US pursuit of primacy in Asia destroys peace
Jackson 23 [Van Jackson is a Professor of International Relations at Victoria University of Wellington and a Senior Research Scholar at Security in Context, where he co-directs the Multipolarity, Great-Power Competition, and the Global South project. A leading voice of progressive foreign policy thought, Jackson is also the author of Pacific Power Paradox (2023). He is a Distinguished Fellow with the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada, Senior Lecturer in International Relations at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand, and Defence & Strategy Fellow at the Centre for Strategic Studies. Interviewed by Nathan J Robinson who is Current Affairs EIC, “Why This Foreign Policy Expert Thinks Americans Dangerously Misunderstand China,” Current Affairs,” 5-16-2023, https://www.currentaffairs.org/2023/05/why-this-foreign-policy-expert-thinks-americans-dangerously-misunderstand-china, accessed 7-28-2023, HKR-SWY]
Yes, the thing that Washington has to wake up to, and that I’m worried that it will not because it has incentives not to, is that the requirements of peace and primacy are deeply at odds with each other. Peace requires a certain degree of economic interdependence, regional cohesion, inclusivity in various ways, and above all, military restraint. Primacy requires the opposite of all of that. It requires the formation of rivalry and geoeconomic blocs. It requires containment against your rising rival, arms racing, and weapons proliferation.
It’s patently obvious that by pursuing primacy, we’re making ourselves the enemy of what remains of the Asian peace. It’s that insistence on primacy, coated rhetorically as openness, that is undermining the sources of the Asian peace. The preservation of stability the past 44 years is something that we somewhat take for granted in Washington, and we shouldn’t because it’s eroding rapidly, and Trump was simply a very vibrant data point along a larger trend line. And so, we’re not on a good track.