'ឥណ្ឌូប៉ាស៊ីហ្វិកសេរី និងបើកចំហ' មិនអាចលើសពីពាក្យស្លោកទេ

 Allies must not rule out possibility of peaceful coexistence

Anthony Albanese, Joe Biden and Narendra Modi are greeted by Fumio Kishida during the Quad leaders summit in Tokyo on May 24: The religious bigotry of Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party has not made the Indian prime minister a pariah.   © AP

Robert Dujarric is co-director of the Institute of Contemporary Asian Studies at the Japan campus of Temple University in Tokyo.

More and more Tokyo, Washington and other Western capitals have been playing up the faceoff between the "free and open Indo-Pacific," liberalism and democracy and the autocracy of Beijing and Moscow.

"We have elevated a new partnership of democracies -- the Quad -- to help drive our vision of a free and open Indo-Pacific," intoned U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan in October. Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and his Australian counterpart, Anthony Albanese, affirmed the significance of a free and open Indo-Pacific as well when they met in Perth that same month.

While ideology has often been at the forefront of American foreign policy, but it is new for Japan to echo such rhetoric.

We are, though, indeed in a world characterized by a fight between freedom and its foes. Russia and China are dictatorial polities confronting elected governments that protect liberty.

Russia gives support to those who want to wreck liberal democracy in the West, such as Donald Trump and his European avatars. A Russian defeat in Ukraine is critical for the mainstream parties fighting to fend off the extreme right in America and Europe.

Nevertheless, reality is also nuanced.

There are aspects of the fight between the Beijing-Moscow axis on the one hand and the West and its allies, including not just Japan but also South Korea and Taiwan among others, on the other that are best grasped through an ideological lens.

Power politics, however, provides a better prism to figure out other angles of the confrontation.

To start with, the U.S.-led alliance is perfectly happy to partner with autocracies.

The religious bigotry of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party has not made him a pariah at the Quad. Few in Washington or Tokyo are concerned about the authoritarian rule of the Vietnamese Communist Party.

Close ties with the ruling families of oil-producing Persian Gulf states continue despite their disregard for human rights. Within NATO, no one is losing sleep at this point on account of the Polish administration's illiberalism.

In doing so, the West follows the pragmatism of Winston Churchill, a staunch anti-communist who came to the aid of the Soviet Union aid after it was invaded by Nazi Germany. As the late British Prime Minister put it, "If Hitler invaded Hell, I would make at least a favorable reference to the devil in the House of Commons."

As for the slogan "free and open Indo-Pacific," it is amorphous. The Indo-Pacific region encompasses about half the globe. One might as well say a free and open Earth.

It is important to note that the goal of Japan, the U.S. and their allies is not an Indo-Pacific where everyone is free. Rather, it is one where the strength of Western powers is such that their foes can be repelled, by force of arms if need be.

The same applies to the international liberal order. Its foundations are the hegemony of Western allies.

It may be the best possible setup that humanity can hope for now, but it is also one that serves Western interests rather than a divine and impartial covenant. It is unhealthy to see the official narrative of good versus evil in international politics as the revealed truth. It can lead to the assumption that China and Russia will remain fearsome enemies until their citizens are liberated.

That both countries will always be hostile, whether under communist control in the case of China or neo-Soviet chauvinistic domination in Russia's case, is likely, but it does not preclude a peaceful or even profitable coexistence if the balance of power is favorable to the West.

Western democracies helped bring liberal democracy to a number of nations after World War II and the Cold War. The size, history and politics of China and Russia make for a different situation. If these huge Eurasian polities are to free themselves, it will come from their own internal evolution. The impact of Western influence will be limited, and even possibly nefarious.

A realistic objective is not to eradicate these dictatorships but to deter them. This entails safeguarding Taiwan, countering Chinese inroads where they are menacing and making sure that Ukraine quickly kicks out invaders from its entire country.

Turning China and Russia into believers in our system of government is not the issue. Nor do they have to believe in a free and open Indo-Pacific or the international liberal order. The correlation of forces just needs to be sufficiently strong to deter them from mischief.

Furthermore, there are many nations whose rulers and peoples are neither attached to freedom nor to the international liberal order. Hectoring too vociferously about our values is sometimes not the best way to forge alliances.

Calibrating the role of ideology in diplomacy is complex. By downplaying the U.S. clash with Muscovite communism, Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger gave up an opportunity to weaken their adversary.

Jimmy Carter, Zbigniew Brzezinski and Ronald Reagan understood this when they waged a war of ideas and ideals against the Soviets. At the same time, these Cold Warriors did not set a change of regime in Moscow as a precondition for arms control agreements. Nor did they shy from embracing the despots of Beijing to put pressure on Moscow.

Tokyo and its allies have often recited "free and open Indo-Pacific" like a religious chant. As long as all players realize it is simply a slogan, no harm will be done. But if such abstract notions, disconnected from reality, become a lodestar of policymakers and analysts, it would mark an intellectual defeat for the West.

Nikkei Asia