The challenge posed by the ‘Theory and Practice of Conflict Resolution’ study group of the RCAST Open Laboratory for Emergence Strategies (ROLES) of the University of Tokyo, at its symposium on ‘Conflict Resolution in the Contemporary World: The Future of Ukraine and the Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP)’, was to identify a thread connecting seemingly disparate themes: Ukraine, conflict resolution, and FOIP. This commentary argues that a connecting thread can be found in a problem common to the Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific regions: attempting the resolution of internationalised intrastate conflicts in which the main parties hold incompatible views of the principles constituting a legitimate international order. 

 

 

In the introduction to A World Restored, Dr. Henry Kissinger exposed the difficulties of resolving differences between status quo powers (defined as those sharing a view of what constitutes ‘legitimate’ principles of order), and ‘revolutionary’ powers (those who are dissatisfied with those principles or the way they are put into practice). According to this theoretical framework, the term ‘legitimacy’ has a particular application, and its meaning should not be associated with notions of what is ‘fair’ or ‘just’. It has no such moral connotation and is purely practical; the legitimate order is the order that delivers stability. The legitimate order can do this only on the condition of “international agreement about the nature of workable arrangements and the permissible aims and methods of foreign policy.” Where this agreement and sense of legitimacy about the ordering principles exists, great powers feel satisfied that they can get what they need through adjustments within that framework of principles. That doesn’t mean the great powers who agree about the main principles never fight, but it limits the scope of conflicts. This ‘adjustment’ within the framework is mostly achieved by diplomacy, including the practices we now discuss in terms of ‘conflict resolution’. However, if something happens to make those great powers feel dissatisfied with those principles or how they are put into practice, then the contest ceases to be about adjustment within the order by means of diplomacy and becomes about the adjustment of the framework itself by means of war. 

 

When Kissinger set out his ideas about order and legitimacy in 1954, he was writing his doctoral thesis about the Napoleonic era to illuminate the difficulties of diplomacy in the early Cold War. However, much of what he wrote in the early Cold War might have been written more recently to describe how countries supporting Ukraine have struggled to deal with Russia over the previous decade and a half since the Georgian war of 2008: 

 

“Diplomacy, the art of restraining the exercise of power, cannot function in such an [revolutionary] environment … For powers long accustomed to tranquillity and without experience with disaster, this is a hard lesson to come by. Lulled by a period of stability which had seemed permanent, they find it nearly impossible to take at face value the assertion of the revolutionary power that it means to smash the existing framework. The defenders of the status quo therefore tend to begin by treating the revolutionary power as if its protestations were merely tactical; as if it really accepted the existing legitimacy but overstated its case for bargaining purposes; as if it were motivated by specific grievances to be assuaged by limited concessions. Those who warn against the danger in time are considered alarmists; those who counsel adaptation to circumstance are considered balanced and sane, for they have all the good “reasons” on their side: the arguments accepted as valid in the existing framework. ‘Appeasement’, where it is not a device to gain time, is the result of an inability to come to grips with a policy of unlimited objectives”[1].

 

 

The difficulties of conflict resolution, in this case, are compounded by a second problem: what Professor Hideaki Shinoda terms ‘internationalised intra-state’ conflicts, which is one of the parallels between the hot Ukraine war and the cold war confrontation between the US and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) over Taiwan. At least from Beijing’s point of view, there is one China, and Taiwan is part of it. Therefore, any international action enabling or encouraging Taiwan’s independence is illegitimate and a threat to its core national interests.  Nevertheless, so long as Taiwan continues to receive such support (principally the United States, which may be supported in turn by Japan and perhaps other allies), the Taiwan issue will continue to be ‘internationalised’[2]. Ukraine is in a similar position, continuing to receive support from several advanced democracies to sustain its sovereign independence. The Ukraine war conflict is internationalised from both sides, as Russia receives support for its war capacity from the 
DPRK, Iran and China[3].

 

 

The potential for conflict resolution is affected by what happens when these two complicating factors of legitimacy and internationalisation combine. These conflicts are internationalised in part because perceptions of what is at stake are not limited to the outcome of localised territorial disputes. What the East Asian and Ukraine conflicts share in common is they are treated as test cases and potential precedents for the principles that govern conflicts at other times and places[4]. An additional and major source of difficulty is that principles used on each side to explain the conflict are not just fundamentally different; they are so contradictory that neither side can acknowledge the legitimacy of the principles that guide the actions of the other. We now turn to the two conflicts in the Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific to identify incompatible principles.  

 

 

One of the signs that foreign policy has turned revolutionary is that wars are fought not in the name of the existing structure but in the name of different principles. In the cases of Ukraine and sovereignty disputes in East Asia, where do these show up?

 

As Kissinger sees it, when powers pursuing a status quo foreign policy fight wars that appear to go against accepted principles, they justify this (regardless of their actual motives) on the basis that it will produce a better version of the legitimate consensus. This was seen in the case of the wars in Kosovo (1999) and even Iraq (2003). Despite their manifest illegality, the belligerents insisted on their justification expressed in terms of the humanitarian law[5] and the United Nations Charter[6], respectively. Even though almost nobody took these arguments seriously, the fact they were made and the fact that Russia is not making such justification for the war in Ukraine is what makes the latter ‘revolutionary’ in Kissingerian terms. The leadership of Russia and the PRC both look not to the accepted principles of international order (UN Charter) to justify their aims with regard to Ukraine, and sovereignty disputes in Asia, but instead to a narrative of betrayal and ethno-nationalistic history, or perhaps better to say myths of nationality. These unilateral principles stand in for law. 

 

Betrayal at the hand of the hegemon

Betrayal by the hegemon identified as being at the head of the international order—the USA—is a theme common to the narratives deployed by the Kremlin and by the leadership of the PRC leadership. In the case of Russia’s war against Ukraine the first betrayal was that when the Cold War ended, Russia agreed to the unification of Germany because it had received a promise that NATO would not be expanded eastwards. NATO enlargement up to and potentially into Ukraine is deemed a betrayal of this promise. The second betrayal was the alleged refusal to guarantee Ukraine’s implementation of the Minsk accords. The third and final betrayal was the alleged instigation of a coup in Kyiv, which resulted in the coming to power of Vladimir Zelensky and a regime bent on the oppression of Russian-speaking Ukrainians. This narrative legitimises the 2014 referendum in Crimea, its annexation, and the recognition of the breakaway Donbas republics.

 

From Beijing’s point of view, the first betrayal was the refusal by America to fulfil the terms of the agreements reached among the allies (US, UK, China) at the wartime conferences of Cairo (1943) and Potsdam (1945), which included the return of Taiwan from Japan to China [7]. After the Communist victory on the mainland and until the outbreak of the Korean War, there was every chance that Taiwan would be unified with the PRC once it had generated the capability to cross the straits and defeat the nationalist government that had fled to the island in 1949. However, once the Korean War broke out in 1950, US policy changed to deter unification, and so—despite the end of the Cold War—the de facto division of China remains to this day. 

 

In the name of ethno-nationalistic history

In his interview with US journalist Tucker Carlson in 2024, Vladimir Putin delivered a prolonged history lecture to explain why Ukraine and Russia are part of one ethnic Russian world [8]. By resorting to a unilateral interpretation of history, Russia is appealing to a different set of legitimising principles that contradict the national sovereignty principle that has been accepted by the rest of the international community as a fundamental example of ‘workable arrangements and the permissible aims and methods of foreign policy’. By Kissinger’s definition, this makes Russia a ‘revolutionary’ power. 

 

Following its claim to virtually the entire area of the South China Sea (SCS) enclosed by its ‘nine-dash line’ [9], Beijing asserted control over various features also claimed by other South East Asian nations [10]. In response, the Philippines launched a legal case that resulted in the judgment by the arbitral tribunal of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) in 2016 that the Chinese claim is without a legal basis [11]. However, Beijing insists on the validity of its claim based on the notion that this area of sea has been Chinese ‘since time immemorial’ [12]. By resorting to a unilateral interpretation of history, Beijing’s behaviour parallels that of Russia, appealing to a set of legitimising principles that are not generally recognized and rejecting the principle of law that is accepted as the ‘workable arrangements and the permissible aims and methods of foreign policy’ by the rest of the international community. By Kissinger’s definition, this makes the PRC a ‘revolutionary’ power. 

 

Conclusion

The reluctance to accept the revolutionary character of PRC and Kremlin foreign policy goes some way to explaining their incentive to keep pushing expansionist policies that contradict international norms of legitimacy. This was the case with Russia since the 2008 war in Georgia and the recognition of breakaway republics under their military control, in violation of Georgian sovereignty. This was also the case with the PRC island-building [13] and militarisation [14] activities in the South China Sea. What these cases have in common is that no effective action was taken to prevent them, due to a belief that – in Kissinger’s words – they were “motivated by specific grievances to be assuaged by limited concessions.” The fact that both powers continue to justify their actions with reference to legitimising principles that contradict the workable arrangements and permissible aims agreed upon by the parties to the conflict and their international supporters makes diplomacy ineffective as a means of conflict resolution. Conflict resolution by means of compromise with Russia might have been possible if the war had been confined to Russia and Ukraine. However, such compromise is unacceptable for Kyiv’s supporters because it would come at the cost of the principles of international order (national sovereignty, no change of borders by force) on which their own security depends. Conflict resolution by means of compromise with the PRC over the South China Sea might have been possible if the dispute was confined to the PRC and each individual claimant. However, it is intolerable for the supporters of claimants abiding by UNCLOS because it would only be possible at the cost of those same principles of international order. 

 

[1]Kissinger, Henry. A World Restored: Metternich, Castlereagh, and the Problems of Peace 1812–1822. London: Phoenix Press, 2000.
[2]Chin, Jonathan. “Japan Likely to Aid Taiwan if China Attacks: Official.” Taipei Times, July 26, 2023. https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2023/07/26/2003803751.
[3]Bergmann, Max, Maria Snegovaya, Tina Dolbaia, and Nick Fenton. “Collaboration for a Price: Russian Military-Technical Cooperation with China, Iran, and North Korea.” Center for Strategic and International Studies, May 22, 2024. https://www.csis.org/analysis/collaboration-price-russian-military-technical-cooperation-china-iran-and-north-korea.
[4]International Institute for Strategic Studies. “War in Ukraine and the Asia-Pacific Balance of Power.” Asia-Pacific Regional Security Assessment 2023. https://www.iiss.org/en/publications/strategic-dossiers/asia-pacific-regional-security-assessment-2023/aprsa-chapter-1/.
[5]House of Commons. “Fourth Report: Foreign Affairs - International Law.” UK Parliament, 2000. https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm199900/cmselect/cmfaff/28/2813.htm.
[6]House of Lords. “Written Answers.” UK Parliament, March 17, 2003. https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200203/ldhansrd/vo030317/text/30317w01.htm.
[7] Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in the Republic of Seychelles. “Taiwan’s Status Undetermined? A Fallacy.” March 25, 2024. Accessed July 12. https://sc.china-embassy.gov.cn/eng/zxhd/202403/t20240325_11267148.htm.
[8]Carlson, Tucker. “Exclusive: Tucker Carlson Interviews Vladimir Putin.” YouTube video, 1:23:47. July 4, 2023. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOCWBhuDdDo.
[9]Institute for Security and Development Policy. “Understanding China’s Position on the South China Sea Disputes.” May 19, 2016. https://www.isdp.eu/publication/understanding-chinas-position-south-china-sea-disputes/.
[10]CSIS Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative. “Scarborough Shoal.” Center for Strategic and International Studies. https://amti.csis.org/scarborough-shoal/.
[11]Permanent Court of Arbitration. In the Matter of the South China Sea Arbitration (PCA Case Nº 2013-19) between the Republic of the Philippines and the People’s Republic of China: Award. Arbitral Tribunal: Judge Thomas A. Mensah (Presiding Arbitrator), Judge Jean-Pierre Cot, Judge Stanislaw Pawlak, Professor Alfred H.A. Soons, Judge Rüdiger Wolfrum. The Hague: Permanent Court of Arbitration, July 12, 2016. https://www.pcacases.com/pcadocs/PH-CN%20-%2020160712%20-%20Award.pdf
[12]Wain, Barry. “China’s Sea Since ‘Time Immemorial’.” Wall Street Journal, April 10, 2001. https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB98702200722300970.
[13]CSIS Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative. “China Island Tracker.” Center for Strategic and International Studies. https://amti.csis.org/island-tracker/china/.
[14]“China Says Military Development of Islands Within Its Rights.” Associated Press, March 20, 2023. https://apnews.com/article/china-beijing-international-law-south-china-sea-4370828e295d2eec9a4804bba9940273.