A Road Map for Asian-Pacific Security
AEI National Security Outlook
December 2009
This is the second of two Outlooks on the Obama administration's foreign policy approach to Asia. Neither the Clinton nor Bush administrations took full advantage of the growing impetus among the states of the Asia-Pacific region to work through multilateral forums. The Obama administration appears to be following the same pattern. Today a hodgepodge of institutions and forums exists in Asia, but none of them addresses the strategic needs of the region. The United States needs to find ways to maximize its influence through new regionwide forums and institutional arrangements. A two-tiered multilateral approach could benefit the nations in the region and the United States.
There is a broad consensus that President Barack Obama's recent, first trip to Asia lacked any notable successes. The president left Japan with a major dispute over U.S. military bases there still unresolved; he attended the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit but was unable to announce any substantive new trade initiatives; he visited China and made little to no substantive progress on Iran, climate change, or trade and lost ground on human rights; and, in South Korea, the president essentially spun his wheels, leaving Seoul without providing any fresh ideas about how he will deal either with the problem of North Korea or the signed (but not ratified) free-trade agreement with South Korea. All in all, the president's trip to Asia was, as one policy expert noted, "high on optics . . . but low on policy substance. . . . The visit lacked any policy deliverables."[1]
If there is any positive note to be taken from the trip, it is that the administration has spent a considerable amount of time and attention visiting and engaging key countries of the region. The problem is that engagement is not sufficient; it is a process, not a substitute for policy.
Indeed, the administration's only larger vision appears to be its policy of "strategic reassurance" with China--a policy designed to reassure Beijing that the United States has no intention of trying to forestall China's rise to great power status and, more broadly, that the administration is willing to accept China as something of an equal partner in addressing key global problems. The hope is that this will lessen prospects for tension and make it more likely that China's rise is in fact peaceful.[2] But the problem with this approach is that it is premature. China might become a "responsible stakeholder," but it is not one yet. In the meantime, its growing military and economic power worries our friends and allies in the region. Nor does this Sino-centric emphasis take account of the other significant trends in the region, such as India's rise, the significant expansion of democratic governance in Asia, and Asian nations' desires to create more effective multilateral structures.
In developing forums and institutional arrangements with Asian nations, America should take better account of these other important but largely ignored trends. What follows is a new road map for America's longer-term, strategic approach to the region.
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