The United States and Asia

Stephen W. Bosworth

From Foreign Affairs, America and the World 1991/92

Article preview: first 500 of 6,187 words total.

Summary:  US consciousness of the APR focuses mainly on bilateral trade imbalances. "Less understood... is how substantially the balance of economic power within the Asian-Pacific region itself has shifted away from the United States and how that inevitably changes the distribution of political influence in the area".

Stephen W. Bosworth is President of the United States-Japan Foundation and former U.S. Ambassador to the Philippines.

A seismic shift is under way in the Asian-Pacific region, a shift in the structure and balance of political and economic power. This transformation has fundamental implications for America’s future position in the region. For more than four decades U.S. engagement in Asia was based on two pillars: a Cold War commitment to Asian security and America’s extraordinary economic power. Both of these foreign policy premises are now gone: the Cold War ended suddenly and dramatically; American economic hegemony has waned more slowly but with no less drama.

Should America attempt to conduct its relations with the region as in the past, its capacity for effective leadership will rapidly shrink; the foundations of the style and type of leadership America previously exercised no longer exist. As the political leverage of military power decreases, economic power will count for more. The United States must come to terms with the fact that its relative economic weight in a region that has seen an unprecedented era of economic progress has substantially declined. The economic power of Japan and many other Asian nations has increased enormously. No other recent event demonstrated this point more vividly than President Bush’s controversial mission to Japan in January 1992.

At the same time American security interests in Asia seem in better shape today than at any time in nearly a century. After three major wars and a long standoff with the Soviet Union, the Asian-Pacific region is stable. The Soviet Pacific fleet that appeared so formidable just a few years ago is now rusting at its moorings in Vladivostok and Cam Ranh Bay. There is no major threat to regional security, except perhaps the still unresolved division of the Korean peninsula, and for the first time since before Pearl Harbor U.S. military forces in the Pacific have no readily identifiable opponent.

Any future American military presence in the Asian-Pacific region will thus translate into far less, in terms of political influence and leadership capacity. Washington insists that it will continue to exercise leadership in the region, and most Asian nations appear to hope that it will. Both sides recognize their own interests in healthy trans-Pacific relations; they fear the uncertainty that would accompany any substantial weakening of America’s regional engagement. But America’s own ability and willingness to maintain a significant regional military presence is increasingly called into question.

A strong overall American presence in the Asian-Pacific region will require new structures of cooperation and fresh attitudes on both sides of the Pacific. Despite growing domestic concerns and its Cold War victory, America cannot afford the illusion that Asia is now unimportant to its national interests. For more than four decades the United States tended to view its interests in Asia principally in Cold War terms. In an important sense, however, U.S. relations with Asia, particularly northeast Asia, transcend that struggle. Even before the Cold War, U.S. foreign policy was predicated on the idea that stability in western Europe and northeast Asia was critical to America’s own interests. ...

End of preview: first 500 of 6,187 words total.