Recently, I read an interesting article in the New York Times titled “To Save Our Economy, Ditch Taiwan.” The premise of the article was that the US should stop protecting Taiwan in exchange for cancellation of debts owed to China. The author raises an interesting point in the article: our main interests abroad are economic.
“He should make it clear that today American jobs and wealth matter more than military prowess,” Paul Kane, the author of the article and a former Harvard professor and Marine, wrote.
So I must ask: is he right? Should the US “go soft?” Here it is useful to look at the current policies of the government before analyzing it theoretically.
In their annual budget report, published in November 2011, the US Department of State wrote that the mission of the United States abroad was to, “Shape and sustain a peaceful, prosperous, just, and democratic world and foster conditions for stability and progress for the benefit of the American people and people everywhere."[1]
So we can see that the United States currently does not act in an economically self-interested way, it currently aims to help those around the globe. The question is: should it?
Those who support Kane will argue that under Locke’s theory of the social contract, which formed the basis for our society, governments primarily have an obligation to their people.2 However, it is interesting to note that governments must conform to the will of the people, not just to their interests, because we must first consult with the populace to know what their interests are. So it would be a misconstruction of Locke to say that we must place economic goals first.
In addition, this was adopted as our political philosophy back in the day when our government was too weak to be concerned about anything other than our own survival. Today, as the world’s most powerful nation, we are in a greatly different position. We have the ability to uphold goods such as democracy, liberty and free trade around the globe. Regular people have an obligation to be just, so the same principles should apply to governments.
In the case of China, we clearly have values and interests, including economic interests, that do not overlap with those of China. China is an authoritarian state that has been attempting to spread its influence around the region. The spread of China’s anti-human rights, anti-freedom model of government would not be desirable for our interests. Another policy of China’s that we should aim to stop is the attempt by China to assert its dominance over the South China Sea [3], through which 50% of world trade flows. [4] Almost all of our oil also flows through this region, and re-routing it would send the price of oil up drastically. [4] Even disregarding the fact that freedom of trade and navigation our two of our biggest goals internationally, giving a foreign country that does not share our values and believes that the U.S. is evil and ought to lose its hegemony control of our oil lifelines would not be desirable.
Economic interdependence is rarely a deterrent of war, as best illustrated by Britain and Germany in 1914 [5] (the two countries were each other’s largest trading partners on the eve of the war, but differences in values and desires to dominate the Earth led to war). For most people, defense of national values tend to surpass prosperity as their greatest interest. This is seen in many wars throughout history where civilians voluntarily put themselves through hardship to continue fighting.
Cites
1 http://www.state.gov/s/d/rm/index.htm#mission United States Department of State Mission Statement
2 The Social Contract in America: From the Revolution to the Present Age, Mark Hulliung. September 2007, American Political Thought. ISBN: 978-0-7006-1540-7
3 http://www.indianexpress.com/news/s-china-sea-control-others-question-beijing-wary-india-tests-the-waters/877491/ S China Sea control: Others question Beijing, wary India tests the waters – Indian Express
4 http://www.siis.org.cn/en/zhuanti_view_en.aspx?id=10116
5 http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/papa.htm Interdependence, Institutions, and the Balance of Power: Britain, Germany, and World War I, International Security, Vol. 20, no. 4, Spring 1996
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