| |
How the US can win friends and influence
Asians
By Tim Shorrock
WASHINGTON - As the United States prepares for
war in Iraq and plays a military role in Afghanistan, it
faces serious challenges in Asia that require adroit
diplomacy, including North Korea's apparent violation of
its 1994 agreement not to develop nuclear weapons and
Japan's economic slowdown.
In confronting these
issues, analysts say, the Bush administration would be
wise to abandon its unilateral approach to global
tensions - as it did recently when it sought United
Nations approval for weapons inspections in Iraq - and
rely more on its allies and friends in the Asian region.
Without such an approach, the advances made in
US-Asian relations in recent years could be eroded,
warned T J Pempel, director of the Institute of East
Asian Studies and a professor of political science at
the University of California-Berkeley. "Asians are more
in charge of their collective agenda," he said in a
recent speech at a Washington forum on Asia sponsored by
the Sasakawa Peace Foundation. "It's incumbent for
President Bush to take Asia more seriously."
Pempel, the author of several books on Japanese
politics, criticized the Bush administration for its
tendency to take a unilateral approach to some issues -
the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, for instance -
while seeking multilateral solutions to others. "At
times, everything looks like a solution to be handled
militarily," he said. "Flipping on unilateralism and
multilateralism is hard for countries in Asia to
accept."
That kind of policy flip has been most
visible in regards to Korea. When word first leaked in
October that North Korean officials had told US
negotiators that it was building a uranium processing
facility, high-ranking US administration officials let
it be known that the 1994 Agreed Framework was dead.
But South Korea and Japan publicly objected to
that characterization and said they wanted to continue
supplying fuel oil to North Korea under the framework.
With the three countries publicly at odds, Bush told his
advisers that the framework should remain in place until
the governments that fund the Korean Peninsula Energy
Development Organization (KEDO) - which is building two
light water reactors in the North - decide what to do.
Last week, KEDO's members agreed to suspend its
shipments of fuel oil to North Korea, and the United
States and its allies in Asia and Europe appeared to be
on the same page. A few days later, Bush, while
proclaiming his "loathing" of North Korean President Kim
Jong-il, publicly stated in an interview that the United
States had no intention of invading the North.
KEDO's joint decision and Bush's comments gave
South Korean President Kim Dae-jung, whose "sunshine
policy" toward the North has been unpopular in
Washington, some diplomatic wiggle room.
It is
equally important to engage China in discussions on
Korea and other US concerns, said Jia Qingguo, a
professor at the school of international studies at
Beijing University. Jia noted that China chaired the UN
Security Council meeting that approved the latest
weapons inspections in Iraq. "China helped the United
States gain consensus," he said. "The two countries have
never held so much in common in the history of their
relationship."
Unfortunately, that alignment is
not shared at the street level, Jia added. "Popular
attitudes are moving in the wrong direction," he said.
"Many Americans view China as a potential threat, while
the Chinese see the United States as an international
bully." Still, the two countries "are more likely to be
partners than strategic competitors," he said.
As if to underscore Beijing's willingness to
work with Washington, the Chinese government this week
issued a careful statement on Korea, calling for
dialogue but also noting China's interest in eliminating
the threat of nuclear weapons. "We advocate a
nuclear-free peninsula and we are against the
proliferation of weapons of mass destruction," Foreign
Ministry spokesperson Kong Quan said. "We call on the
sides for dialogue on the problem."
China's role
in Asia could be enhanced as its economy grows and it
buys more of the region's exports, suggested Richard
Koo, the chief economist for Japan's Nomura Research
Institute.
"No country in Asia succeeded without
tapping American consumers," he said. "The hub-and-spoke
relationship (established by the United States) was not
just military but very much economic." The "only
challenge" ahead to the heavy US influence in Asia could
come when the China market is "just as large" as the
American market.
"That won't happen for five or
10 years, but it's where US influence in Asia could be
eroded," said Koo. Japan had a chance to become the
dominant market "but missed its chance during the bubble
days [in the 1980s]," he added.
(Inter Press
Service)
|
| |
|
|
 |
|
