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ASIA TODAY

THE
FUTURE OF
EAST ASIA

Edited by
Peter Hayes and Chung-In Moon
Asia Today

Series Editors
Takashi Inoguchi
University of Niigata Prefecture
Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, Japan

G. John Ikenberry
Woodrow Wilson School
Princeton University
Princeton, NJ, USA
Seen from the perspectives of political economy, political security, and
political culture, Asia offers fascinating opportunities for political and
international studies because of concurrent changes internally and exter-
nally. The tide of globalization and digitalization leads comparative politics
and international relations to be examined together. Interdisciplinary
approaches will be just as fruitful as those from traditional disciplines. This
series examines Asia to its fullest extent, covering East Asia, Southeast Asia,
South Asia, Central Asia, and West Asia (including Iran, Iraq, the Gulf
States, and Turkey).

More information about this series at


http://www.springer.com/series/14780
Peter Hayes Chung-In Moon

Editors

The Future of East


Asia
Editors
Peter Hayes Chung-In Moon
Nautilus Institute Global Asia Journal
Berkeley, CA, USA Seoul, Korea (Republic of)

Asia Today
ISBN 978-981-10-4976-7 ISBN 978-981-10-4977-4 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-4977-4
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017947751

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018


This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher,
whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation,
reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any
other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic
adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or
hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are
exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information
in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the
publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the
material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The
publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and
institutional affiliations.

Cover image: © Ezio Gutzemberg / Alamy Stock Photo

Printed on acid-free paper

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature


The registered company is Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore
189721, Singapore
PREFACE

The Future of East Asia had its genesis in 2005 when the East Asia
Foundation was founded by Mong-koo Chung, Chairman of Hyundai
Motor Group. Like the Foundation, the book aims to facilitate the for-
mation of an East Asian Community by promoting networks that exchange
ideas and sustain direct relationships.
The Foundation realizes this vision by shaping the annual Jeju Forum
for Peace and Prosperity. The premier event of its kind in the Republic of
Korea, the forum brings together thousands of movers and shakers from
the region and the world. It also publishes Global Asia, An East Asia
Foundation Journal an influential scholarly journal with a policy bent with
a circulation of more than 7000 readers. The authors of the essays par-
ticipated in these activities and met twice while producing this book.
We intended that The Future of East Asia would celebrate the
Foundation’s tenth anniversary. But books invariably take longer than
planned and, because we wanted only the best contributors, this one was
no exception. It would have been impossible without more than two years
of hard work by the Foundation’s staff, led by its Executive Director
Hyung Taek Hong, with the strong support of now Honorary Chairman
Mong-koo Chung, Chairman Ro-myung Gong, and members of the board
of trustees.
Along the way, we also benefited from the active support of East Asia
Foundation Program Officers Chan Koo Kang and Yoon Hee Shin and
interns Yeonsu Kim and Haeun Choi, East Asia Foundation and Global
Asia fellows, respectively.

v
vi PREFACE

We are also grateful to Maureen Jerrett who meticulously copy-edited


every word and sentence in the book as well as to Jacob Dreyer of Palgrave
and Takashi Inoguchi for agreeing to publish the manuscript and assisting
with rapid review and production. We are especially indebted to Girish
Gopinathan and his team for their patient and painstaking copy production
and correction work.
We’d also like to thank all the authors who undertook to write a
“Trumpilogue” to update each chapter in light of the election of America’s
new president, with enormous portent for an East Asian community.
Finally, we thank the many early visionaries and leaders at every level and
in every country, many of whom risked everything to construct a com-
munity based on positive peace. This work remains incomplete, but
without their willingness to cross any border that blocks the creation of a
Northeast Asian community, today we would not be discussing the many
ways to create a resilient community while heading off attempts to sow
conflict and division in the region.

Berkeley, CA, USA Peter Hayes


Seoul, Korea (Republic of) Chung-In Moon
CONTENTS

1 Circling the Square: The Imagining of an East Asian


Community 1
Peter Hayes and Chung-In Moon

2 One Asia in History: Recasting and Forecasting 19


Nayan Chanda

3 The Future of Power Politics in East Asia 47


Ruizhuang Zhang

4 The Future of Liberal Order in East Asia 81


G. John Ikenberry

5 National Identities and Bilateral Relations in East Asia


Over the Next Decade: Will the Downward Spiral
Continue? 103
Gilbert Rozman

6 Toward an East Asian Economic Community:


Opportunities and Challenges 131
Choong Yong Ahn

vii
viii CONTENTS

7 Is a Northeast Asia Security Community Possible and


Probable? 165
Muthiah Alagappa

8 Quiet Transformation from the Bottom: Emerging


Transnational Networks Among Non-State Actors in
Northeast Asia Community-Building 195
Seung Youn Oh

9 The Future of a Nuclear Weapons-Free Northeast Asia 227


Peter Hayes

10 Barriers to Community-Building in Northeast Asia:


Geopolitics, Nationalism, and Domestic Politics 267
Chung-In Moon

Index 309
EDITORS AND CONTRIBUTORS

About the Editors


Peter Hayes is honorary professor at the Centre for International
Security Studies, Sydney University, Australia, and director of Nautilus
Institute, Berkeley, California. He works at the nexus of security, envi-
ronment, and energy problems. At Nautilus, he develops techniques to
implement near-term solutions to interconnected global problems and
applies them in East Asia, Australia, and South Asia. Email: phayes@nau-
tilus.org
Chung-In Moon is a distinguished professor emeritus of Yonsei
University and editor-in-chief of Global Asia, a quarterly magazine in
English. He is also Krause Distinguished Fellow at the School of Global
Policy and Strategy, University of California, San Diego. He served as dean
of Yonsei’s Graduate School of International Studies. He was also chair
of the Presidential Committee on Northeast Asian Cooperation Initiative, a
cabinet-level post, and ambassador for International Security Affairs at the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the Republic of Korea. Email:
cimoon@yonsei.ac.kr

ix
x EDITORS AND CONTRIBUTORS

Contributors
Choong Yong Ahn is chair of the Korea Commission for Corporate
Partnership and a distinguished professor of Economics at Chung-Ang
University. While on sabbatical from Chung-Ang University, he also served
as a visiting professor at the Economic Research Institute, Kyoto
University, the president of the Korea Institute for International Economic
Policy (2002–2005), chair of the APEC Economic Committee, and con-
sultant to the World Bank. He also served as president of several academic
societies in Korea including the Korea International Economics Association
and the Korea Econometric Society.
Muthiah Alagappa is visiting professor at the Asia Europe Institute in
University Malaya, Kuala Lumpur. Concurrently he is a distinguished
scholar in residence at American University and non-resident senior asso-
ciate with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, both in
Washington, D.C. Previously he was the inaugural holder of the Tun
Hussein Onn Chair in International Studies at ISIS Malaysia. Prior to that,
he was Distinguished Senior Fellow and director of Studies at the
East-West Centre Honolulu and founding director of East-West Centre
Washington. He has also been a visiting professor at Columbia University,
Stanford University, Keio University (Tokyo), Nanyang Technological
University (Singapore), Bristol University, and Victoria University
(Wellington, New Zealand).
Nayan Chanda is the founder and former editor in-chief of YaleGlobal
and currently its consulting editor. He is Associate Professor of
International Relations at Ashoka University, Sonepat, India. He is a for-
mer correspondent and editor of the Far Eastern Economic Review and is
the author of “Bound Together: How Traders, Preachers, Adventurers and
Warriors Shaped Globalization,” and “Brother Enemy: The War After the
War.” He is also co-author of a number of books on Southeast Asian affairs
and globalization.
G. John Ikenberry is the Albert G. Milbank Professor of Politics and
International Affairs at Princeton University in the Department of Politics
and the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. He is
also co-director of Princeton’s Center for International Security Studies.
EDITORS AND CONTRIBUTORS xi

Ikenberry is also a Global Eminence Scholar at Kyung Hee University in


Seoul, Korea. In 2013–14, Ikenberry was the 72nd Eastman Visiting
Professor at Balliol College, Oxford.
Seung-youn Oh is assistant professor of Political Science at Bryn Mawr
College, specializing in international relations and comparative politics in
East Asia. Prior to arriving at Bryn Mawr, she served as a post-doctoral
fellow at the Center for the Study of Contemporary China at the University
of Pennsylvania and visiting lecturer at the Shanghai branch of the French
school of management, École Supérieure des Sciences Commerciales
(ESSCA). She was also a research fellow at the East West Center in
Honolulu (2016–2017) and at the East Asia Institute in Seoul, Korea
(2014–2015). Email: soh03@brynmawr.edu
Gilbert Rozman is the Emeritus Musgrave Professor of Sociology at
Princeton University and editor-in-chief of The Asan Forum. He special-
izes in Northeast Asian societies: China, Japan, Korea, and Russia. He has
compared them, most recently concentrating on national identities, and
examined their bilateral relations.
Ruizhuang Zhang a Ph.D. in political science from the University of
California at Berkeley, is a professor emeritus of International Relations at
Nankai University, Tianjin, China and the Vice President of the China
Association of International Relations (since 2010). Professor Zhang was a
visiting fellow at the Ben-Gurion University (Israel 2015), the Nobel
Institute (Norway 2014), and SAIS, Johns Hopkins University (1984). He
also taught courses as a visiting professor at Semester at Sea (sponsored by
University of Virginia 2012), University of Minnesota (2008–2009),
Peking University (2005) and Catholic University (S. Korea 2002). His
teaching and research interests include: theory of international relations,
American and Chinese foreign policy, Sino-US relations and political sci-
ence methodology.
LIST OF FIGURES

Fig. 6.1 Global Value Chains in Northeast Asia: The Case of Fuji Xerox 143
Fig. 6.2 Convergence of US-anchored TPP and China-led RCEP 150

xiii
LIST OF TABLES

Table 6.1 Economic profile of Major Economic Groups in Global


Shares (Unit: %) 138
Table 6.2 Intra-regional Trade Dependence (Unit: %) 139
Table 6.3 CJK Intra-Regional Trade Dependence of China, Japan,
Korea (Unit %) 139
Table 6.4 Contribution and maximum benefit amount for CMI
multi-lateralization 141
Table 6.5 Joint Ventures between Korean and Japanese Parts and
Materials Companies 144
Table 6.6 US Trade with China, Japan, Korea, and ASEAN
(Unit: US $ billion) 145
Table 6.7 USA—China Trade Dependence (Unit: US $ billion, %) 156
Table 6.8 Bilateral FDI Flows between ASEAN and CJK
(Unit: US $ million, % of country’s total figure) 158

xv
CHAPTER 1

Circling the Square: The Imagining


of an East Asian Community

Peter Hayes and Chung-In Moon

INTRODUCTION
This book presents the imagining of an East Asian Community (EAC) by a
number of senior scholars with diverse backgrounds—each informed by
their life experience grounded in different parts of Asia and, at various
times, in different sectors, be it in government, in the market, or in civil
society. Although an East Asian Community is clearly more of an ideal
image than real today, it already exists in some respects, is prefigured in
aspirational ways in others, but is denied absolutely in still other aspects of
how states and people conduct their affairs. Moreover, we recognize the
glimpses described in this book of a hypothetical EAC are just that—the
capturing of one aspect, from one angle, from one life experience, of a
possible EAC. These ideas are worth considering, nonetheless, because
ideas may be hugely influential, sometimes almost instantly, if incorporated
into individual, community, and national identities.

P. Hayes (&)
Nautilus Institute, Berkeley, CA, USA
C.I. Moon
Yonsei University, Seoul, South Korea

© The Author(s) 2018 1


P. Hayes and C.I. Moon (eds.), The Future of East Asia, Asia Today,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-4977-4_1
2 P. HAYES AND C.I. MOON

Also, we note upfront that while the core insights offered by the authors
of this book are deep and broad in their respective areas, they do not reflect
the full diversity of views in the region. There are important voices that are
not found in this book—those of indigenous peoples, islanders, youth,
refugees, and many border-crossing individuals who live in the region, but
also elsewhere, often at the same time. We do not apologize for these
limitations. We simply draw the reader’s attention to them because these
voices must be heard, too, if the EAC is to ever grip the imaginations of all
the necessary players in this region and become a social, cultural, and
institutional reality.
That said we believe the core issues analyzed in this book are those that
will shape the form, content, and structure of a full-blown EAC, no matter
what configuration it takes in the long run. But before we turn to this
prefigured ideal image of the EAC—or rather, the multiple images of it
presented in this book—we must first deal with the issue of “region.”

ONE ASIA REGION AND SUB-REGION CONCEPTS


First and foremost, we admit—as Nayan Chanda explains in Chap. 2—
that “Asia” is not an Asian construct. Ironically, “Asia” is a Western con-
cept. Thus, “Asia” is actually an extraordinarily diverse set of states,
communities, and cultures that have interacted for millennia via trade,
migration, cultural transmission, religion, as well as harsher means such as
military conquest and political subjugation at various times, with more or
less unified control of territory and people given the technologies and
communications of the era. At times of system crisis—whether in reaction
to western or Japanese imperialism, the demise of colonial occupations, or,
in the course of national revolutions—locals have claimed “Asia” as their
own to propagate a wider concept of “Asia for Asians.” Thus, the notion of
“One Asia” is not new. It has progressive and regressive antecedents. The
same applies to the concept of “East Asian Community.” Indeed, scholars
and policy practitioners have been talking about it for decades and,
depending on who is doing the talking, the meaning of the term shifts
dramatically.
Today, discussions of an EAC are in the midst of globalization with
attendant displacement of local communities, demolition of local cultures,
and the obliteration of distance and dissolution of borders by trade,
information flow, and—to some extent—migration and travel. Thus, rather
than EAC, the notion of “Global Asia” has emerged. Here, “Asia” is held
1 CIRCLING THE SQUARE: THE IMAGINING OF AN EAST ASIAN COMMUNITY 3

to play a central role in almost all global issues. No global issues can be
understood, and no global problem can be solved, without comprehending
the Asian dimension. But Global Asia does not refer to a region or
sub-region with a shared identity any more than its predecessor, One Asia.
In contrast, South Asia, for all its division and conflict, has its regional
institutions such as the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation
(SAARC) that have begun to take deep root, even if the major states in the
region can bypass them at will. And Southeast Asia has its own sub-regional
organizations led by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or
ASEAN. But Northeast Asia does not have such a regional entity in spite of
a burgeoning set of regional meetings, communication, and coordination
activities between national officials; a profound con-joining of the econo-
mies of China, Japan, and the ROK, as well as with the global economy; and
limited but important common security agendas and even political-
diplomatic coordination, as has occurred in response to the DPRK’s
nuclear threat. And, as Chung-In Moon points out in Chap. 10, an East
Asian community is inconceivable until Northeast Asia brings regional
political institutions into being on par with SAARC and ASEAN. Equally,
he suggests, trends within East Asia as a whole may stimulate and induce
Northeast Asian states to innovate and then formalize sub-regional insti-
tutions in a dialectical process.

REGIONAL SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC INTEGRATION


Of all the potential bridges that might enable a Northeast Asian
sub-regional community to emerge alongside a full-blown EAC, perhaps
the most promising is to facilitate cross-border trade, investment, and
finance along with related infrastructural and network expansion. Already
China, South Korea, and Japan (or CKJ) have a combined population of
1.54 billion (21% of the world’s population), a combined gross domestic
product of $16.4 trillion in 2014 (likewise, 21% of the world’s gross
domestic product), and a combined trade volume of $7 trillion in 2014 (or
18% of world trade). At first glance, such numbers suggest that the region
should have an overwhelming economic incentive to create institutions
that exploit this economic prowess.
But, as Choong Yong Ahn points out in Chap. 6, two competing
frameworks for regional economic integration collide today in the region.
These are the US-led Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) embedded in the
already existing World Bank-International Monetary Fund and Asian
4 P. HAYES AND C.I. MOON

Development Bank structures on the one hand, and the China-led


Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP)—underpinned
by China’s newly established Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB)
—on the other. These two mega-frameworks and supporting institutions
have competing visions and missions. Both are likely to gain traction in
coming years although TPP may prove more vulnerable to domestic factors
such as electoral politics in democratic states.
What hangs in the balance is whether what Ahn calls the “intersection
economies,” that is, those that have joined both the TPP and RCEP, can
prevent these two trade blocs from colliding. To do so, and avoid global
economic chaos, these two trading regimes need to converge by realigning
their respective trade, investment liberalization, and other arrangements on
economic and technical cooperation, intellectual property, competition,
and dispute settlement, etc. Creating a complementary set of free trade
agreements would lay the foundation for an East Asian-wide Economic
Community, in turn, the underpinning for an EAC. In this regard, the
ROK, by virtue of its location between the great powers in Northeast Asia,
might, alongside ASEAN states, play a leading role in brokering such an
outcome.
In the short term, however, there is little reason to expect that a dis-
tinctively Northeast Asian regional identity is likely to emerge due to the
economic interdependence that has grown so large between the CKJ bloc.
These three states may meet regularly to discuss and coordinate on key
global and regional economic issues in the future, and to set standards on
integrated infrastructure and nodal links at airports, shipping ports,
pipelines, power lines, and railways, etc. But these activities will be sub-
sumed in larger regional and global frameworks that govern trade,
investment, and financial relations between economies.
Other early signs of sub-regional institutional innovation in Northeast
Asia exist, including extensive civilian contact and, in some instances,
prolonged contact, communication, and coordination of joint activities on
specific issues by civilian organizations and local governments in Northeast
Asia, as described in Chap. 8 by Seung-Youn Oh.

POWER TRANSITION AND RISE OF CHINA


Nonetheless, the single most important trend that unites or divides states
and people in Northeast Asia is China’s rise, to the degree that it can
challenge and, in some cases, match, and, in a few cases, exceed the power
1 CIRCLING THE SQUARE: THE IMAGINING OF AN EAST ASIAN COMMUNITY 5

capacities of the United States to exercise military control of the


geo-political landscape of Northeast Asia.
In the security dimension, states retreat quickly into hardened, milita-
rized postures established during the Cold War, and adorned with huge
amounts of conventional and, in some instances, nuclear weapons. In
particular, China’s rapidly expanding military and regional military reach
beyond its coastal zone into the Pacific and which now overlaps the zone of
US military forward deployment, especially of its naval forces, as well as
that of Washington’s leading security allies, the ROK and Japan, and its
security partner, Taiwan.
But as Muthiah Alagappa explains in Chap. 7, even in the aspect of
community-building that is most resistant to cross-border transactions that
soften and eventually corrode away the edges of hard power, that is,
military force, the critical issue is not the existence of these capabilities,
risky as they may be at the two primary axes of possible inter-state conflict
in the region, the Taiwan Straits and the Korean Peninsula. Rather, he
suggests, the rigid “knowledge structure” or strategic orientation of the
political and military leaders who control these forces is uniformly “realist”
in nature. This worldview is informed by shared but radically different
exposure to the application of military force in brutal wars, ranging from
those fought over colonial occupation and liberation during imperial
adventures by Japan and its demolition by the United States and its allies,
along with China and Russia in World War II, followed by the Cold War
between the superpowers punctuated by one hot war in Korea on a massive
scale, a war put on hold since 1953 by the Korean Armistice Agreement,
but ready to break out at a moment’s notice across the Demilitarized Zone.
Overcoming this ideational obstacle, according to Alagappa in Chap. 7,
entails above all rethinking the concept of nation state, and instituting a
more flexible one that admits of the exercise of autonomous governance,
the validity of trans-governmental zones of coordination and collaboration
by local governments and agencies, especially in border zones, and that
jettisons ideologically defined and rigid concepts of singular, even
ethnically-based, citizenship.
However, this cross-border process that softens or supplants the hard
edges of territorially-based states will take time, possibly generational time.
Meanwhile, great and medium-sized states continue to exercise power in the
region. As John Ikenberry explains in Chap. 4, while the post-World War II
liberal international order is weakening, it is also not disappearing. Short of a
new framework based on a hegemonic and dominant power, it is likely to
6 P. HAYES AND C.I. MOON

remain the framework in which states conduct their affairs, both security and
economic, and thereby remain constrained by it even if they contest ele-
ments of it, or confront each other over specific security or economic issues.
With no other option, states will start to conduct multilateral governance
over issues that divide in this region because the costs of not doing so will
exceed the costs of jettisoning the old order. How they do this will make the
region more or less stable, more or less orderly, more or less prosperous, and
more or less secure. There are many possible regional futures in which the
liberal international order may and likely will be sustained. In short,
Ikenberry anticipates that some form of multilateral muddling through will
predominate.
What is clear is the notion that China will somehow become a regionally
dominant state and threaten this order due to its growing military and
economic power is false, both factually and in conception. As Zhang
Ruizhuang demonstrates irrefutably in Chap. 3, China’s primary concern is
the consolidation of its domestic order, both political and economic, while
ensuring that its external security environment remains conducive to this
process. Of course, where its vital security interests, most critically in the
Korean Peninsula and the Taiwan Straits, are threatened, China will muster
all its military capabilities to deter or compel its adversaries and third parties
from acting in ways that put this domestic transition at risk. Zhang holds
that the future of the entire region, including the possibility of creating an
EAC, is determined by the unfolding logic of power politics, not the effects
of shared ideas, beliefs, norms, and institutions.
Conversely, Zhang asserts that enduring poverty, misleading statistics
about Chinese economic growth rate, its military expenditure, mistaking
quantitative for qualitative growth, ecological degradation, and social and
political inequality, all suggest that China is not as strong and powerful as it
may appear. Moreover, much of China’s military capability is invested in
strengthening domestic security, and it confronts daunting domestic social,
economic, and ecological threats that will consume much of its growth
potential in the coming decades. These latter concerns also threaten the
legitimacy of the leadership, which in turn may exploit popular perceptions
of external threats to displace discontent and disenchantment with the one
party ruling system. For all these reasons, China will remain a distant
second power to the United States, which will remain dominant, albeit a
declining hegemon forced to share more power with its allies and willing to
accommodate China where its new capabilities cannot be blocked—as in
coastal regions or infrastructural investment. How the United States
1 CIRCLING THE SQUARE: THE IMAGINING OF AN EAST ASIAN COMMUNITY 7

manages this adjustment to China, and how China manages its relations
with neighboring states, in turn, will shape the perceptions of the need for
regional institutions such as the EAC, based on shared interest rather than
division of the spoils arising from dominance.

DIMENSIONS OF CLASHING NATIONAL IDENTITIES


Such perceptions are crucial to how the national identity of each country in
the region evolves. In Chap. 5, Gilbert Rozman describes how five
dimensions of national identity in China, Japan, and the ROK, namely,
conformist national ideology, selective historical memory of key events and
periods, sectoral confidence that is cultivated to contrast with other cul-
tures, vertical identity that subordinates minorities or civil society to a
single homogenous population, and the intensity whereby these factors
shape how people think, have affected, one might say, afflicted bilateral
relations between these three states that would form the northern foun-
dation stone for an EAC.
Interestingly, Rozman finds that South Korea exhibits the least ideo-
logically defined national identity of the CJK bloc, with the domestic
polarization between progressive and conservative political forces offsetting
the effects of prolonged national division and anti-Japanese (and to some
extent, anti-Chinese) sentiment. The resulting pragmatism may endow
Korea with the ability to move flexibly and adroitly and avoid being trapped
between China’s conservative communist project and Japan’s revisionist
project on the one hand and between American and Chinese strategic
confrontation on the other. But even if the ROK succeeds in avoiding such
traps, these regressive identities appear to be hardening, not softening, and
there is little reason to think that a regional identity is forming based on
underlying integration, or even that the gaps in each of the dimensions of
identity are narrowing between China, Japan, and the ROK.

REGIONAL INSECURITY AND INSTITUTION BUILDING


At the other end of the spectrum of national identity as reflected in the
acquisition of power resources by the state, nuclear weapons represent the
most congealed and absolute means of coercion, representing the ability of
one state to annihilate the military and entire population of other states
beyond recovery. Peter Hayes outlines in Chap. 9 the increased role that
nuclear weapons play in the relations between states in the region since the
8 P. HAYES AND C.I. MOON

end of the Cold War, driven in part by the North Korean nuclear breakout,
but also by the modernization and deployment of old and new strategic and
theater nuclear forces by the United States, China, and Russia, including
new nuclear weapons declaratory and operational doctrines. He notes that
while North Korea and the United States have used nuclear weapons to
compel each other to change their actions and policies—a strategy which has
failed completely for both parties—the major risk of nuclear war arises from
the interaction of the strategic and theater forces—conventional and nuclear
—and of the nuclear-armed great powers. This could arise from escalation
from a war that begins elsewhere in the world, as was the case during the
Cold War (“horizontal nuclear war”), or from a local conflict that escalates,
most importantly, in the Taiwan Straits or in Korea. However, he also notes
that new deployments of strategic missile submarines and anti-submarine
forces in the west and northwest Pacific risk a “truel” that could lead to the
use of nuclear weapons offshore, not just on land.
These risks suggest that not only the North Korean threat, but also the
threat of nuclear war between the great powers, controvert any notion of
an EAC and demand urgently the creation of a regional security mecha-
nism to set rules of the road, establish new norms, codes, and agreements
to constrain deployments and needless modernization of nuclear weapons
and to reduce the incentives for Japan and the ROK to follow the North
Korean model and proliferate with nuclear weapons of their own to replace
the American nuclear umbrella. To achieve such a comprehensive approach
entails settling the Korean conflict and reversing North Korea’s nuclear
weapons program via a variety of concerted measures and political-military
steps in common, such as the creation of a regional nuclear weapons-free
zone. Such a framework would enable all states to manage the nuclear
threat and to reduce the nuclear element that increases the unpredictability
of the external security environment while setting in motion communica-
tions, coordination mechanisms, and collaborative measures that may, over
time, create the foundations for a regional reduction in reliance on nuclear
threat and a reduced role for nuclear weapons in the relationships between
each state. Whether a Northeast Asian nuclear weapons-free zone would
create a foundation for sub-regional identity, as has the Southeast Asian
and South Pacific zones for each participating state, would depend on how
other shared security is to be managed in an institutionalized security
framework rather than by improvised action-reaction dynamics.
Thus, we return to the paradox posed at the outset of this book. How is
it that the states in this region have maintained a “long peace” for so many
1 CIRCLING THE SQUARE: THE IMAGINING OF AN EAST ASIAN COMMUNITY 9

decades in spite of their historical antagonisms, disputed territories, divided


nations, proliferating weapons of mass destruction, and growing conven-
tional military forces able to project a threat over immense distances?
Perhaps it was the role of strategic nuclear deterrence and the threat of
mutual annihilation at specific moments that preserved the peace. Perhaps
it was the extraordinary level of economic interdependence that has
emerged between these states. Perhaps it is shared cultural orientations in
family and community that contrast with Western values and behaviors that
align states to avoid needless wars by careless posturing, at least for the
most part. Perhaps it is the shared risk of collision and catastrophic esca-
lation that has ensured that China and the United States have taken care to
avoid putting their military forces in harm’s way of the other.

CONSTRUCTIVE PEACE MAKING


Yet, as Chung-In Moon avers in Chap. 10, the region has experienced
peace as the lack of war, not for the most part as constructive peace-making
and its related institution building and adopting of shared norms and
practices. The latter would be based on the rooting of proactive nation-
alism in each country, that is, nationalisms that are ideologically consistent
and allow a coherent nation state to contribute steadily to the formation of
a regional community such as the EAC. Instead, Northeast Asia has been
overwhelmed by the emergence of reactive nationalism, that is, irregular,
spontaneous and massively popular reaction to external stimuli, often
triggered and channeled by opportunistic leaders.
These national leaders have revived bitter historical memories within
and between each country in the region and combined them with customs
and cultures that exemplify difference with outsiders. They have thereby
intensified nationalist movements in China, Japan, and the two Koreas.
The resultant partisan politicization has triggered negative chain reactions
among China, Japan, and South Korea, most often in response to right
wing provocations in Japan, but also in some instances by China and both
Koreas in their own manner. The resulting mobilization of agitated publics
make it harder to resolve security issues such as disputed territories or
military modernization, and instead sows fear and the perception that the
other is a security threat. In each country, conservative coalitions aim to
confront neighboring states, thereby creating mistrust and obstructing
institutionalized intra-regional cooperation. In such volatile conditions,
leaders, their style, and their choices can make the difference between
10 P. HAYES AND C.I. MOON

risking major wars or building bridges that lead instead to regional security
cooperation, with states facing increasingly stark choices as has occurred
with the DPRK. For all these reasons, therefore, it is evident that allowing
the contemporary clash of national identities to continue precludes the
emergence of a regional identity in Northeast Asia, let alone in the region
as a whole as envisioned in the EAC concept.
Yet it remains true that, except in response to an existential threat or
imperative to retaliate for an attack posing an existential threat, waging war
against the other is not a credible policy option for any of the powers in the
region for the simple reason that modern war has catastrophic results far
beyond any conceivable benefits. Moreover, as noted above, the level of
social, political, and economic inter-dependence is now so high between
the United States and each country in the region (except for the DPRK
and Russia), and within the China-Korea-Japan bloc, as well as between the
DPRK and China, that a war will impose costs on the aggressor so high as
to be self-defeating, irrespective of the outcome on a battlefield, whether
on land, sea, or in the air or in space, including cyberspace. This reality is
the basis of what is known as the “long peace” in what may otherwise be
characterized as an “anti-region,” that is, one defined by an absence of
binding regional security institutions and characterized by divisive
nationalism and vehement symbolic confrontations, but also one in which
no interstate wars have occurred since the last shot was fired in the Korean
War. However, this absence of hot war and maintenance of cold war is
coming to a rapid end, and now it is necessary to construct a new foun-
dation for regional security if the peace is to endure.

CONCLUSION—PATHWAYS TO PEACE
AND REGIONAL IDENTITY

Thus, we have gone through a full circle of our authors’ imaginings of an


EAC and returned to a square, a checkmate that traps the region in a status
quo and a set of security dilemmas. We also saw each author identify a way
out of this gridlock. One way is the creation of epistemic, transboundary
communities and networks aimed at solving specific problems. A second is
to expand the role of “intersection states” in aligning the contending US
and Chinese-led trade blocs. A third is to create a regional nuclear weap-
ons-free zone to solve the nuclear proliferation problem and reduce reli-
ance on nuclear threat. A fourth is to adopt less rigid models of the
1 CIRCLING THE SQUARE: THE IMAGINING OF AN EAST ASIAN COMMUNITY 11

nation-state that can accommodate greater diversity and autonomy with-


out insisting on homogeneity and enforced monolithic unity. A fifth is that
everyone recognize that China faces immense, almost insurmountable
problems, the solution of which may have planetary as well as regional
import and can be solved only with American and regional engagement
with China. Sixth is that reintegrating North Korea into the regional and
global system of states will not only reduce the risk of war and its poten-
tially catastrophic costs, but enable the Northeast Asian sub-region to reap
the benefits of connecting many regional physical and economic networks
that are currently blocked at its borders. Seventh, leaders must lead, and
shift away from promoting virulent and antagonistic reactive nationalism to
pro-active, constructive nationalism based on perceptions of the other that
admit and even celebrate difference.
Each of these and other pathways, if followed, might facilitate the
creation of a truly East Asian Community based on a common identity, one
that would, for the first time, unite Asia in a way that enables it to con-
tribute to the fullest extent possible to the solution of urgent global
problems.

THE TRUMP FACTOR: OBSTRUCTION OR IMPETUS


FOR REGIONAL COMMUNITY?

Shortly after this book was completed, Donald Trump was elected and
inaugurated as President of the United States. Mr. Trump was a classic
political wild card. He rode to power by tapping into political frustration
and anger by otherwise disenfranchised Americans. These were voters who
found themselves burdened by the displacement effects of globalizing
integration. These effects were superimposed onto fundamental policy
failures in the United States with regard to structural adjustment,
managing social, economic, and physical infrastructure, and curbing the
excesses of inequality arising from domestic factors, especially the specu-
lative and abusive practices of the financial sector on the one hand, and the
lack of a welfare state that provides an effective safety net found in every
other modern western nation on the other. Like lava trapped below the
Earth’s surface, Mr. Trump became the vent through which this political
discontent forced its way to the surface, erupted, and poured in all
directions.
12 P. HAYES AND C.I. MOON

Given President Trump’s political outsider status and the potential for
disruption of existing structures and processes that are critical to the
building of an East Asian community, we asked authors to produce an
epilogue on the Trump factor for each chapter, hereafter Trumpilogues.
Nayan Chanda’s Trumpilogue dismisses Mr. Trump’s transactional
orientation as antithetical to dealing with Asia collectively. In particular, he
notes that Mr. Trump rejected the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which
“would have united part of prosperous Asia with the United States and
could have had the effect of isolating China.” This left the United States
to negotiate with China alone at the same time as his preemptive moves to
overturn the United States long-standing One China policy on Taiwan,
which proved quickly to be a poor strategy that Mr. Trump had to
abandon only two months later.1
Chanda also observes that Mr. Trump’s evident concern about regional
security could “prod countries to strengthen their security cooperation” as
Australia has begun to do already with the Association of Southeast Asian
Nations (ASEAN) states, and Japan and South Korea, in part to fill the gap
of leadership created by Mr. Trump’s unilateralism, and in part by fear of
China’s more aggressive posture. Unfortunately, he concludes, “This may
not be conducive to creating “One Asia” of all democratic countries
against but help foster a unity of sorts against common threat.”
Ruizhuang Zhang’s Trumpilogue writes that at first glance, Mr.
Trump’s rhetoric about peace through strength might lead one to con-
clude he will create uncertainty and turbulence, especially his willingness to
play fire with the One China policy that “for the past four decades has been
the bedrock of Sino-US relations, arguably the most important bilateral
relation in today’s world.”
However, Zhang also views Trump—a transactional president who
holds that everything is under negotiation—to be someone amenable to
compromise “so long as the will to bargain exists.” Zhang therefore sug-
gests that Mr. Trump, like other American presidents, will adjust to
strategic reality and, guided by national interest, will get along well with
China. China’s concerns are therefore less about direct collision than the

1
Perlez, J., “Changing Course on Taiwan, Gives China an Upper Hand”‚ in The New York
Times. 2017‚ The New York Times Company: New York. February 10, 2017, at https://
www.nytimes.com/2017/02/10/world/asia/trump-one-china-taiwan.html?_r=0.
1 CIRCLING THE SQUARE: THE IMAGINING OF AN EAST ASIAN COMMUNITY 13

impact of Mr. Trump’s unilateralism on US allies in the region. He worries


that this dynamic could lead to large-scale military buildups and an
intensive arms race in the region, which would certainly confront China
with new risks. In the worst case, he concludes, “It is not unimaginable
that in such context the two states [Japan and South Korea] may go
nuclear and that would help further undermine the non-proliferation
regime, giving states like Iran more justification to develop its own nuclear
capacity.”
John Ikenberry’s Trumpilogue focuses on the future of the liberal
international order and the possibility that Trump’s presidency may imple-
ment policies on “trade, alliances, torture, immigration, race and religion,
and constitutional rights that…would effectively end America’s role as the
embodiment and guarantor of liberal democracy.” He points out that the
United States is not alone in the rise of “new authoritarians,” pointing to the
rise of populist and backlash nationalism movements in Western Europe,
parts of Asia, and beyond. Importantly, unlike the Cold War, this time “The
crisis is coming from within the old democracies, not from the outside.”
Thus, Ikenberry suggests that if Mr. Trump’s views prevail in the policy
process in Washington, D.C., on trade, multilateralism, climate change,
and alliances, then American hegemonic leadership will spiral downwards.
Ironically, according to Ikenberry, “for the most part, [China] does not
appear to want to take on the many burdens of leadership.” Thus, China
may underwrite existing international institutions by enhanced participa-
tion, authority, and support, or even create new ones, thereby becoming
one of the biggest defenders of the status quo. “The flipside,” he con-
cludes, “is that where China views the institutional framework as harmful
to its interests, it will find opportunities to push against the old order,
particularly if the United States is not willing to push back.” At this point,
much depends on whether other states such as Japan, South Korea, and
Canada fill the governance gap. If not, then “other countries [may be
forced] to begin to look for alternatives to the existing order, searching for
regional safe havens and reluctant geopolitical accommodations with China
and Russia”—at which point, the global order may become far less liberal.
Gilbert Rozman’s Trumpilogue states outright that Mr. Trump’s rise
will have far reaching impacts on national identities and bilateral relations
in East Asia. As Mr. Trump abandons US-led alliances and institutions
based on universal values, democracy, human rights, and free trade and
resorts to “crass national interest as defined by a narcissist with scant
interest in precedents and multilateralism,” those who previously embraced
14 P. HAYES AND C.I. MOON

US leadership will retreat into their own narrow identity narratives and no
longer participate in the construction of a shared identity narrative.
Rozman doubts that China is agile enough to exploit the opportunity
for greater Chinese influence created by Mr. Trump’s abdication from US
hegemonic leadership. He argues that China’s nationalist narrative does
not appeal to others in the region, and that alienated allies, especially Japan,
will stick with the United States for realist reasons, not least because they
will expect the pendulum of American politics to swing back after Mr.
Trump’s presidency. Nonetheless, as the Sino-American gap widens, these
political cultures have more space to develop their own identities in ways
that will work against finding a common identity, one of the foundations of
a regional community.
Choong Yong Ahn’s Trumpilogue states forthrightly that Mr. Trump’s
anti-globalization policies such as anti-dumping measures, countervailing
duties, and safeguards targeting specific countries, etc., will lead to an
economic collision with China, with far-reaching impacts on economic
integration in East Asia and Asia-Pacific and negative implications for an
East Asian Economic Community. The result is that China will try to fill
the leadership vacuum and establish itself as the economic hegemon. Its
Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership is one of the main
instruments it will use to supplant the United States’ hegemonic role now
that Mr. Trump has rejected the Transpacific Partnership, thereby
achieving the twin objectives of high growth of China’s economy and
greater influence on the Asian economy.
However, Ahn expects that even if the US economy gains in the
short-term, it will quickly become evident that zero-sum mercantilism and
protectionism harms all countries, the United States included. Thus, the
pendulum is likely to be pushed back and when it does swing back, regional
economic cooperation that is favorable to regional economic community is
also likely to re-emerge. Meanwhile, he argues, “each East Asian economy
needs to upgrade its economic system to robust global standards, which
would facilitate deep economic integration” while also reshaping global
and regional institutions to make them effective in turning back the
anti-globalization, closed-door policies of Mr. Trump and his look-alikes
around the world.
Muthiah Alagappa’s Trumpilogue is succinct. He views Mr. Trump as
epiphenomenal in that his slogans and transactional approach are based on
a cost-benefit approach “that seeks to cut costs and increase the returns for
the United States. National interests would dominate with little interest in
1 CIRCLING THE SQUARE: THE IMAGINING OF AN EAST ASIAN COMMUNITY 15

building international institutions based on values like human rights,


democracy, and free market economy.” In his view, it is up to each country
in the region to pursue independent approaches and policies if these
diverge from US interests. He avers that if Mr. Trump does hasten allies
becoming more militarily self-reliant and less dependent on the United
States, then a new “tension-prone” political-strategic equilibrium is likely
to arise in Northeast Asia, “but need not necessarily lead to large-scale
war.” This, he concludes, “may not be a bad thing for the sub-region and
Asia in the long run.”
Seung-Youn Oh’s Trumpilogue recognizes Mr. Trump’s rise presents
massive challenges but also great opportunities for transnational coalitions
among non-state actors to be revitalized in the region. Admittedly,
depending on the country, non-state actors may be caught in the crossfire
between xenophobic and nationalist populists in different countries.
“Conversely,” she suggests, “they could mitigate animosity coming out of
inward looking nationalist policies and movements as a way to create a
space for greater citizen participation in regional politics and generate a
new capacity for regional community-building.”
Thus, the fallout from Mr. Trump may play to some of the strengths of
non-state actors, given that their comparative advantage relative to the
market and government sectors “lies in their ability to overcome the bar-
riers that exist at the level of high politics and to forge shared under-
standings.” Thus, the response to Mr. Trump by non-state actors is likely
to generate even broader and deeper transnational coalitions and networks
than in the past, thereby accelerating East Asian community building at the
non-governmental level. In this light, Oh concludes optimistically that:
“The Trump factor will be another testing ground for the resilience and
strength of regional community-building at both the ideational and
operational levels.”
Peter Hayes’ Trumpilogue is decidedly less optimistic. Hayes argues that
the era of American nuclear hegemonic leadership is declining rapidly and
passing into what Gramsci called “the interregnum” in which the old is
clearly decaying and ineffective, but the new framework is not yet formed
or capable of taking up the load. Gramsci refers to “morbid symptoms”
that appear in the interregnum. Hayes suggests that Mr. Trump’s rise to
power is exactly one of these symptoms.
Hayes observes that Mr. Trump’s installation as nuclear
commander-in-chief set off alarm bells, with fears that, because he has sole
presidential authority over American nuclear weapons and he is
16 P. HAYES AND C.I. MOON

ill-equipped for this responsibility, he may somehow bring about nuclear


war all by himself. Were this to happen, then he would bring about the
immediate demise of what is left of American nuclear hegemony.
Slightly less apocalyptic is that, rather than starting a nuclear war by
mistake, he may damage, even destroy American nuclear alliances. In
particular, Hayes states, “he may subvert nuclear extended deterrence by
making untimely and imprudent threats that are wildly disproportionate to
the stakes, inviting the adversary to call the bluff and raise it one, or worse,
go to war!” Hayes notes that one post-interregnum outcome is world
disorder based on generalized nuclear proliferation and nuclear war
fighting.
The countervailing framework to this dismal alternative to American
nuclear hegemony is the building of a global and regional community.
This, he argues in parallel with the argument advanced by Oh, “can only
originate from below, via networked communities and cross-border com-
munication involving cities, social movements, and corporations, in part-
nership with non-nuclear states seeking a new foundation for strategic
stability.”
Chung-In Moon’s Trumpilogue outlines three regional scenarios that
could ensue given the trends and prospective ruptures in regional security
and political-economic affairs due to Mr. Trump’s rise to presidential
power. In part, these scenarios flow from Mr. Trump’s departure from
previous rule and structure-bound policies and actions in areas such as
trade and alliance management. “But,” he declares, “Mr. Trump seems
quite different from them. Seemingly impulsive, unilateral, and even
retaliatory in his temperament, his management style of counterparts in
Northeast Asia may prove to be abusive, volatile, and unpredictable.”
Thus, Mr. Trump’s temperament as well as naked national self-interest will
drive these scenarios that are defined by increasing uncertainty.
In the first scenario, the United States becomes isolationist and even-
tually disengages from the region. “This trend,” notes Moon, “would
greatly facilitate the formation of a Northeast Asia regional community, a
paradoxical blessing from the Trump leadership.”
In the second scenario, Mr. Trump elicits a deteriorating US-China
relationship. One of the multiple flashpoints between the two great powers
flares into direct political and military confrontation and Mr. Trump is
forced to re-adopt Obama’s “Pivot to Asia” and military rebalancing pol-
icy, becoming even more entangled in the region, leading to an informal or
formal NEATO or Northeast Asian Treaty Organization, possibly in
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
White Star boats by crossing the Atlantic in seven days fourteen
hours. She was a much larger ship than those other two, had a gross
tonnage of 5,491, and was 520 feet over all. This ship is interesting
as having been the first Atlantic liner to be fitted with electric light,
which was installed in 1879. The White Star Line, however, had
endeavoured in 1872 to instal in their Adriatic a system of lighting the
ship by gas generated from oil. But the rolling of the ship and other
causes led to so much leakage that it was discarded.
In the year 1879 the Atlantic competition was further accelerated
by the advent of the Arizona, which belonged to the Guion Line. This
company had been formed in 1866, and was originally known as
Williams and Guion. In 1879 the Arizona further reduced the Atlantic
passage by eight hours, but in the same year, whilst bound
eastwards, she had the misfortune to run at full speed into a great
iceberg, and her bows were altogether crumpled up; she would have
foundered, but her water-tight bulkhead happily kept her afloat so
that the ship was able to reach St. John’s, Newfoundland, her
nearest port. It was such incidents as this which caused the adoption
of efficient water-tight compartments on most steamships of any
size, and the influence of the British Admiralty on our national
shipping was in the late ’seventies and the early ’eighties decidedly
powerful. By their instructions every steamship on their list available
for transport duties was to be divided up in such a manner that if any
one of her compartments should be opened to the sea in calm water
this loss of buoyancy would not imperil the ship’s safety. As a result
the shipbuilders took the hint, and greater attention was paid to so
important a point.
The Oregon, another of the Guion Line’s famous steamships,
was purchased by the Cunard Company, and showed her
marvellous turn of speed by making the run from Queenstown to
New York in six days, nine hours, fifty-one minutes. She
distinguished herself by keeping up what was then the unheard-of
average passage of six days fourteen hours. But, like the Arizona,
this Oregon was born unlucky. Off the North American coast she was
run into and sunk by a sailing ship, though the passengers and mails
were happily saved. The Oregon had a tonnage of 7,375, and was
driven by direct-acting inverted engines which developed the
remarkable sum of 13,500 horse-power, and produced the equally
wonderful speed of 18 knots per hour, thus earning for her the name
of the “Greyhound of the Atlantic.”
We wish to call the reader’s attention now to the Servia, of which
an interesting picture is reproduced opposite page 154. In her was
embodied the result of another scientific discovery which has
revolutionised the construction of the deep-sea ship, whether
propelled by steam or sails. As iron had superseded wood, so now
steel was to take the place of iron as the material of which to build
the hull. So thoroughly, indeed, has this practice spread that during
the year 1909, with the exception of a few small wooden vessels
whose aggregate tonnage does not much exceed a thousand, the
entire amount of new British shipping in that year was constructed of
steel, and iron was not used at all for the hull. Such a fact is highly
significant of the value of the newer material. Although as far back as
1873 the French had used this in constructing parts of their
warships, it was not until four years later that the British mercantile
marine began to be interested in it. But at length the Cunard
Company were convinced of its superior virtues over iron, and
ordered the Servia to be built of this material. When she made her
appearance in 1881, she was the largest and most powerful ship,
excepting the Great Eastern, that had ever been launched; her
measurements were 515 feet, breadth 52 feet, depth 37 feet, with
7,392 gross tonnage. She lowered the Atlantic voyage once more to
seven days, one hour, thirty-eight minutes, her speed being 17
knots, though it was not until 1884 that she really showed her full
abilities. We may sum up the advantages which were now
recognised in mild steel as consisting of, firstly, a saving of 25 per
cent. in weight, just as we saw that iron exercised a similar
superiority over wood. “Mild” steel is very ductile and can easily be
fashioned into the required shape suitable for a steamship without
risk of cracking. Iron is comparatively brittle, and steel is more
uniform in quality. The latter will also endure a greater strain on its
elasticity, and this had already been appreciated by the Royal Navy
years before commercial shipbuilders realised its full value. Although
the first cost of a steel-built ship was greater than one constructed of
iron, yet that extra cost was found to be over-balanced by other
considerations. Just as iron was stronger than wood, so steel was
proved to be stronger than iron: consequently, the weight of the ship
was diminished, which meant that the ship could carry a greater
amount of fuel or cargo, or allowed of her being fitted with more
powerful, though more weighty, engines. Steel is now very much
cheaper than wrought iron, and is used not merely for the plates of
the hull, but in almost every portion of the ship’s construction. Even
in sailing ships the yards, masts, and rigging are to a large extent
now made of this material.

THE “UMBRIA” (1884).


From a Painting. By permission of the Cunard Steamship Co.
THE “ORIENT” (1879).
From a Painting. By permission of Messrs. Anderson, Anderson & Co.

The same builders who had been responsible for the Oregon
were commissioned to build two of the most historic Cunarders,
whose names are almost as familiar as the Atlantic over which they
voyaged for so many years with a regularity and reliability that would
be hard to beat. In 1884 the first of this famous couple, the Umbria,
was delivered, followed early the next year by the Etruria. An
illustration of the former, as she appeared when originally rigged as a
barque, will be found facing this page. Both ships were identical in
their main features, and are interesting in many ways. Their masts
were of steel, as well as their hulls. At the stern we can see the idea
of the turtle deck, as inherited from the Oceanic, slightly modified so
that the upper part has become available for a short promenade
deck for second-class passengers, and the graceful overhang at the
stern also is indicative of the rapid advance since the clumsy after-
end of the steamship gave her a far less yacht-like appearance.
There is also a promenade deck extending for nearly 300 feet
amidships for the use of the first-class passengers, on which a large
teak deckhouse encloses the entrances to the saloon, ladies’ saloon,
captain’s room, and chart room. Above this house comes the
officers’ lookout bridge and house for the steersman, and over this,
again, is the flying bridge. Forward there will be seen the large top-
gallant forecastle, which extended for over 100 feet aft from the
stern. The engines were, of course, compound, with one high-
pressure cylinder and two of low-pressure. These vessels were built
to the highest class and to be available for Government service as
armed cruisers in the event of war. Their average speed was found
to be 18½ knots, although the Umbria reached over 20 knots during
her six-hours’ trial on the Clyde. These two ships between them
broke up all standing Atlantic records, for in August, 1885, the Etruria
crossed from Queenstown to New York in six days, six hours, thirty-
six minutes, although in 1892 the Umbria did better still by crossing
the Atlantic at an average rate of over 19½ knots. Until the coming of
the Campania and the Lucania, the Cunard possessed in these the
two fastest ships of their fleet. But it is certain the company never
owned two more satisfactory steamships, for they have confessed
that “no ships ever gave their owners less uneasiness than these
two, and none have done such an extraordinary quantity of good
work. They are monuments, that cannot lie, to the skill of the design
and the faithfulness of the labour that went to their accomplishment.”
As they got older, they actually became faster instead of slower,
and the Etruria made her fastest westward passage in five days,
twenty hours, fifty-five minutes, with a highest day’s run of 509 knots.
She even maintained an average of 20 knots bound eastward. At the
end of 1909 she was sold by the Cunard Company, and a like fate
befell her sister, the Umbria, which was sold to the Forth
Shipbreaking Company in April, 1910, for the sum, it is said, of
£20,000. But the Umbria, right to the end, continued to break
records, even when she had been long since outrun in matters of
speed. For instance, in the year 1893, two days before Christmas,
whilst bound west across the Atlantic, it was discovered that a
serious fracture had occurred in the propeller shaft. The engines
were accordingly stopped, and after a time the German steamship
Bohemia came in sight and took her in tow, but a heavy gale sprang
up and the tow-rope parted. The Umbria lost sight of her friend and
drifted about the Atlantic for three days and nights, but during this
time Chief-Engineer Tomlinson pluckily succeeded in repairing the
shaft, and the Umbria, with her engines going half-speed, made New
York on the last day of the old year, to the great relief of those
ashore who had given her up for lost. Another record of a totally
different nature was made by her only a few weeks before she was
sold out of the Cunard Line. She reached Liverpool just before
midnight on Thursday, February 10th, 1910, and in spite of having
only just completed her round trip of the double Atlantic journey, she
was got ready at once to sail eastward again on the Saturday,
February 12th. We can gain some idea of the magnitude of the task
when we realise that in that remarkably brief time she had not only to
be overhauled, but to have her stores taken on board, to be supplied
with 3,000 tons of coal and 450,000 gallons of water, to say nothing
of the many tons of cargo of all kinds. Some of the officers had
barely time to make a hurried call to see their wives before rushing
back on board to superintend this exceptionally fast “turn-round.”
The measurements of these two ships were 501 feet long, 57 feet
broad, 38 feet deep, with a gross tonnage of 7,718 tons; their
builders were Messrs. John Elder and Company, of Glasgow.
Before we pass on in the next chapter to witness the coming of
the twin-screw ship, and the disappearance of sails as the auxiliaries
of the steamship, we must glance at the progress which was going
on during the ’seventies and ’eighties in the steamships employed
running, not across the Atlantic, but to the East. Already we have
seen something of the origin of the Peninsular and Oriental Line, and
the difficulties which it had to contend with in its early career. Now, in
1877, another steamship service to the East was started by the
Orient Line, which began by chartering from the Pacific Steam
Navigation Company a suitable vessel which should run from
London to Sydney via the Cape of Good Hope. This was the
Lusitania—a very different ship, of course, from the modern
Cunarder of the same name—but in her own time this Lusitania was
also famous. For many years, until, indeed, as recently as 1905, the
Orient and Pacific Lines worked together to maintain a service
between England and Australia. At first the sailings were only
monthly, but from 1880 they were fortnightly. Since 1905 the Pacific
Company has withdrawn from this trade.
The pioneer of the Orient Line’s own ships—apart from chartered
vessels—was the steamer Orient, of which an illustration is given
opposite to page 158. She was built of iron, in 1879, by the same
firm who turned out the Etruria and Umbria. Her measurements are
460 feet long, 46½ feet wide, 36 feet 8 inches deep, with a tonnage
of 5,386, and 5,400 horse-power. She was given four decks, of
which two were entirely of iron, and sufficient bunker space was
provided to carry enough coals to enable her to steam all the way to
Australia round the Cape without having to coal en route. She was
also provided with a double bottom, which could be filled with water
as ballast, if desired. She was driven by inverted vertical engines
having the compound principle—one high-pressure cylinder and two
of low-pressure—and had a four-bladed propeller. Amidships, it will
be noted, is a white erection, which rises up from the ship’s side and
becomes the bridge-deck, extending right across the ship and some
distance both fore and aft. The origin of this development in the
steamship is as follows: Originally, in some of the early ocean-going
steamships, the openings on deck from the engine and boiler
compartments were merely protected by means of glazed skylights
and coamings, forming a hatch. Perhaps it was not a very seaworthy
kind of arrangement, but it is essential for plenty of air to get down
below, unhindered, for the proper burning of the furnaces, to say
nothing of a supply for the engineering section of the crew. However,
during the month of January, 1866, the steamship London, after
encountering a heavy gale in the Bay of Biscay, endeavoured to
make for Plymouth, but during the night a bad sea broke over her,
destroyed her engine-room skylight, extinguished the furnaces, and
eventually the ship foundered. From this incident was learnt the
advisability of protecting this opening with something more
substantial. Its first form was, therefore, to raise the sides of the
hatchways from the ship by means of an iron casing so as to be
about eight feet above the deck and about level with the captain’s
bridge. From this it was a perfectly easy transition from the bridge to
the bridge-deck, extending it sufficiently to protect the opening
adequately. The same idea in a more elementary form will be seen in
the tug Blackcock illustrated in Chapter IX.
THE “AUSTRAL” (1881).
From a Photograph. By permission of Messrs. Anderson, Anderson & Co.

THE “VICTORIA” (1887).


From the Painting by Frank Murray in the possession of the Peninsular &
Oriental Steam Navigation Co.
THE “MAJESTIC” (1889).
From a Photograph. By Permission of Messrs. Ismay, Imrie & Co.

The Austral shows another early steamship of the Orient Line.


Constructed by the same builders as the Orient and Umbria, she
was launched in 1881, and it is a sign of those later times that the
yards have now disappeared, though she was schooner-rigged and
could set 28,000 square feet of canvas on her four masts. Her gross
registered tonnage worked out at 5,524. Built of mild steel with a
double bottom, the latter being subdivided into nineteen water-tight
compartments with thirteen water-tight bulkheads in her hull, the
Austral was specially constructed to act as a cruiser, and to carry
guns in case of war. The year after she was launched the Austral
was lying in Sydney Harbour with her port-holes left open, when,
owing to a heavy list, caused through unequal coaling, the water
poured in, and she sank in fifty feet of water, but was refloated again
several months after.
The four-masted steamship shown opposite page 162 is the
Victoria, one of the P. and O. boats of this period. Launched in 1887,
the Victoria belongs to the company’s “Jubilee” class, and is now
one of the oldest boats in this line’s employ. Both at the bow and
stern there will be seen a modification of the turtle deck. A sister ship
was launched under the name of the Britannia. Their tonnage is, in
the case of the Victoria, 6,522, but the Britannia comes out at three
tons more, the length being slightly over 465 feet, with a beam of 52
feet, and a depth of over 26 feet.
We have thus seen the liner in a condition of change, and it is
only from the close of the eighth decade of the nineteenth century
that she begins to take on a form more in accordance with a
steamship able to pursue her way totally independent of auxiliary
sails. The experience which we recorded as having happened to the
Umbria clearly marked the way for the coming of the twin-screw ship.
It was patent to anyone that by this means an efficient safeguard
would be obtained in the event of a fractured shaft befalling the ship.
If it was likely that one should come to grief, it was highly improbable
that the other would not be available for getting the ship into port,
and so enabling the owning steamship line not merely to preserve
their reputation for carrying passengers, mails and cargo with safety,
but to avoid the very costly possibilities of having to pay salvage
claims to the rescuing ship that should happen to fall in with the
injured liner and to tow her home. As soon as the twin-screw became
established there was virtually little use for the sails, and so it was
not much longer before they disappeared altogether from the crack
liner.
CHAPTER VI
THE COMING OF THE TWIN-SCREW
STEAMSHIP

During the ’eighties the competition for the Atlantic “blue ribbon”
had become very keen indeed, until the Umbria and Etruria began to
shatter existing records and to show their undoubted superiority. But
their turn to be eclipsed was not long in coming, and the Inman Line
were determined to make a bold bid for supremacy once again. A
year or two before the launch of the Umbria they had made a spirited
effort with the City of Rome, a large vessel with a displacement of
over 11,000 tons. But she did not prove successful.
The line became the Inman and International Company, and set
forth to build a couple of large, powerful steamships which would be
in advance of the City of Rome in speed, though not quite so large.
Already there had been small twin-screw ships, but the City of New
York and the City of Paris were to be driven by twin-screws of a size
and power which had not yet been produced. It was fitting that the
Inman Line which had introduced the successful screw liner to the
Atlantic should also be the pioneers of the very big steamships fitted
with twin-screws. These two vessels were taken over in 1893, when
the Inman Line became reorganised, and passed from the British
flag to sail under the eagle of the American Line. Nowadays they sail
from Southampton under the names of the New York and the
Philadelphia respectively. The illustration facing page 166 shows the
City of Paris (afterwards called the Paris, and only later still the
Philadelphia) getting under way from New York. Her graceful bow,
with its bowsprit and figure-head, is reminiscent of the old clipper
sailing ships. The high dome of the first cabin dining-saloon will be
seen rising in the space between the fore-mast and the bridge, and
the promenade deck runs practically the whole length of the ship
from the bows to the stern.
The hulls of these steamships are built of mild steel, and in
addition to possessing a double bottom throughout their entire length
in which a considerable amount of water ballast can be carried, they
are divided into fifteen water-tight compartments. The bulkheads of
the latter come right up to a height of 18 feet above the water-line, so
that in case of collision the ship could still keep afloat even if three
compartments were open to the sea.
Their two engine rooms are separated from each other by
means of a longitudinal bulkhead, and they are driven by two
separate sets of triple-expansion engines. We have already seen
that triple-expansion is just the principle of the compound engine
carried one stage farther, and if the desire for attaining the high
speed contemplated were to be gratified it was inevitable that this
method should have been adopted. With the exception of a very few
quadruple-expansion engined ships, such as the Cunard Ivernia, the
White Star Baltic, and the German Kaiser Wilhelm II., most modern
liners which have not been fitted with turbines are of the triple-
expansion type. It may not be out of place, therefore, very briefly to
explain the working of this.
THE “CITY OF PARIS” (NOW THE “PHILADELPHIA”) (1893).
From a Photograph. By permission of the American Line.
THE “OPHIR” (1891).
From a Photograph. By permission of Messrs. Anderson, Anderson & Co.

The steam, then, enters the cylinder above the piston-rod by


means of a valve, but when it has half-filled the cylinder and the
stroke is also half completed, the supply of steam is cut off. But the
piston-rod does not for that reason come to a standstill: owing to the
expansive force of the steam the rest of the stroke is completed
when the steam has occupied twice the space it did at the time it
was cut off—that is, when the half-stroke had been made. Having,
therefore, now completed its work in this cylinder, instead of being
allowed to escape, the steam is conducted to a much larger cylinder
than the first, for the steam still retains much of its expansive force.
In this second cylinder, the same thing occurs again, but when it is
admitted to a third, it has already lost much of its pressure. It does its
work, and having come through the third cylinder has thus
undergone “triple expansion.” Now that it has completed the stroke it
passes into the surface condenser already referred to, where it is
suddenly chilled and converted into water again, and the vacuum
thus formed tends to pull the piston back. In the olden days, as we
have seen, the vacuum was made by means of the jet condenser,
but now it is done by what is known as the “surface” condenser. It is
by means of the latter that the fresh water is able to be used again
and again. Otherwise, a steamship could only carry enough fresh
water for a few days’ voyage, salt water being not used for the
boilers, but merely for circulating through the pipes of the condenser
to keep them cool. As the steam comes out from the lower pressure
it impinges on the sea-water cooled tubes and so falls to the bottom
of the condenser as water. It is then pumped into a tank by means of
the air-pump, and from the tank it is pumped back again to the
boilers by a feed pump, passing on its way through a filter in order
that any oil which may have been gathered in the cylinder may be
extracted. It now passes through feed-heaters, where it is heated by
exhaust steam from the auxiliary machinery, and so when the
condensed water again enters the boiler it is almost at boiling point.
The advantage of this triple-expansion was found to give greater
speed with less expenditure of horse-power. At first the City of Paris
was not as fast as she ought to have been, but after the A-shaped
brackets, which supported the two shafts, were removed and,
instead, the hull at the stern was, so to speak, bulged out to contain
the shafts, her speed was found to be 19 knots with an employment
of 2,000 horse-power less than she had needed before this
alteration.
The City of Paris had made her appearance in 1888, but in the
following year it was the White Star Line’s turn to come to the front
again. From 1873 till 1884 their fleet had been the fastest on the
Atlantic; and now again they were ready to enter the lists. Sir Edward
Harland was once more entrusted with the task of designing the new
ships, and those two beautiful creatures the Teutonic and Majestic
were launched, the former in January and the latter in June of 1889.
The Majestic is illustrated opposite page 162, but this view shows
her as she was afterwards altered and appears now. When these
ships first commenced to run they were both fitted with three pole-
masts with a gaff on each; but following the custom now adopted on
many modern liners, one of the masts and all the gaffs have since
been removed. It will be seen that a modified turtle-deck is still
retained at the stern, and in one other respect this ship also
continued the influence of the first Oceanic. It will be recollected that
the latter possessed the enormous proportion of ten beams to her
length. The Teutonic measured 582 feet long and 57·8 feet broad, so
that she is only a few feet lacking in this respect. Her gross tonnage
is 9,984, and her indicated horse-power 18,000. The Majestic broke
the record by crossing from Queenstown to New York in five days
eighteen hours eight minutes; the Teutonic by doing the same
journey in five days sixteen hours thirty-one minutes. If called upon,
these ships could steam from Portsmouth to Bombay via the Cape of
Good Hope, a distance of over 10,000 miles, in twenty-two days
without having to coal on the way, a fact that might have some
importance in the event of war breaking out.
In these two ships was also introduced the practice of
overlapping the twin-screws, and in order that they might be able to
clear the deadwood at the extreme end of the stern, a hole—
technically called a “screw port”—was made after the manner in
which a “port” is left for the screw to revolve when a vessel is
provided only with a single propeller. The advantage in the case of
the twin-screws was that they were allowed plenty of water for their
propellers to revolve in. The advantage of the screws overlapping
tended also to enable them to work in a manner as near as possible
to the centre line of the hull.
The introduction of the twin-screw system was made in the
Orient liner Ophir (see opposite page 166), which was built in 1891.
Each of her four decks is of steel, and she was given the triple-
expansion engines in two sets—one set for each propeller. She was
the first vessel on the Australian route to be fitted with twin-screws,
but many others have since followed and proved the wisdom of this
innovation. Her propellers are made of manganese bronze, with
three blades each, and give her a speed of between 18 and 19
knots. It will be recollected that it was this ship which was selected to
carry the present King and Queen on their tour of the British
Colonies in 1901.
The ceaseless competition in the Atlantic steamship progress
continued without abatement, and by now the Cunard Line was
ready again to fight for the lead. In September of 1892 the Campania
was launched, and was followed in the next February by the
Lucania. Since their length was greater than the width of the Clyde,
where they were built, they had to be launched into the river
diagonally. They were, of course, fitted with twin-screws and with
triple-expansion engines, there being five cylinders, of which two are
high-pressure, one intermediate, and two low-pressure. We do not
intend to weary the reader with a list of statistics which can easily be
obtained by those to whom bare figures make their appeal; our
purpose is served if we show in what important detail each
successive vessel advanced the history of the steamship so as to
approach more nearly to what is considered the ideal by modern
experts. But we shall be shirking our duty if we do not indicate some
of the main characteristics which gave to such a craft as the
Campania a distinctiveness that distinguished her and her sister the
Lucania from her contemporaries. One greatly improved liner
nowadays so quickly surpasses her predecessor; the age of
obsolescence now moves at so greatly quickened a speed; that the
general public, whose memory is also so short-lived, scarcely has
time to appreciate all that the latest steamship means ere it has
passed quietly from service and been handed over to the ship-
breakers, or, under a new flag and a changed name, continues its
work at some remote corner of the world.
THE “LUCANIA” (1893).
From a Photograph. By Permission of the Cunard Steamship Co.

Those who remember seeing the Campania lying in the Mersey


soon after she was commissioned, and with their minds full of the
hitherto unparalleled features which had been foretold concerning
her, will recollect that the first impression conveyed was identical
with that made on seeing the Mauretania immediately after she had
left the builders’ hands. Not so much size but gracefulness; not the
characteristics of a floating monster, but of a singularly beautiful
creature whose every line suggested dignity with speed were the
points that attracted one.
Handsome is as handsome does; these two sisters, one of which
is no more, were not long in showing that their achievements were
not belied by their good looks. In appearance less like “the biggest
things afloat” than the most symmetrical colossal yacht, the
Campania was built for business, and not primarily to be a thing of
beauty. She has made the run between Queenstown and New York
in 5½ days, and ocean travellers soon appreciated the important fact
that in getting from one country to the other she had a reputation for
regularity that would be hard to beat, irrespective of winter and
summer weather. The Campania is slightly larger than her late sister,
and has averaged just under 22 knots for a whole year’s east-bound
voyages. The engines of these elegant ships were arranged in the
manner already indicated so as to avoid having unnecessarily large
cylinders, the two high-pressure cylinders driving one crank, being
arranged tandem fashion, the intermediate cylinder driving one
crank, whilst the two low-pressure were also put the one above the
other like the high-pressure, and by an ingenious contrivance it is
possible to prevent the screws racing; for when the number of
revolutions begins to exceed its proper limit the supply of steam is
automatically cut off.
In order to render these boats less likely to roll in a sea-way, they
were fitted with bilge-keels. They have, too, since been provided with
wireless telegraph gear, whose aerials stretch from one mast to the
other, and connect with the Marconi cabin, and the up-to-date
system of submarine signalling is also installed, so that in case of
thick weather the sound waves transmitted from submerged bells on
lightships outside Liverpool or New York may be conveyed to the
ship herself below the waterline, and so by means of a telephone up
to the officer on duty in the navigating room.
These two ships also marked another advance in method of
building, for the steel plates from which their sides were made were
of unprecedented size, and thus it is obvious that the number of
rivets was considerably smaller. Opposite page 170 we give an
illustration of the Lucania under way, and by comparing her with the
earlier Atlantic liners, a fair idea will be obtained of the trend of
steamship evolution. It will be noticed that the Oceanic turtle deck
has gone, for the reason that since the stern had now become at
such a height from the water it was hardly necessary. The topmost
deck of the Lucania is the shade deck, and the one immediately
below it the promenade deck; it should be noted that these two are
not really part of the structure of the ship herself, but platforms
superadded in much the same way as in a vastly different type of
craft, the Viking ship, which, when it began to enter its transition
state, had fighting platforms erected both at bow and stern so as to
accommodate her men. The Campania measures 600 feet (between
perpendiculars), with a beam of 65 feet 3 inches, and displaces
nearly 20,000 tons. It was only in the early months of 1910 that the
Lucania, her sister, after being on fire and compelled for that reason
to be flooded with water, was sold out of the Cunard Company’s
service.
We come now to consider the entering of fierce competition from
a quarter that hitherto had not affected the development of the
modern liner. We have seen that in spite of the efforts which America
had put forth from time to time, the pride of the Atlantic Ocean had
been British ultimately. The American-subsidised Collins Line had in
the end to bow its head and yield, nor has the reorganised Inman
Line (now the American Line) been a dangerous competitor in the
matter of record passages. At different times first one British line of
steamships pushed itself to the front, to be in turn ousted by its rival;
and so the evolution of the steamship profited. But now it was to be
not Britain, nor America, but Germany, which was to make a bold bid
for the commercial sovereignty of Atlantic speed. Few phenomena
are more notable within recent years than the sudden rise of
Germany as a world power. In the realm of steamships there has
been scarcely any parallel to the rapid development which that
nation exhibited, so that within a remarkably short space of time she
became able not merely to build her own ships, but of a size that had
been exceeded only by the Great Eastern, and with a speed that no
liner of any sort or of any nationality had ever yet attained. It is fitting,
therefore, to give here a brief sketch of the manner in which this new
competition originated, for to this undoubtedly is due the coming of
the mammoth ships represented by the Mauretania and Lusitania. In
the future this is the direction from which the quickening factor will
come, as formerly it used to come from internal steamship
organisations.
Modern German ship-building, like her other industries, dates
only from the close of the Franco-Prussian War, and the birth of a

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