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Setting Priorities in a Changing Asia
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17404 |
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CURRENT ISSUES
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1 / 1990 |
2,886 Words |
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Norman D. Palmer
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For the United States, Asia is both far away and very near. Most Americans have only vague ideas about Asian geography, history, and culture, but they are beginning to realize that Asia impinges upon their daily lives in innumerable ways. In the 1980s this fact, at least, seems to have been implanted in their consciousness. But what does it mean for the United States? Should it be welcomed or feared? And within what frame of reference can "good" and "bad" news from Asia be comprehended and evaluated?
In the 1990s these questions will become even more relevant and more urgent. Interactions between the United States and Asia, and between Asians and Americans -already much more extensive than is generally realized - will undoubtedly increase. These will vary with respect to different countries and regions. They will be greatly affected by changes in particular countries and by the ups and downs in official relations.
The United States will be faced in the 1990s with the task of "getting its act together" in its approach to the changing Asian scene. Common criticisms are that it has never developed an overall strategy or policy toward Asia, that it has not made the necessary adjustments to the changing Asian scene, and that it has given too much attention to security concerns, narrowly conceived, and too little attention to the needs and realities of the Asian region. Asians are increasingly questioning the capacity of the United States to assist Asian countries in dealing with their basic security, economic, and developmental needs. Even the credibility of America's security commitments in Asia seems to be suspect.
Compounding the difficulties in U.S.-Asian relations is what appears to be a rising tide of anti-Americanism throughout the region, even in the countries with which the United States has had the closest connection: allies Japan and South Korea. This phenomenon of anti-Americanism is a particularly disturbing one. It should not be exaggerated, but it should not be glossed over or ignored.
Official spokesmen for the United States repeatedly insist that they are well aware of the great changes taking place in Asia and have already adapted their Asian policies to these new conditions. This view was well expressed in March 1988 by a leading American authority on Asia, Richard Solomon, then director of the State Department's Policy Planning Staff and currently assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs:
In the past decade, our perspective on the Pacific has changed dramatically: from the challenges of warfare to those of economic competition; from hostile political rivalry to normal relations with former adversaries; from distant countries with esoteric cultures to new partners in a global process of change. We have had to broaden our international outlook to include a dynamic region that increasingly rivals Europe for influence in world affairs.
More recently, in June 1989, the same broad perspective, plus an important concrete endorsement, was the underlying theme of an address by secretary of State James Baker before the Asia Society in New York. "Our understanding of events in Asia and the Pacific," said Baker, "has become all the more important because the postwar era is over. In Asia, as in Europe, a new order is taking shape. While the rites of passage will be painful - China proves that
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