American Absence Breeds Trouble
Ivo, great job exposing Condi Rice's wrong-headed rejection of the annual ASEAN summit.
What lots of people don't know is that we have been slowly peeling out of Southeast Asia for a while. Over the last two years, Japanese trade, finance, and defense officials -- as well as Prime Minister Koizumi's handlers -- have bemoaning the fact that America was failing to send senior-level representatives to many important regional meetings.
There was one such ASEAN session, hosted in Jakarta, at which China pushed its proposals of an annual "East Asian Summit" and the establishment of an "East Asian Community" -- without U.S. participation. Japan felt it could not oppose China's initiative -- but was alarmed that the U.S. had no serious weight in the discussions.
Now, almost like a whack-a-mole game, America is quite concerned about China's growing economic, military and political status in the region, and has been pressuring China on a great number of fronts, mostly in my view to show that America is not out of the game.
But now, Rice decides to skip the ASEAN meeting, and ASEAN is one of the key bulwarks (we hope) of maintaining some counter-weight to Chinese pretensions in the Asia Pacific region.
Without America diplomatically engaged, other forces will fill the void. That's only natural.
Richard Holbrooke once made the compelling case that American ambivalence about the United Nations had allowed countries like Cuba, Libya, and others to fill the void in the U.N. Human Rights Commission left by America's absence from these debates.
He argued that it is in the unsentimental, hard-headed national security interests of the United States to be robustly engaged in the United Nations so that U.S. interests are not undermined, and frankly that U.S. interests are furthered.
The same is precisely and similarly true regarding American engagement in the Asia Pacific region. We need to be diplomatically there.
While I think that we over-value our military presence in the region, our diplomatic absence can only breed trouble.
Isn't this true in Latin American too especially with Mexico?
July 13, 2005 11:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
What is the reason we should be interested in participating in Asian politics and affairs?
Is it because we are interested in the welfare of the nations and peoples of the region and want to help shape their growth as stable and democratic nations, and develop them as good trading partners?
or ...
Is it mainly because we fear the growth of Chinese power and influence in the region?
We spent much of the Cold War motivated only by fear of Soviet power and influence, and that led to much immoral conduct on our part, and we spent far too little time being motivated by the desire to help the nations and peoples we were dealing with develop stable and democratic governments.
Are we bemoaning our growing lack of involvement in Asia out of fear of what China may eventually do to us, thus trading our 20th century fear of the Red Menace for 21st century fear of the Yellow Menace, and is that not a mistake?
We should definitely be concerned about disengagement with Asia, but when we do engage we need to base our engagement on having a more positive reason than fear of China, namely, the goal of making the nations there partners in peace and not pawns in another superpower game?
July 13, 2005 11:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
We really neglect our role as a "balancer" in Asia at our own peril. I tend not to take an overly alarmist view of China's rise, but a failure by the U.S. to be an active participant in Asian affairs will make it less likely that the rise of a more powerful China will follow a peaceful path.
Among the many, many reasons I think the Iraq war was a mistake, one is that it has distracted the top tier of U.S. officialdom to too great a degree from other problems, and resolving their differences on them -- hence, for example, the drift in U.S. policy toward North Korea -- do we want regime change/collapse, coercive diplomacy, or... policy paralysis.
On a different subject, it's also interesting to note that the CNOOC bid for Unocal is largely about the acquisition of assets in Southeast Asia, particularly Thailand, where Unocal is a big natural gas producer, and also Burma (Myanmar), Indonesia, and Bangladesh. The fact that the company is headquartered in the U.S., and has a small amount of U.S.-based oil production, is what has garnered so much interest -- but the more relevant geopolitical aspect of the transaction is about influence in Southeast Asia. Again, I personally don't tend toward an overly alarmist view of CNOOC's move, but to the extent that it raises issues U.S. policy, it's mainly about Southeast Asia.
July 13, 2005 11:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
Oh joy. "Wrong-headed" homilies to empty-headed blather.
Daalder: Can someone please tell me why we have a secretary of state?
To neglect disarmament talks for the sake of pro forma summits?
The ASEAN summit convenes from the 24th to the 29th.
Zoelick will attend.
Six-party Talks resume on the 25th.
Rice may attend or will, at the very least, be singularly focused -- as she should.
Or do some in the press corps and beyond lack an essential sense of perspective?
Joel Brinkley of the NYT, for example, in Rice, in Asia, takes heat for avoiding Asean trip, reports "Rice made her brief visit to Thailand while on a trip to North Asia that mainly focused on restarting negotiations on the North Korean nuclear program" -- yet fails to mention how Rice's participation or preparation for said negotiations might conflict with the summit.
Ditto Glenn Kessler of the Post, below.
State dept. transcript, July 11, 2005:
July 13, 2005 2:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Mr. Clemons -
Secretary Rice's failure to attend the ARF is not due to a lack of interest in Southeast Asia. It is due to panic in the Bush Administration over its failure to achieve any of the tasks it has set for itself. Rather than continue the late Clinton era policy of skeptical engagement with the DPRK, the Bush acolytes have wasted four years threatening and insulting North Korea and its leader. As a result, North Korea has reprocessed its fuel rods, restarted the Yongbyon reactor and threatened to begin work on the 200 MW Taechon and 50 MW Yongbyon reactors (these are not particularly credible threats, mind you). Given the failure of Operation Iraqi Wet Dream, the impending nuclear breakout of Iran and Osama Bin Laden still on the lam, the Administration is now swinging to the opposite extreme on North Korea, sending Rice to the Six Party Talks in order to show how much they really respect everybody and everything.
Furthermore, we should all thank heaven that Rice is being spared participation in the ARF's abominable karaoke concert. This "old boy" bonding session has been a torture for female ministers: Makiko Tanaka's infamous pantomime performance to Colin Powell's singing was beyond demeaning. Just imagine what could go wrong when the U.S. Secretary of State is an African-American woman.
July 13, 2005 4:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
I want to concentrate on talks with North Korea? This is farcical. The ASEAN summit, has I am sure, been scheduled for months, if not years. The next round of talks with North Korea has not - I do not believe for one minute that the North Korea talks couldn't have been scheduled around the ASEAN summit. In fact, they could have, and probably should have, been scheduled to coincide and/or lead in or out of the summit.
And as far as being a woman at this summit: I have no doubt that it is not easy. But, if it’s that hard and you are too off put to go - get another job. I do not recall Madeline Albright whining about patriarchy or misogyny. If you are the Secretary of State you are bound to be put in all sorts of uncomfortable positions - if you don't like it - quit. In the meantime, do your job.
And yes, that job includes attending the ASEAN summit. Even a token appearance would be better than this nonsense of an excuse!
This is merely one more example of this administrations utter incompetence in the matters of foreign affairs and its inability to maintain normal diplomatic affairs without completely dropping the ball.
July 14, 2005 7:20 AM | Reply | Permalink