Thomas P.M. Barnett :: Weblog

'China seeks joint military exercise with ASEAN countries', Jane's Navy International, 16 April 2007

Under a bold policy initiative yet to be made public, China is seeking to expand its political and economic ties with the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) through organising a first multilateral military exercise.Sources told Jane's that the Chinese proposal, which is still at an early stage, involves a joint naval drill. Beijing opened discussions at the start of 2007 with the aim of conducting the exercise around mid-2008.The initiative appears to have been presented to ASEAN members individually rather than collectively through the group's secretariat

As Sean noted when he passed this on, China's price for strategic alliance continues to rise.

Globalization is all about networks and networks are all about accessing new work-arounds.

The hedge strategy is rapidly being OBE, and forget about containment. China won't wait on our offer to lead Asia's next stage of integration, and so the days of bilat diplomacy and hub-and-spokes arrangements and "separate lanes" negotiations are all gone.

We're still waging largely 20th century diplomacy in a globalized, 21st century environment.

The leap-frogging is just beginning and we need to get our asses off the floor.

This is where the Bush post-presidency seems like such a drag: we're still busily closing doors on the last era while others are opening doors on the next.