For nearly five hundred years, Asia has been a passive adjunct to the geopolitics of Europe. It was European technology and military power that shaped the evolution of modern Asia. To be sure, Asian resources and markets contributed to the rise of modern Europe. Asian troops significantly contributed to the outcomes in the wars between European powers.

The tables are turning today. It was perhaps inevitable; the shifting economic power from the west to the east in Eurasia was bound to alter the geopolitical balance within this vast region. Asian powers are now muscling into European wars as independent powers. A few of them now have the agency and capacity to shape the geopolitical evolution of Europe. Consider for example the Asian contribution to the war in Ukraine at the heart of Europe.

by C. Raja Mohan

Goodwill for Moscow in Large Parts of Asia

Large-scale deliveries of drones, ammunition, and weapons components from Iran, North Korea, and China are helping Russia fight Ukrainian forces and rain death on civilians in Ukrainian cities. It is Beijing’s role, though, that is most significant. China provides Moscow a stable strategic rear, provides alternative markets to Germany and Europe, and lends the geopolitical heft to President Vladimir Putin’s confrontation with the ‘collective West’.

Many Asian nations are unwilling to condemn the Russian aggression against Ukraine, because of the historic goodwill for Moscow in Asia, inherited from the late colonial era when the Soviet Union presented itself as an opponent of European imperialism and supporter of Asian decolonisation. Asian reluctance to criticise Moscow and question the European double standards on Ukraine and Gaza gives much space for President Putin in Asia. Adding to the Russian room are some in Asia, like India and Vietnam that see Russia as a necessary part of balancing China. Even North Korea sees Moscow as giving it a measure of autonomy from Beijing.

Not all of Asia is with President Putin. Several important Asian powers are boosting the Western effort in Ukraine. South Korea, which has emerged as a major weapons producer, is already selling arms to NATO – and could increase its support for Ukraine in response to North Korea’s increasing involvement on the Russian side. Japan has emerged as a major political and diplomatic supporter of Kyiv and will have a key role in the reconstruction of Ukraine when it begins.

A Rising Role for Asia in Europe

The NATO summit in Washington in July revealed the extent to which European defence has become a concern of Asian and Pacific powers. The Biden administration has persuaded its four Asian allies – Australia, Japan, New Zealand, and South Korea – to become part of Europe’s security discourse. Leaders of the four countries, the so-called AP-4, have become regular participants at NATO summits.

A role for Asia in Europe is the flip side of Biden’s argument that Europe should do more to secure Asia against China. It is not clear if the Europeans have the capacity and strategic coherence to contribute to Asian security, but Asian leaders recognise their stakes in Europe.

‘Divide and rule’ was the European colonial powers’ old maxim for gaining control of Asia. Today, Asia’s great powers are learning the art of probing European fault lines – whether it’s Russia courting Hungarian President Viktor Orban or the Chinese continuing to tease the European capital. It is quite amusing to see some Europeans articulating the idea of ‘strategic autonomy’ in defying the US to protect their expansive commercial interests in China. Beijing, of course, loves the idea of European strategic autonomy. Besides exploiting the Trans-Atlantic divide on geopolitics, Moscow and Beijing have more than enough room to work with anti-Americanism on the left and right of the European political spectrum.

Some in the US are tempted to see Asia as a more urgent and important theatre than Europe. Many in the UK and Europe see Asia as too far away and that it must focus its strategic energies in countering Russia. They also do not see China as a threat to European security.

Yet, there is escaping the fact that Asian and European theatres are as interconnected today as in the past. Any long-term Western strategy in Eurasia must involve addressing the challenges on both fronts in a coordinated manner. Downgrading one in favour of the other could lead the west to lose on both fronts in a sequential manner.

Asia Has Its Own Divisions

Contrary to the pervasive Europessimism, the old continent has room to play in Asia. If it manages to shed its historic condescension to the East, Europe could find new and mutually beneficial ways of working with Asia. For one, Europe must recognise that Asia has its own divisions. Nationalist contradictions abound in Asia – between China and Japan, Korea and Japan, Vietnam and China, Cambodia and Vietnam, and India and China.

Europe has a long tradition of engaging with these contradictions during its colonial engagement with Asia. But the illusions about the rise of a post-modern world, an addiction of mercantilism, outsourcing its security thinking to the US, and self-deceptions about being an ‘empire of norms’, have driven into a long holiday from Asian geopolitics.

A Europe that actively engages with Asian geopolitics, with due respect to the rise and agency of Asian powers, will find it possible to modernise its relationship with the US as well as upgrade ties with Asia. Sharing’s America’s burdens in the East and treating Asia as geopolitical equal, Europe can regain its place in the new global chessboard.

Image Attribution: “Meeting with Xi Jinping (2023)” by Government.ru, licensed under CC BY 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons. Link to image.