WASHINGTON - US President George W Bush visits Japan, South Korea and China next month in a trip originally scheduled before the events of September 11 forced him to reshape his foreign policy and domestic agenda drastically.
The visit, long overdue, underscores the fragility of the political and economic situation in Northeast Asia and gives Bush's Asian advisers a chance to repair the damage they caused last year to US relations with South Korea and strengthen ties with a region that has been overshadowed by the war in Afghanistan.
On the surface, East Asia today doesn't look much different than it did in the waning days of the Cold War. Tensions with North Korea remain high, with the latest incident involving a confrontation at sea between the Japanese coast guard and a mysterious vessel that US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage recently identified as a likely spy ship from Pyongyang. Japanese transport officials have added that debris from the vessel is clearly North Korean in origin.
Last week, the US media broadcast pictures of US Special Forces flying to the Philippines, where they will be deployed as "advisers" to Filipino troops tracking down a small army of Muslim guerrillas. The images reminded Americans of an earlier, painful conflict in Southeast Asia, forcing Secretary of State Colin Powell to take to the air to state, "This is nothing like Vietnam."
Japan, as usual, is busy trying to fend off a financial crisis and adding up the tab (US$60 million at last count) of paying for the reconstruction costs in a country decimated by a US war. But the war in Afghanistan has clearly altered the Asian political landscape in ways the Cold War never did.
For the first time since World War II, Japan has dispatched military vessels into a war zone, albeit for non-combat purposes. Since the terrorist attacks in September, China and the United States have ended a period of enmity that followed the spy-plane incident near Hainan Island, and agreed to cooperate in the fight against terrorism. The Bush administration has reciprocated by dropping references to China as a "strategic competitor" and emphasizing the need for constructive relations.
And, this time in the Philippines, the possibility of US combat forces in the Philippines has sparked strong opposition, with some members of the Senate threatening to impeach President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo for allegedly violating the constitution. One Senator, Jovito Salonga, turned Powell's comments on their head, telling the New York Times that if any US troops are killed, "there will be tremendous pressure in the United States to widen the so-called war in the Philippines and we will have another Vietnam".
Still, some analysts believe that Asia has largely been left out of US foreign-policy considerations since September 11. "There's a very real prospect of the United States spending much less time thinking and worrying and strategically minding the store when it comes to Asia," Kurt Campbell, the former deputy assistant secretary of defense for Asian and Pacific Affairs in the Clinton administration, warned last month.
Campbell, who is senior vice president at the conservative Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said the shift away from Asia should be a matter of concern for US allies in the region. "There really is a sense already of not very much high-level attention" being paid to Asia, he said.
The official view of Bush's trip was stated by White House press secretary Ari Fleischer on January 11. "During his visit to these three countries, the president will discuss our common struggle against terrorism, economic recovery, the strengthening of our alliances in the region and other areas of mutual interest," he said. The president will depart Washington on February 16, spend February 18-19 in Tokyo, February 19-20 in Seoul and February 21-22 in Beijing, Fleischer said.
Bush's most sensitive stop is likely to be Seoul, where trouble is brewing in two areas. First, many Koreans, from President Kim Dae-jung on down, are looking for signs that Bush is interested in a genuine dialogue with North Korea as a way of breaking the stalemate on the peninsula. The peace process looked promising in Korea until last spring, when Bush proclaimed North Korean leader Kim Jong-il untrustworthy and walked away from a missile deal that many US experts believe could have led to a historic breakthrough in US-North Korean relations.
Bush has since upped the ante by insisting on new conditions, such as reductions in the North's forward-deployed forces, for new talks with Pyongyang, and making veiled threats that North Korea could be a target in the war against terrorism if it develops weapons of mass destruction. In November, John Bolton, US undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, said North Korea was second only to Iraq in developing biological weapons. All of these statements were made after Pyongyang had denounced the actions of September 11 and agreed to sign United Nations anti-terrorism conventions.
The actions, many US and South Korean analysts agree, will make it harder to induce Pyongyang to the negotiating table. "I think the United States, since it has decided to talk with North Korea, is required to save North Korea's face," Kim Dae-jung said on January 13. "Both sides have failed to take the opportunity for dialogue because of the lack of mutual trust." Citing the North's interest in the UN bills, Kim said he was optimistic there were "signs of gradual change" in Pyongyang that could make such talks fruitful.
Bush's second priority in Seoul will be to push once again for South Korea to choose Boeing for its $4 billion next-generation FX fighter. But US pressures on Korea to choose Boeing over France's Dassault has already caused resentment, so the administration would be wise to tread cautiously - particularly after Seoul last week said all the bids it had received were too high. "It's not easy for us to buy non-US fighters with 37,000 US troops on our soil," a South Korean defense official told the Wall Street Journal on Friday. "But with the price more than we're willing to pay, we have to think about it twice."
((c)2002 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact ads at atimes.com for information on our sales and syndication policies.)