There is a general consensus among American experts that the follow-through on the U.S. rebalance to Asia has been fumbled. Washington has not been able to show a reinvigorated focus on Asia because of crises elsewhere in the world, nor has it been able to convince Beijing that the U.S. policy is not a couched containment strategy. Many scholars are now calling for the U.S. administration to do more to address the corrosive misperceptions in China and South Korea of the U.S. rebalancing strategy. In both capitals, there are concerns that American support and reassurances to Japan are signs of a more assertive Japan which rejects the legacy of WWII and is looking to redefine Japan’s role in the region.

In this podcast, hosted by Carnegie-Tsinghua’s Paul Haenle, Carnegie’s Michael Swaine explains why he believes that despite the escalating tensions, mistrust, and shortage of communication between Beijing and Tokyo, the risk of full-scale military conflict between China and Japan or the United States remains relatively low. Outside of the possibility of the escalation of an inadvertent crisis, neither Japan nor China, and certainly not the United States, wants a conflict. However, he continued, the nationalist agendas that both countries are operating under and uncertainties about their futures has made it extremely difficult for either the Chinese or Japanese leaderships to back down from escalating disputes.

Michael Swaine

Michael Swaine is a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and one of the most prominent American analysts in Chinese security studies. Formerly a senior policy analyst at the RAND Corporation, Swaine is a specialist in Chinese defense and foreign policy, U.S.–China relations, and East Asian international relations.

Paul Haenle

Paul Haenle is the director of the Carnegie–Tsinghua Center. Prior to joining Carnegie, he served from June 2007 to June 2009 as the director for China, Taiwan, and Mongolian Affairs on the National Security Council staffs of former president George W. Bush and President Barack Obama.