Winning Asia

Washington's Untold Success Story

Victor D. Cha

From Foreign Affairs, November/December 2007

Summary:  Pundits, academics, and Bush bashers insist that the United States is losing ground in Asia, but they are wrong. The Bush administration's Asia policy has been an unheralded success. Improved relations with China, stronger U.S.-Japanese cooperation, North Korea's gradual nuclear disarmament, and expanding regional alliances have made Asia more prosperous and secure than it has been in decades.

VICTOR D. CHA is D. S. Song Professor and Director of Asian Studies at Georgetown University. He served as Director for Asian Affairs at the National Security Council from 2004 to 2007 and as Deputy Head of the U.S. delegation to the six-party talks from 2006 to 2007.

Inside the Beltway and on op-ed pages across the United States, it has become increasingly popular to lament the demise of U.S. influence in Asia. Power transitions, resurgent Asian nationalism, and poor policy choices in Washington have supposedly undermined U.S. leadership in Asia. According to critics, the Bush administration has been distracted by Iraq, has failed to deal adequately with China's economic and political rise, and has alienated many Asians with its singular focus on counterterrorism. The lack of U.S. leadership after the Cold War, detractors charge, has made Asia ripe for conflict.

But the conventional wisdom is wrong. The United States' position in Asia is now stronger than ever, and Asia remains at peace. The United States has achieved a pragmatic, results-oriented, cooperative relationship with China, and it has expanded and strengthened its alliance with Japan just as Tokyo and Beijing are improving their bilateral relations. This confluence of events has created an emerging U.S.-Chinese-Japanese partnership that greatly enhances regional stability. Washington has also improved its defense relationship with South Korea and successfully facilitated the shutdown of North Korea's bomb-making capabilities through the six-party talks. Finally, the United States has steadily improved its relations with Southeast Asian nations, largely by building on the goodwill it created by leading the humanitarian response to the tsunami in 2004.

Few commentators in Japan, South Korea, or the United States will give any credit to the Abe, Roh, and Bush administrations for these accomplishments. Rather than conceding that the Bush administration has made progress, naysayers in Washington tend to attribute Asia's good fortune to benign neglect while the administration's neoconservatives were busy focusing on Iraq. But they are wrong. President George W. Bush's Asia policy has worked.

WHO'S ASIA'S DADDY

Contrary to the dire warnings issued by many Asia pessimists, China is not eating the United States' lunch in Asia. Beijing is indeed building its military capabilities, pressing for free-trade agreements, and increasingly occupying central positions in various regional organizations. But those who argue that these moves signal a power transition, whereby China is displacing the United States as the region's new benefactor, are mistaken. A power transition may come to Asia someday, but not anytime soon.

Critics who predict an American sunset in Asia are missing a fundamental point: in order to be a region's benefactor, a leading power must be willing and able to provide for the region's public good. After World War II, the United States became the world's undisputed leader, first by providing markets for the recovering European and Asian economies but also by offering international security. Today, China offers a vast market to other Asian countries, but it has not proved itself as a provider of public goods. Beijing's response to the 2004 tsunami, for example, which killed 280,000 people and displaced over 1.8 million, was slow, feeble, and parochial (China initially provided only $60 million and one medical team). Meanwhile, within 48 hours of the disaster, the United States had enlisted Australia, India, and Japan and organized the largest emergency relief mission in modern history. It sent over 16,000 U.S. military personnel, two dozen ships, and 100 aircraft as part of its immediate $346 million relief package, followed by an additional U.S. commitment of $600 million. This rapid response gave UN agencies both the time and the infrastructure they needed to mobilize and get on the ground. No other nation, and no international organization, could have coordinated such a response. Faced with a crisis of unprecedented magnitude, the world reflexively turned to the United States for leadership. Whether the United States covets this role or not, it is still the only true leader in Asia.

WASHINGTON'S NEW COMRADES

Far from being supplanted by China, the United States is enlisting Beijing's help. The Bush administration's China policy, which was once confrontational, has evolved into a hard-nosed but cooperative dialogue. Its goal is to turn China into a "responsible stakeholder" in the international system, as Robert Zoellick, president of the World Bank and former deputy secretary of state, has put it. The Chinese leadership has welcomed this effort because it demonstrates the United States' acceptance of China's rightful place in the world, implies that China's growth is not threatening, and leads to cooperation on numerous global issues. The respect accorded to China through the stakeholder concept has allowed Washington to raise difficult issues such as democratic values. Because the United States is not imposing its values, China seems more open to discussing the need for greater political liberties as it seeks its proper place in the world.