenges of climate change, energy insecurity, and humanitarian crises in the years ahead.  As part of this initiative, CSIS held a roundtable on the Politics of Climate Change in Asia during the brief lull between two major snowstorms that hit Washington D.C. in February.  Scholars drawn from across the Asia-Pacific region braved the blizzard-like travel conditions and gathered at CSIS to discuss papers analyzing the domestic and international politics shaping the emerging perspectives and policies on climate change in their respective countries.  The scholars included Kiyoaki Aburaki (writing on Japan); Malcolm Cook (Australia); Prem Shankar Jha (India); Sarah Ladislaw (the United States); Wonhyuk Lim (Korea); Agus P. Sari (Indonesia); and Zhu Feng (China), along with CSIS scholars and a range of other experts on climate change and regional politics.  To learn more, visit the CSIS Asian Regionalism page. 

Posted by Matthew Shannon Stumpf on March 17, 2010. Respond »

The Democratic Party of Japan’s Unheralded Realism

In the latest stop in his regional tour, Japanese Foreign Minister Okada Katsuya visited Australia for talks with Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Foreign Minister Stephen Smith.

Most of the headlines have focused on the exchange of words over whaling — the polite phrasing seems to be that Okada and Rudd had a “frank discussion”, and Rudd has threatened to sue Japan if it does not halt whaling by November — but more important in the long term may be the agreement reached between the two governments to sign an Acquisition and Cross-Servicing Agreement (ACSA) in March, which would enable mutual logistical support on peacekeeping and disaster relief missions. The ACSA will be another small step in building an Australia-Japan security relationship following the joint security declaration signed in 2007 back when Abe Shinzo was prime minister.

Writing at The Interpreter (and from the Australian perspective), Graeme Dobell writes of Australia’s hedging by building up its relationship with Japan over the span of a decade, noting that “It is not grand enough to be called a strategy. It does not yet have the status or coherence of a policy. Yet it is much more than an inclination or intention. Call it low-level hedging.” One could very well say the same of Japan.

Despite the impression in some circles that the Hatoyama government is naive (due perhaps in part to Hatoyama’s talk of an East Asian community)  — and the irritating habit that some analysts have of dichotomizing Japan’s foreign policy choice as being either alliance with the US or partnership with China — the Hatoyama government is deliberately working to improve Japan’s bilateral ties throughout the region. In the span of weeks, Prime Minister Hatoyama has visited India to, among others, agree to regular bilateral security talks and Okada has visited South Korea and Australia to discuss how to bolster Japan’s relationships with both countries. What was notable about both Okada trips is that he did not hesitate to acknowledge the obstacles to closer bilateral ties even as he expressed his beliefs that the obstacles can be overcome. Before he had his discussion about whaling in Australia, on his visit to South Korea Okada acknowledged in strong terms Japan’s wrongdoing when it colonized Korea 1910-1945. In both cases, Okada is clearly trying to address the obstacles forthrightly while remaining focused on the goals of closer bilateral cooperation.

In bilateral relations with India, South Korea, and Australia (not to mention China), the Hatoyama government is building on the work of its LDP predecessors. What’s different, however, is that the Hatoyama government is for the most part building its new grand strategy on the sly. Unlike say the Abe government, which used grandiloquent rhetoric about democracy and shared values to announce its bilateral initiatives with Australia and India (and was none too subtle about the links between among these three democracies and the US), the Hatoyama government has been workmanlike in its efforts to improve Japan’s bilateral ties. There are few hints that it wants to link its bilateral ties with countries like Australia to its alliance with the US, which would in turn prompt talk of a grand alliance aimed at containing China. Instead, the Hatoyama government may be focusing on new bilateral relations as a hedge against the US. In the event that the US were to turn inward and weaken its commitment to Asia, Japan could use other friends in the region. Even with the US committed to the region, Japan’s interests are served by better bilateral ties, which have been underdeveloped for too long.

That there are significant obstacles — Australia’s threat of a lawsuit, for one — to overcome in nearly all of Japan’s bilateral relationships in the region should not detract from appreciation of the Hatoyama government’s efforts to overcome those obstacles. Its foreign policy initiatives may be quiet, but they will have implications for Japan’s position in the region for years to come.

Posted by Tobias Harris on February 25, 2010. Respond »

Guest Post: Heinrichs on Why Asian Community No Answer to Regional Challenges

Asian community no answer to regional challenges
by Raoul Heinrichs

As close allies of the US, Australia and Japan have had it pretty good for a long time. Since the end of World War II, neither has faced any major challenge to its security and both countries have prospered greatly from the stability America has provided.

Strange, then, that Australia and Japan, arguably the two greatest beneficiaries of America’s alliance system, have in recent months become the most vocal advocates of a radically different regional system, one in which American power and leadership would no longer be the defining feature. Kevin Rudd has proposed an Asia Pacific community, while Japanese Prime Minister, Yukio Hatoyama, has called for an East Asian community.

While the details remain vague, both proposals appear to rest on the same largely unspoken belief: that US primacy in Asia is an unsustainable basis for regional order, and that multilateral institutions, either singly or collectively, are the best possible replacement. Both leaders envisage a benign security community comprised of member states bound together by a common Asian identity, a shared commitment to maintaining peace among themselves, and a general reluctance to engage in divisive power politics.

To some observers, all of this institutional star gazing is a bit self-indulgent, the kind of diplomatic grandiosity available only to the leaders of countries like Japan and Australia, whose wealth and security are relatively well assured. This criticism, however, though not entirely unfounded, belies the very real long-term dilemma that both countries face.

For decades now, Asia’s stability has devolved naturally from America’s unrivalled power, which has allowed Washington to be everything to everyone. The US has protected Japan from China and, more indirectly, it has reassured China about Japan. For Australia and the rest of the region, the US has prevented the dangers that would arise if China and Japan were allowed to resume their competition for Asian supremacy.

But all of this is changing as shifts in the distribution of power produce new strategic calculations. China, increasingly confident in its long-term ability to see off any threat from Japan, no longer depends on the US to the same extent to prevent Tokyo’s rearmament. Across the sea, as China looms large, Japan needs the US more than ever, despite being apprehensive – and resentful — about relying on a strategically preoccupied ally who owes Beijing almost a trillion dollars. Meanwhile, the US itself faces the difficult question of whether to confront a rising China, accommodate it at the expense of its own position (as well as that of Japan), or simply expect Beijing to indefinitely resign itself to US primacy.

Having lasted now for many decades, it’s become tempting to conceive of Asia’s peace and stability as a permanent and irreducible feature of the regional environment. But beneath the trade and investment and all the day-to-day diplomacy, Asia’s great power rivalries are once again beginning to simmer. Without the dominance of the US, stability cannot be taken for granted, and in a more unpredictable environment such as this, US allies like Japan and Australia will eventually face up to some tough choices. As US primacy fades, they’ll either have to do a lot more to support their alliances with the US, or learn to expect a lot less out of them – or both.

However, if the dilemmas that Rudd and Hatoyama face are real and serious, the diplomatic solutions they’ve come up with so far fall well short of the mark. Most of the debate about a new regional architecture has focused on which countries should be included and which should be left out. Should the region have an entirely new institution, or could we simply reform one of Asia’s existing institutions, the East Asia Summit perhaps, APEC, or the ASEAN Regional Forum – or should we instead consolidate them all into one umbrella organisation?

These might be important questions, but only if creating a new regional architecture, or revamping the old one, really is an appropriate response to the seismic changes underway in Asia today, and that is what Rudd and Hatoyama have failed to adequately explain. How, exactly, will a shiny new architecture mitigate the risks of a more intense strategic competition, encouraging the major powers of Asia to behave nicely towards each other, to renounce the use of force as a way of resolving disputes, and to calculate their interests according to what’s good for the region and not just themselves. In other words, how will this new architecture stop states behaving like states?

The uncomfortable reality, of course, is that it can’t and won’t. Multilateral institutions are never more than the sum of their parts. They grow up to reflect the preferences of the powerful states that create them, or else the balance of power out of whose shadows they emerge. Even with funding, personnel and an expansive membership, institutions do not transcend power politics, as Rudd and Hatoyama might imagine, nor do they have an independently moderating effect on the strategic outlook of their member states.

Rather, they become another venue in which the same old rivalries and political games are played out – very much like the UN today.

There’s a more general point to take away here. In a world of self-interested states — with all its uncertainty and danger, and with no one to call on if things get ugly — no institutions, no matter how well funded, can eradicate the unfortunate suspicion and mistrust, and resulting hostility, that shape international life.

This is the inescapable dilemma that Rudd and Hatoyama need to think about as they head back to the drawing board.

Raoul Heinrichs is a Research Associate at the Lowy Institute and Coordinator of the Institute’s MacArthur Foundation Asia Security Project.

Posted by Matthew Shannon Stumpf on January 7, 2010. Respond »

Newsweek on the Lowy Institute China Poll

In the Newsweek Wealth of Nations blog, Katie Baker reports on the Lowy Institute China poll. Read the Newsweek blog post and the China poll report from the Lowy Institute. Recent Asia Security Initiative blog commentary by the poll report’s authors, Fergus Hanson and Andrew Shearer, can be found here.

Posted by Matthew Shannon Stumpf on December 10, 2009. Respond »

In the News: Jakarta Post Analysis on the Rudd Conference on Asia-Pacific Community

In “It’s a slow boat to Kevin Rudd’s Asia-Pacific village,” Chief Editor Endy Bayuni reported in Monday’s Jakarta Post on the conference convened by Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd this weekend on “The Asia Pacific: A Community for the 21st Century.”

He writes:

[Rudd] deliberately omitted his own vision of a community, preferring to allow countries to decide together what exactly they want and how they intend to get there. In the absence of a clear vision, however, one inevitably gets the impression that this community is more responsive to events rather than one that decides its own course, a boat that follows where the wind and the rough waters take it without a clear destination, as long as it stays afloat.”

Read the entire opinion here.

Send the Asia Security Initiative blog your thoughts at asiblog at macfound dot org, or through the comment box at the bottom of the post.

Posted by Matthew Shannon Stumpf on December 7, 2009. Respond »