Showing posts with label Barack Obama. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Barack Obama. Show all posts

Sunday, February 23, 2014

American Rooster Prepares to Crow Atop Asian Dunghill



[This piece may be reposted if Asia Times Online is credited and a link provided.]

In other words, it’s time for the United States to engage in a full-throated celebration of the pivot to Asia with what I think is going to be President Obama’s America F*ck Yeah tour of Asian democracies in April 2014.

The trip requires more than a little spadework, given the rather fraught situation in Asia. 

It’s not just that the PRC and the Japan are at each other’s throats and the Philippines has declared that the South China Sea is the new Sudetenland, and the PRC must be met with confrontation, not negotiation.  It’s that the United States is less than completely happy with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s sharp elbows and the fractures they create in the pivot’s united front.

There has been a fascinating flurry of op-eds in US prestige media (Bloomberg, NY Times, Washington Post, and Business Week) highly critical of Abe and his provocative visit to the Yasukuni Shrine…

…a visit that took place in December 2013.  Concerned chin-stroking end-February 2014 is a little late, it would seem.

And for that matter, the highly insulting detail that Prime Minister Abe listened to Joe Biden’s importunities for an hour before blowing him off and visiting the shrine…that was leaked end January.

So why, all of a sudden, does the US have its knickers in a knot concerning last year’s display of Abe’s rather unambiguous historical-revisionist inclinations?

Well, reading the exclusive China Matters divinatory entrails (paywalled! Just kidding) I believe this furor has much to do with President Obama’s announced visit to Asia.

As of now, the PR China is not on the itinerary.  But Japan and the Philippines are.  So is South Korea, reportedly after some strenuous lobbying.

The trip looks like a celebration of the pivot, that China-containment strategy that dares not speak its name but is meant to secure America’s leading position in East Asia by pushing China’s relations with its neighbors in a more polarized and confrontational condition that plays into US military superiority.

More than that, it will make up for ground lost by the dismaying cancellation of President Obama’s previous Asia trip (because of the US debt ceiling farce) and demonstrate to a dubious world that, appearances to the contrary, the United States is still brimming with resolve, the master of events, leader of the coalition of Asian democracies, indeed the universally hailed hegemon of Asia.

I look at President Obama’s trip like one of those imperial tours favored by the Roman and Chinese emperors to demonstrate that the empire’s writ still ran in the borderlands.

However, a certain Asian democracy is openly hedging its bets against the day that the United States changes its mind and decides that its true interests lie somewhere more along the dreaded G2 axis (cooperation between the US and the PRC to order affairs in ways not necessarily to the liking of the other nations of the Pacific.)

That nation, of course, is Japan.

Prime Minister Abe, thanks to his lineage and his personal experience, is in a good position to remember the many times when the United States decided that US and Japanese interests did not necessarily coincide.

They include slights as old as the Portsmouth Treaty (when Teddy Roosevelt decided that Japan was too green a member of the imperial club to enjoy the full fruits of its victory over Tsarist Russia) to that whole World War II unpleasantness (which Abe’s revisionist group consider to be entirely the fault of the United States), to the sudden recognition of the PRC, the torpedoing of the Japanese economy by the Plaza Accord imposed by the United States, and the unnerving undertone of G2 chatter that occasionally pervades US diplomacy.

On a personal level, Prime Minister Abe undoubtedly also remembers how he loyally supported George W. Bush’s confrontational North Korea policy in 2005, only to see Japan—and Abe’s signature issue, the abductees—brushed aside in Chris Hill & Condoleezza Rice’s haste to conclude a transitory agreement with the DPRK.

On a happier note, Prime Minister Abe probably also recalls that Secretary Clinton was a staunch opponent of G2 and an avid supporter of the Asia pivot, with the underlying strategy of employing the alliance with Japan as the keystone of US policy in Asia.  The full story perhaps needs an entire book, but it is worth remembering that President Obama was reportedly prepared to drop the affirmation of the Senkakus as falling under the US-Japan security treaty —presumably in response to some Chinese blandishment—until the tag team of Secretary Clinton and Minister Maehara exploited (or, in my view, concocted) the whole 2010 Senkaku Captain Zhan/rare earth imbroglio  that led to the exact opposite outcome—open affirmation that the Senkakus were covered.  

Subsequently, it became clear that Secretary Clinton had decided to ditch engagement and treat the PRC’s maritime issues as a pretext for a confrontainment policy against China, and use the policy as the foundation of the militarized pivot to Asia.

But Secretary Clinton is gone, at least for the time being, and the decidedly less confrontational John Kerry seems to have been able to take the reins of US diplomacy.

Kerry’s focus on the Middle East has occasioned nervous/resentful mumblings from supporters of the Japan relationship in Washington, for the stated reason that his focus on the Far East is insufficient and the pivot is languishing.  An unstated reason may be that the PRC, because of its somewhat important role in Iran and Syria matters, may be inching toward a quasi-G2 relationship with Kerry that might result in some favors being done for the PRC at the expense of the pivot democracies.

One such favor, I previously speculated, might have been the US demand that Japan demonstrate its nuclear non-proliferation sincerity by returning some weapons grade plutonium it had received from the United States a long time ago.

In any case, I felt that it was necessary for Kerry to establish his tough-on-China credentials, and I believe he did that by sendingout Evan Madeiros to make a big noise about how the US would not tolerate a South China Sea ADIZ.  And the PRC, which, I believe, had already disclaimed any current intention for an SCS ADIZ, promptly said they were considering no such move, thereby allowing Kerry to shift, albeit incrementally, out of the despised Chamberlain-appeasement doghouse into the blessed realm of Churchillian resolve.

So President Obama can go to Asia secure in the knowledge that America’s “stick a thumb in China’s eye” credentials are relatively secure.

With this context, what to make of the concerted campaign to rain on Prime Minister Abe’s parade re Yasukuni?

I think it’s because President Obama wants to use his April trip to affirm the pivot and, more importantly, the indispensable US leadership role in it.

That means cracking the whip on Japan and demonstrating that the US will not allowed itself to get tangled up in the Abe administration’s hopes and dreams for a Japan that is able to exploit the US alliance as an element in its own plans to restore Japan’s sovereignty and military and diplomatic clout in Asia.

It would take a special kind of denial to ignore the fact that Prime Minister Abe is abubble with plans to expand Japan’s diplomatic and security footprint in Asia all the way from the Kuriles to Myanmar and India …or to disregard the fact that these ambitions do not fit cleanly within a hierarchical structure with the US pivot on top, with the US-Japan security alliance as the next layer, and Japan’s relationship with the other Asian democracies guided by the pivot, the security alliance, and the power and the glory of American strategic vision. 

This unpleasant state of affairs is demonstrated by the conundrum that seems to underlay the Abe-bashing: the growing rift between South Korea and Japan.  

One of the nagging problems of the pivot has been the rancor between the Abe and Park administrations, and also South Korea’s un-pivoty predilection for sidling over into the PRC economic and diplomatic camp.

Abe, contrary to the ostensible doctrine of pivot solidarity, seems happy to determinedly and systematically exacerbate the bad blood between Japan and South Korea, not just with Yasukuni but with dismissive remarks by his allies on the lessons of World War II and the comfort women.  And, contrary to the idea that the United States coordinates the pivot, Abe has also been most dismissive of US efforts to insert itself in the dispute.

According to Peter Ennis of Japan Dispatch, the Yasukuni kerfuffle played out as part of the U.S. effort to mediate a rapprochement between Japan and South Korea.

Per Ennis, Vice President Biden thought he had an understanding that Abe would not visit Yasukuni and communicated that perception to President Park.  When it transpired that Abe was indeed planning to visit Yasukuni, Biden made the infamous phone call to try to persuade him not to go, and Abe in essence told him to get stuffed.

Not only did he tell Biden to get stuffed, Abe apparently personally leaked the details of this embarrassment to one of his favorite papers, according to Ennis:

On December 12, Biden himself phoned Abe, and in a lengthy, tense conversation pressed the prime minister to not visit Yasukuni. Sankei Shimbun on Janaury 30, citing unnamed “government sources,” provided a detailed account of the conversation – an account the vice president’s office does not dispute.

(Insiders in Tokyo, citing the close ties between Sankei and Abe, believe the account of the conversation comes directly from Abe himself – an assessment shared by key US officials.)
In their conversation, Biden said to Abe: “I told President Park that ‘I don’t think Mr. Abe will visit Yasukuni Shrine.’ If you indicate you will not visit the shrine, I think Ms. Park will agree to meet you.’”

Abe has long been incensed about what he considers American hectoring against his nationalist convictions, and he told Biden that he intended to visit Yasukuni at some point.

Immediately after Prime Minister Abe maliciously leaked the intelligence that he had spurned Vice President Biden’s appeal to give satisfaction to President Park on the Yasukuni issue, a thunderous op-ed delivered by the concentrated firepower of Richard Armitage, Victor Cha, and Michael Green appeared in the Washington Post calling for President Obama to visit Seoul…

… and it was subsequently announced that South Korea had been added to the itinerary and Japan would not be acting as North Asia’s exclusive host for the Obama visit.

Take that!

Now, in addition to Abe’s desire to trample on the feelings of Biden and Park to wave his freak flag high on the issue of his nationalist revisionist beliefs, I think there were a few other forces at work.

First of all, as I’ve argued elsewhere, Abe does not have a comfortable relationship with the Obama administration.  His US avatar is Dick Cheney, with whom Abe tried to coordinate a China-containment policy during his first term, and his natural allies are the US Republican right wing and pro-Japan/anti-China hawks in the US security and defense establishment.

I think the pointed and public humiliation of Biden was a signal from Abe that he was not under the thumb of the White House, and his allies in the United States could take advantage of the Obama administration’s embarrassment to question the efficacy and execution of the administration’s Japan policy (and its effort to steer a middle course between the PRC & Japan), and lobby for the further evolution of US policy in Asia toward openly Japan-centric doctrine of deterrence and confrontation with the PRC.

Second, the ROK and Japan are direct peer competitors in Asia.  When ROK President Lee Myung-bak was in charge, he openly tried to seize the mantle of Asian leadership (and American ally numero uno) from Japan, which was flailing through its non-LDP interregnum.  Abe, with his nationalist inclinations, is distinctly hostile to Korean presumption.

If one wants to play the deep game, Japan no less than the PRC fears Korean reunification and the emergence of an Asian democracy that might dwarf Japan in economic and national vigor.  One of the less reported stories is Abe’s continual game of footsie with North Korea, with clandestine meetings between Japanese and DPRK diplomats and, in addition, the offer of Switzerland (and I suspect, India) to put their good offices at Japan’s disposal for mediation.

The ostensible context for this back and forth is to obtain closure on the miserable issue of the Japanese abductees; but I suspect the real objective is to achieve some sort of direct rapprochement with North Korea that will give Japan the direct inside track, ditch the PRC-led Five Party Talks regime, wrongfoot the US, PRC, and South Korea in the impending dash for North Korea’s under-developed mineral and human resources…and keep the DPRK alive and the peninsula comfortably split.

In other words, South Korea is welcome to explore its options as a continental power within the PRC’s sphere of influence, using Shandong as its cheap labor hinterland instead of northern Korea.  Japan will be happy to eat South Korea’s lunch in maritime, democratic Asia, thank you very much.

Third, as Abe works to recover Japan’s full military, defense, and security sovereignty, he has no interest in the United States arrogating to itself the privilege of setting Japan’s regional diplomatic agenda.  If anything, it looks like Abe wants to have extensive engagement with the United States, but he wants in the context of peer-to-peer bilateral relations negotiated through explicit mechanisms like the security alliance and the TPP.  His vision for the US-Japan relationship certainly does not entail listening to Joe Biden and the Obama administration’s brainstorms about Asia, especially when they are intended to demonstrate America’s honest-broker cred i.e. attempt to show the ROK and the PRC that the US can constrain Japan’s behavior in a meaningful way.

Abe has gone along with the United States on two rather dismal initiatives that the Pentagon adores—collective self defense and Futenma relocation.  Therefore, by his lights, he probably thinks the United States should, as a matter of mutual respect and alliance loyalty to America’s most important partner in Asia, put up with the crap he wants to dish out to the PRC and South Korea (parenthetically, the Obama administration pointedly did not go as far as Abe in instructing civilian carriers to disregard the ECS ADIZ, which was, by one perspective a matter of supreme moderation and common sense but, from Abe’s perspective, left him out on a limb looking a bit stupid—but also gave him a pretext to complain about equivocal US backing as a justification for Japan’s growing independence in security policy).

I believe that, as I’ve predicted for the last year or so, the pivot chickens are now, inevitably coming home to roost.  The decision to hype the PRC maritime threat has encouraged the frontline Asian democracies, especially Japan, to a point that US leadership is on the cusp of overt challenge.

Japan, the ROK, and the PRC may be well aware of US intentions, but are less convinced of US capabilities in delivering on the promise of a unified, carefully managed and modulated pivot strategy that empowers the US through a militarized containment strategy against the PRC, while preserving the honest broker role for the US and stifling the independent-minded initiatives of the frontline pivot allies.

Instead, it appears that Japan, especially, is quietly going rogue and will do its best to exploit the pivot to pursue its own regional agendas while calling on the US for the support at crunch time which, as the pivot advocate, it must perforce deliver.  

So instead of the implacable united front against the PRC that is the raison d’etre of the pivot, we have an alliance in flux, deterrent that is equivocal and ripe for testing by the PRC, and increasingly close and tense encounters in the maritime zone.

In other words, a recipe for…something, not sure what, but certainly not peace, stability, and shared prosperity that Hillary Clinton promised to deliver with the pivot.

Japan is sufficiently invested in the US relationship to support the alliance and even the Obama administration as it begins its long but inevitable descent into lame-duck status.

But meticulously orchestrated American announcements, initiatives, and trips to Asia can only do so much as Japan, and Asian allies that increasingly look to Japan for regional leadership, see the need and benefits of going their own separate ways.

They say the sun doesn’t rise because the rooster crows.  But in this case it did. I think President Obama is learning that the sun did rise because the rooster crowed i.e. that Japanese assertiveness is a direct consequence of the empowerment of the hawkish establishment in Japan by the US pivot doctrine.

Trouble is, now that the sun is rising, it looks like it will keep rising on its own.

And there’s little that the rooster can do about it.



Saturday, June 08, 2013

Is Sunnylands America’s Munich?




Nah.  Just clickbaiting you.

Despite the dim prospects for concrete results, the Sunnylands summit between Xi Jinping and Barack Obama has provoked a disproportionate frenzy of chinstroking among serious pundits.

Much of it is along the lines of “the United States must not make nice with the PRC, thereby validating Xi’s ‘New Type of Great Power Relationship’   --basically peaceful coexistence—and legitimizing the regime.”

This is something of a challenge, since Xi Jinping is clearly determined to reset US-PRC relations and US policy toward China towards engagement and negotiation and away from “confrontainment” (I think that’s a coinage of mine, at least as it applies to US China policy, but not sure) and coercive diplomacy.

The certainty that Xi will try to engage with the United States and the possibility that he may even offer and deliver on some concrete inducements in order to achieve it (think North Korea and cyberwar) has provoked the American commentariat to put in its thinking caps in a heroic attempt to sustain and institutionalize US-PRC hostility despite Xi’s overtly conciliatory gestures.

The subtext of the commentary seems to be an anxiety, either real or feigned, concerning China’s rise that, quite possibly, is not shared either by the PRC regime or US government.

The basic theme in US China watching, as I can follow it, is the United States nurtured the treacherous Chinese lizard in its bosom, and now Uncle Sam is being buttravished by a firesnorting dragon prepared to deliver the climactic donkey punch against the American way of life.

In the real world, the rickety Chinese economic and political system is undergoing a stressful and risky transition surrounded by hostile-to-unfriendly neighbors.  The United States is gradually pulling out of recession, has succeeded in mobilizing if not leading an extensive anti-PRC diplomatic coalition, and still has enough military might to defeat the PRC’s military forces several times over.  

To my mind—and apparently to Tom Donilon’s mind—this is a golden opportunity for the United States to update the “core interest” narrative beyond the traditional red lines of Taiwan and Tibet, which were defined when the PRC was a Maoist basket case struggling to maintain order within its own borders, an insignificant presence in international trade and security, and terrified of a war with the Soviet Union.

One would think that the definition of China’s “core interests” is due for upgrade in concept if not extent now that China is the second-largest economy on the planet and a linchpin of the world economic order. 
 
Certainly, the PRC thinks so and, in fact, has been trying to promote a “core interest” redefinition since at least 2009—one that moves the definition of “core interest” as “war worthy” to “a Chinese priority acknowledged by the United States” and today seems to mean “let’s work toward a US-China grand bargain on North Korea, cyberwar, and Iran, including a shared position on the territorial disputes which we mutually impose on Japan, Vietnam, and the Philippines”.

However, the Obama administration has steadfastly refused to entertain any modification of the “core interests” framework and, indeed spun China’s approach into a narrative of heightened PRC aggressiveness .  In the public sector there is also a wagonload of analysis that urges President Obama not to accommodate China’s desire for acceptance of the PRC and its system in the international order at the expense of our smaller allies.

I think it is driven by the same awareness of current Chinese vulnerability, but informed by a distaste for the possibility that opportunistic exploitation of this weakness for the sake of shorter term albeit tangible and valuable geopolitic and economic gains will compromise a long-term rollback strategy and the prospect of Victory! over a PRC that is no longer rising but declining to a second-tier regional power.

The PRC’s territorial disputes with Japan, the Philippines, and Vietnam are not, by this reading, open sores.  They are precious jewels, the strategic foundation of the pivot, and the basis for a firm, relatively united anti-China alliance that enables confrontation on the early side and on US terms.

 Any effort by the PRC to resolve them bilaterally, either by intimidation or inducements applied to its neighbors or through deal cutting with the United States, should be resisted.  By no means should they be bartered away for transient and illusory gains on issues like North Korea.  God forbid that tensions should slacken and give China more time and opportunity to nullify the US military and geopolitical advantages.

 I'm of the "cash in the geopolitical gains and reduce tensions" persuasion, but some combination of conviction, interest, and hopeful/wishful thinking seems to be driving pundits into the Gordon Chang alternate universe of collapsing China.

Peter Mattis of the Jamestown Institute wrote an op-ed (actually rewrote history) to draw a dire parallel between China today and the time America gave away the geopolitical store: the Shanghai Communique. 

In sum, Donilon echoed a Chinese concept that does little to address U.S. interests and reiterates a set of principles for the U.S.-China relationships that are unpalatable for Washington. This misstep keeps with the long U.S. practice of over-promising to Beijing that goes back to Henry Kissinger’s promises on Taiwan and the Third Communiqué. Contrary to their defenders, this over-promising does not allow the Chinese to save face. Instead, it creates unmet expectations, which leads to frustration in Beijing as subsequent Americans deny them the fruits of past promises. With so many other real issues challenging the two sides, it would seem better to avoid such unnecessary frustrations. In this light, giving any policy significance to the “New Type of Great Power Relations” seems like a bad idea, no matter how well it resonates rhetorically with U.S. questions about integrating a rising power into an established order.

Actually, Kissinger promised that arms sales to Taiwan would be sustained at existing level and gradually phased out.   At the time, the United States expected the Republic of China—a KMT mainlander dictatorship facing a growing challenge from its alienated indigene majority-- to be relegated to the dustbin of history. Then, when the China Lobby started cranking in the US Senate and Taiwan democratized, the US had second thoughts.  Reagan elevated Taiwan doctrine to “maintaining parity”; subsequent administrations have pursued and refined the concept of “throwing enough armaments Taiwan’s way to satisfy US domestic military and political constituencies but not enough to make any kind of difference.”

I leave it to Gentle Reader to decide if this was “overpromising” or “the US reneging on an agreement” or “a redefinition of US core interests”.  I think it means that China’s core interests have always been, in IR speak, a “contested space” and are a legitimate arena for engagement and negotiation.

I don’t think the China bashing quadrant has much to worry about.  President Obama has a marked distaste for the PRC and its regime, not just the wooden diplomatic stylings of Hu Jintao, so even if Xi and Obama split a case of PBR, share a pair of hookers, and go skinnydipping in the Sunnylands pool together, the US government is going to sustain a fundamentally suspicious orientation to the PRC.

Tom Donilon is on the way out and Susan Rice and Samantha Power and their moralizing liberal interventionist stylings are in.

The only question, to me, is how offensive Obama has to get with Xi in the public arena in order to avoid the “Sunnylands = America’s Munich” narrative that is bubbling below the surface.

Sinocism’s June 8 page has a good Sunnylands wrap-up (which pointed me to the Pettis article).   
Readers who wish to follow Chinese affairs on a day by day basis should subscribe to Sinocism.  There is a daily avalanche of coverage (and blizzard of bullshit) about China; Bill Bishop reads it all, summarizes it, and adds useful and insightful commentary.  This is pretty much a thankless job, so don’t just freeload off his webpage; subscribe.

Thursday, June 06, 2013

Humble pie for on menu for Xi Jinping at Sunnylands

[This piece originally appeared at Asia Times Online on June 6, 2013.  It can be reposted if ATOl is credited and a link provided.]

The expert consensus is that the Barack Obama-Xi Jinping summit at Sunnylands, California is something of a relationship-building nothingburger. The summit was arranged on short notice, there is no detailed agenda, and the most likely result is that Obama and Xi will get to know each other better and therefore communicate more effectively.

In fact, the main concern of Western adversaries of the People's Republic of China (PRC), from dragon-slayers on the right to human rights crusaders on the left, seems to be that President Obama will surrender to Xi Jinping's burly charm and slacken in his resolve to twist the panda's testicles.

From the right, the American Enterprise Institute's Michael Auslin wrote an op-ed on the Foreign Policy magazine website asserting that the summit shouldn't even have happened.
... [S]summits like this one should be reserved for friends and allies ...

There are almost no shared values between Beijing and Washington, and little complementary policy. The Chinese engage with the United States because it allows them to play the charade of backslapping, while sidestepping tough issues. Unfortunately, Washington finds itself in a dialogue dependency trap ... [1]
Writing at the Asia Society's ChinaFile blog, Professor Andrew Nathan also expressed his concern that excessive comity might break out:
I hope our president avoids signing on to "a new type of great power relationship." This is Chinese code for the US preemptively yielding to what China views as its legitimate security interests. These interests are quite expansive - acceptance of the Chinese regime as it is, human rights violations and all; acceptance of China's territorial demands in the East and South China Seas; deference to China's views on the rules governing international trade, currency, climate change, humanitarian intervention, and so on ... I think a new equilibrium between American and Chinese interests will have to be achieved by painstaking work on concrete issues over a long period of time, often in a contentious environment. [2]
For good measure, Foreign Policy blog's Isaac Fish contributed a post hailing Michelle Obama's non-appearance at the summit, only expressing regret that her absence was officially attributable to obligations surrounding end-of-school for the children in Washington, and not an overt snub to Xi's wife to shame her for her past role as PLA chanteuse.

It is unlikely that President Obama will conduct his meeting with Xi like a middle manager briskly interviewing an unqualified and unattractive job applicant over a latte in the local Starbucks, impatiently checking his Blackberry during the pitch and abruptly leaving to get his car washed.

However, skeptics should be pleased that the United States holds the advantage at this particular juncture of the evolving US-China relationship and is probably prepared to use it.

The "pivot" - also known as "the rebalancing" - is working, albeit in unexpected ways.

The US exercise in "confrontainment" has not produced a united, US-led coalition compelling the PRC to upgrade its adherence to Western universal norms in return for the right to continued full membership in the community of nations.

Instead, Japan, under the rule of the PRC-hostile nationalist Shinzo Abe, is working to co-opt the rhetoric and goals of the pivot to create a favored place for Japan as the crucial economic and security component in an alliance of Asian democracies confronting China, thereby spooking the PRC and also working against the US hegemony in Asia which the pivot was intended to prolong.

Abe is doing the heavy lifting in assembling a Great Wall of Asian democracies containing China, roaming Asia in search of allies (and for the aid/trade/investment opportunities needed to provide some long-term fuel for his program of economic rebirth, "Abenomics").

To China's chagrin, Abe appears to be quite successful in getting open commitments to enhanced economic and security competition with China's regional adversaries (the Philippines, Vietnam), and conducting high profile engagement with erstwhile PRC ally/satellite Myanmar.

The nastiest shock for PRC, however, was the open tilt by India away from China and to Japan. Although Premier Li Keqiang made India the destination for his first overseas trip after assuming office, his visit was overshadowed by a flare-up in border tensions in Ladakh and Indian disgruntlement over China's large surplus in bilateral trade.

Shortly thereafter, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh paid a working visit to Tokyo, and his rhetoric went considerably beyond the triangulating rhetoric usually associated with Indian foreign policy to a full-throated endorsement of the special India-Japan relationship.

An Asia in which the Philippines, Vietnam, and India might be following the lead of Japan in an anti-China coalition is not just a matter of diplomatic embarrassment and potential (if remote) military hazard to the PRC.

There is the matter of the competing trade blocs: the US-led "Trans Pacific Partnership", the "high standards" pact that does not include the PRC, and the ASEAN-based and China-promoted alternative - the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, or RCEP, which has a more hospitable attitude toward mixed economies and state-owned enterprises and does not make a fetish out of the extraterritorial intellectual property and legal rights of multinational corporations as the TPP does; nor does it include the United States.

Japan has seized on TPP as a crucial element in its strategy to push the PRC toward the economic sidelines and assert a more central role for Japan, as a backgrounder in India's Financial Express pointed out:
From its start, the TPP was more than a regional trading arrangement. The US has not shied away from allowing it to be viewed as a response to China's growing economic presence in the Asia-Pacific. Abe has noted that the TPP's impact extends beyond the economic sphere. Participation in the TPP will allow Japan to create a "new economic order" with the US, creating new rules and ensuring stability in the Asia-Pacific region. Importantly, Abe sees the creation of this new order and its new rules as important steps in achieving Japan's national interests. Given that Japan is currently embroiled in a territorial dispute with China over the Senkaku islands, joining the TPP can also be seen as an attempt on the part of Japan to counter increasingly assertive China. ...

On the one hand, regional convergence based on the RCEP model will facilitate China's rise as the dominant Asian power. Conversely, a TPP-driven convergence will allow the US to re-assert itself as the dominant power in Asia. [3]
Since the inner workings of the TPP negotiations are notoriously opaque, it is not clear that Japan's full participation in TPP negotiations will give it the power - which is theoretically the prerogative of other members - to blackball new applicants. However, given Abe's China strategy, it is not unreasonable to speculate that the ability to apply a chokehold to China's TPP plans figured in Japan's decision to join negotiations.

At the same time, Japan is also a participant in the RCEP talks.

Perhaps equally fatally for the PRC's hopes, India, as befits its ambitions if not its location, is also a partner in the TPP talks as well as the RCEP talks.

If Japan and India combine to call for the RCEP to meet the same standards of the TPP, they have enough economic and geopolitical clout to make the TPP negotiations become the de facto standard. The RCEP - and the PRC - can languish on the sidelines.

Sidelining China and allowing Japan to occupy a central position among the smaller Asian maritime democracies - in essence, acting as a big frog in a smaller pond - is a good thing for Abe, but not necessarily for the United States, which will find itself crowding in the smaller pond it will have to share with graying, economically shaky Japan.

With conditions tending towards the unfavorable in Asia, and Japan's independent foreign policy whittling away at US claims to hegemony, the PRC's alternative is to play the US card and persuade the United States there are sound geopolitical advantages in restraining Japan, admonishing India, and allowing China some advantage in its myriad territorial and economic disputes.

In recent days, China has made several conciliatory moves: it sent a high-level delegation to the Shangri La defense ministers gab fest in Singapore to challenge the framing that the PRC is a bunch of confrontational knuckleheads on regional security and territorial issues. The PRC was determined to engage, as Reuters reported in "China turns on the charm at regional security forum":
[T]he charm offensive by the People's Liberation Army (PLA) officers, less than a week before Chinese President Xi Jinping meets US President Barack Obama for an informal summit, appeared to be designed to tone down the recent assertiveness by emphasizing cooperation and discussion ...

[A] senior US official accompanying Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel to the forum saw a big change in the Chinese delegation. "Last year China had a very, very small contingent, a relatively junior-ranking contingent. This year they came in force ... and have been very active in the panels," said the official. "That's very, very good. We want everybody to engage." [4]
Then there was some discreet groveling on the issue of the Trans Pacific Partnership, via People's Daily:
China has been following the talks on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and hopes for more transparency in the discussions, Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said on Friday.

Hong's remarks came after the US Under Secretary of Commerce for International Trade, Francisco J Sanchez, said the United States welcomes China to join the TPP. ...

Hong said China is open-minded about cooperation initiatives that are conducive to economic integration and common prosperity in the Asia-Pacific region, including the TPP and the RCEP. [5]
Add to that conciliatory noises on the vexing issue of North Korea via a leak to Reuters designed to communicate that the Chinese leadership got tough with North Korea's envoy when he showed up in Beijing end-May:
Beijing tried to convince Pyongyang to stop its nuclear and missile tests ...

China has grown increasingly frustrated with Pyongyang. It agreed to new UN sanctions after Pyongyang's latest nuclear test in February, and Chinese banks have curbed business with their North Korean counterparts in the wake of US sanctions on the country's main foreign exchange bank.

A former senior US official said Beijing's insistence that North Korea halt testing would be in line with recent signs it was running out of patience with Pyongyang.

"What I've heard from talking to Chinese officials and American officials who are talking to them is that top Chinese officials now emphasize that the principal goal is to terminate the nuclear weapons program of North Korea," the ex-official said. [6]
And immediately prior to President Xi's arrival in the United States:
A US businessman who was unable to leave China for nearly five years has returned to his home in the US. Hu Zhicheng was detained in China in 2008 when a former business partner accused him of commercial theft. ...

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei told reporters that Mr Hu had been restricted from leaving China because of an ongoing lawsuit.

"Now these restrictions have been cancelled according to legal proceedings. The relevant judicial cases are being handled," he said. [7]
All these initiatives add up to a message of conciliation from the PRC to the United States.

Are these simply the cynical machinations of a hostile regime determined to disguise its motives and shield its actions? A low-cost diplomatic strategy to grease the wheels for an otherwise meaningless friendly photo-op with President Obama to boost Xi Jinping's domestic stature?

Or is Xi prepared to execute as well as offer some genuine concessions in order to obtain, if not the unlikely "US China partnership", more of a tilt toward China and away from the pivot coalition in Pacific affairs? Probably a key indicator will be how the "cyber-outrage" narrative plays out.

The United States has been methodically hyping the Chinese cyber-threat since November 2011, systematically escalating the attributions, the accusations, and the anxiety from initial suspicions of non-state hacking maybe originating in China to current declarations that the Chinese government and military execute a massive state-directed hacking program against US commercial, governmental, and military assets.

A climax of sort will be reached in Sunnylands when President Obama officially gets into Xi Jinping's grill and provides a dossier of alleged Chinese cyber-outrages and the costs they have inflicted on US businesses.

The US cyber-position is rife with contradictions, starting with the fact that the United States - with its technological assets, its central position in the world communications infrastructure, the National Security Agency's pressing need to build server farms the size of the Astrodome to store the petabytes of data it has accidentally stumbled across (which, by US law, is supposed to exclude communications inside the United States), and the fact that the United States followed up its proud record of nuclear first use at Hiroshima to become the first use state for cyber-weapons with Stuxnet, the attack on Iranian centrifuge facilities - is the king of covert cyber-activity.

As Kenneth Lieberthal of Brookings put it:
President Obama needs to be sensitive to the reality that, from a Chinese perspective, the United States nearly owns the cyber arena. America has the most advanced tools and capabilities, and the Chinese political and financial systems largely run on American software. China assumes the US uses that huge capability to its advantage. That is a perception that will be part of the equation in any serious cyber discussion. [8]
One has to wonder if America's "China cyber-threat" posture has something to do with the realization that the Chinese government had allowed the yuan to appreciate to its natural value and a replacement threat narrative was urgently needed to keep the onus on the PRC as a rogue state.

Today, the traditional narrative that "Chinese companies beat out US companies because of an unfair exchange rate advantage" has been superseded by the borderline racist "Chinese companies can't innovate and can only succeed by stealing US secrets" reboot. Per NPR:
[I]f Chinese businesses can steal US technology, they can blunt the one big advantage US companies have in the global economy, which is their capacity to innovate. It is that spirit that explains the emergence of US companies like Microsoft, Apple or Google. Such companies, business experts say, have been far less likely to originate in China, because the business culture in China does not favor creativity. But they can always steal the products of US creativity. [9]
Then there are the accusations of military espionage, which lend themselves to even more dire narratives:
Lou Dobbs, CNBC: Remember, a little over a year ago, the Joint Chiefs made a similar statement, that in certain instances, intrusions in cyberspace will be considered an act of war against the United States and will be treated as such. What more ... what in God's name would it take to create an act of war? You couldn't do this in anything but the virtual world and have there be any doubt about it. It's an act of war. [10]
The Obama administration's high-profile jihad against Chinese hacking would appear to be an exercise in futility from a legal/diplomatic perspective.

Given the opaque nature of the Internet, it is unlikely that the United States will ever be able to document Chinese cyber-intrusion to a degree sufficient for an international commercial tribunal, let alone achieve the level of proof needed to launch a cyber-attack or cruise missile under international law. But that's not a bug, it's a feature.

What President Obama is presumably threatening is unilateral, discretionary, and unattributable off-the-books cyber-retaliation by executive order for cyber-infractions unless Xi acts on his dossier.

Things get better, in other words, or things get fucked up.

Not exactly the Platonic ideal of justice, but extremely useful to the United States: it can unilaterally define the crime, attribute it, demand punishment, and, inevitably, declare that the punishment was insufficiently thorough and sincere, in a fashion that will be immediately familiar to anyone who recalls the US campaign against Iraq's WMDs and Iran's nuclear program.

I expect that, for the sake of improving relations with the United States, President Xi will consider accepting the dossier and ordering up a few cyber-sacrifices in the digital arena. Accepting the dossier and "doing something" will be a relatively momentous step for Xi, if he undertakes it. If the PRC acknowledges the validity of US cyber-complaints the issue will never, ever go away (unless a new, even more effective instrument of China bashing materializes).

I expect Xi will consider assuming his cyber-enforcement duties with the understanding that nothing he can do will ever be considered sufficient by the United States, any benefits China gains in return are conditional, transitory, and subject to immediate revocation, and his domestic stature will not be enhanced by cooperating with the US on this issue.

This impression will be reinforced by the reshuffling of President Obama's national security team. Tom Donilon, President Obama's National Security Advisor, is stepping down in July and will be replaced by UN Ambassador and erstwhile candidate for secretary of state Susan Rice.

Donilon was the architect of the "rebalancing" to Asia, or perhaps the architect of appropriating Kurt Campbell's conception of the pivot, renaming it, and, in the first months of President Obama's second term, repurposing it to achieve a measure of meaningful engagement with the PRC.

Donilon was known for his focus on managing the national security process and its diverse constituencies to secure a range of foreign policy options for the White House. Reportedly, he was very keen to schedule the Sunnylands summit (the first president-to-president meeting was originally scheduled for the G-20 get together in September), quite possibly viewing it as his swan song and a chance to bring to fruition his project for rebalance-driven engagement.

Donilon is probably right to feel a sense of urgency, since his successor is likely to take a jaundiced view at the possibility of a constructive and productive relationship between China and the US.

Judging by preliminary reports and her performance at the United Nations, including her full-throated advocacy of the Libya intervention and disregard for the consequences for the overseas victims of her flawed moral certainty, Ambassador Rice is more likely to be an advocate for a moral interventionist agenda within the bureaucracy and to the president than an objective facilitator of the national security process. [11]

Rice will be replaced at the UN by Samantha Power, who is, perhaps, even more of a moral interventionist (fun fact: Power, an important adviser to President Obama on foreign policy, had been blocked from a high position in the Obama administration because she had called Hillary Clinton a "monster" while acting as an Obama campaign surrogate in 2008. It would be interesting if the trigger for all this musical-chair activity was the retirement of Hillary Clinton and the possibility to finally slot Ms Power into the high foreign policy position it was felt she deserved. With Rice and Power in the top spots President Obama originally intended for them, it will be interesting to see how much influence John Kerry can exert as secretary of state.)

Given staffing trends, President Obama's own inclinations, and its crude political utility, I expect cyber-indignation to remain at the center of US China policy.

And I expect that President Xi, cognizant of the fact that he needs some goodwill from the US, no matter how transitory, will think seriously about the risky and highly consequential step of validating the US cyber-threat bugbear.

Notes:
1. Xi's Not Ready, Foreign Policy, June 4, 2013.
2. What Should Obama and Xi Accomplish at Their California Summit?, ChinaFile, May 29, 2013.
3. Where does India stand amid changing Asia-Pacific trade dynamics?, Financial Express, April 4, 2013.
4. China turns on the charm at regional security forum, Reuters, June 2, 2013.
5. China hopes for transparent U.S.-led TPP talks, People's Daily Online, June 1, 2013.
6. China tried to convince North Korea to give up nuclear tests - source, Reuters, June 4, 2013.
7. US businessman Hu Zhicheng released from China, BBC News, June 5, 2013.
8. U.S.-China Relations: The Obama-Xi California Summit, Brookings, June 3, 2013.
9. U.S. Turns Up Heat On Costly Commercial Cybertheft In China, NPR, May 7, 2013.
10. Dobbs Wants U.S. to Declare War With China for Hacking, C&L, May 28, 2013.
11. Donilon's Legacy, foreignpolicy.com, June 5, 2013. (Subscription only).