No place in the world has a greater need for a U.S. cop on the beat. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the weakening of its allies from North Korea to Vietnam have opened the way for China to develop into a military as well as an economic power. Smaller countries in Southeast Asia fear the coming big-power competition between Japan and China. East Asia’s arms race already makes it one of the few places where defense budgets are rising-and the current drive to modernize local navies and air forces will look tame if North Korea is permitted to develop nuclear weapons. Yet unlike Europe, with its elaborate security forums, East Asia is in a state of political anarchy. With no regionwide alliances, no arms-control talks and little mutual trust, there is only one security mechanism that governments from Tokyo to Jakarta can agree on: U.S. forces in place, keeping the neighbors away from each other’s throats.
Clinton has at least promised continuity. He has pledged that 75,000 U.S. troops in Japan and South Korea will stay put, save for a minor staged Korean withdrawal begun under George Bush. Clinton also has won praise for keeping Sino-U.S. trade relations on track, for persuading North Korea to suspend its withdrawal from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty-and, last week, for announcing that Washington would no longer oppose international loans to Vietnam, a step toward dropping the U.S. embargo. But Asians still long to hear Clinton’s defining policy. When Bush refused to levy serious trade sanctions against Beijing after the Tiananmen Square massacre, he demonstrated that U.S. strategic relationships were his top priority in the region. Clinton has yet to convince Asians that he shares that view.
At the root of the region’s insecurities are the growing tensions between the United States and its Pacific allies-Japan above all. On one hand, Japan and the Asian tigers insist that only a continuing and very expensive U.S. defense shield can maintain stability. But virtually all of these countries are running sizable trade surpluses with the United States and developing key industries at U.S. expense. That kind of imbalance may tempt Washington to lessen its local involvement. The case for economic engagement is self-evident. In 1960 Asian nations represented just 4 percent of the world’s gross national product. Today they represent 25 percent, and by the end of this decade, according to a study by Deutsche Bank, they will account for a fall one third of global GNP.
The White House is still groping for a way to pressure Japan and the region’s other economies to open markets and create a better environment for direct investment. Clinton must engineer “a more mature balance of responsibilities” with Japan, as Winston Lord, his assistant secretary of state for East Asia and Pacific affairs, puts it, without upsetting the strategic balance. How strongly can America afford to pressure Japan, while organizing a diplomatic offensive against the North Korean bomb? How can Washington and Seoul plan for the phenomenal costs of a possible reunification between South Korea and a bankrupt North Korea without help from Tokyo? And how can Clinton pursue his rescue plan for Boris Yeltsin unless he can persuade Japan to play a bigger role-something Tokyo hesitates to do unless Russia returns the small Japanese islands it occupied after World War II?
No less important, Clinton cannot afford to let U.S. relations with Tokyo deteriorate while his ties to Beijing remain strained. Beyond human-rights and trade disputes, China is apparently modernizing its navy and air force in order to enforce its claims to oil-rich islands in the South China Sea. China’s purchases of Russian military technology, including Su-27 fighters, have helped spur the local arms race. China also is reportedly helping Myanmar enhance port facilities that could provide a forward base for Chinese naval vessels. Nervous, China’s neighbors want Clinton to expand the U.S. dialogue with Beijing. The administration’s aim, says Lord, is to diminish the annual congressional debate over China’s human-rights abuses, making these issues “part of an overall fabric which, hopefully, will be more constructive.”
East Asian policymakers want to hear more assurances like that. “The question uppermost in the minds of many Asians,” says Tommy Koh, Singapore’s former ambassador to. Washington, “is whether the more muscular attitude toward Japan will also be the U.S. approach to the rest of the–region.” It’s a hopeful sign that Clinton seems ready to listen more, to give more weight to a security forum of Southeast Asian leaders that has widened to include the United States and Japan and is inviting China, Russia and Vietnam. Such a forum can be a good place to start talking about what it will take to keep the U.S. cop on the beat.
Asian economies are accelerating-far more than America’s or Europe’s.
Average Annual Growth Rate IN PERCENT ASIA Japan 4.2% China 9.4% S. Korea 9.6% Thailand 7.9% THE WEST U.S. 2.6% Germany 2.3%
SOURCE: WORLD BANK
