America’s Role in Asia: Be a 20th-Century Great Britain : Foreign relations: The U.S. must maintain a military presence and strengthen and redefine its ties to Japan if it wants to be a player for peace.

President Bill Clinton’s decision to extend most-favored-nation treatment to China while deferring the conditions for it buys time for both sides to deal with a paradox: Stabili ty in East Asia demands a closer political relationship between Japan and the United States and that, in turn, requires a constructive Sino-American relationship. Without these elements, America’s Asian policy will falter.

Asia is prone to a particularly virulent form of nationalism because it has no institutions, such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, that have mitigated national conflicts. It thus resembles 19th-Century Europe. There are three “great powers” of comparable potential--Japan, China and Russia--and a tier of somewhat less powerful states whose alignments could determine the balance--such as Korea, Indonesia, Vietnam and Thailand. There is even a balancer--the United States--that, like 19th-Century Great Britain, is increasingly tempted to retreat into “splendid isolation.”

U.S. disengagement, in whatever guise, would lead to disaster. The Asian powers have such divergent purposes and traditions that the United States is needed to mitigate their competition and to develop cooperative purposes. Such a U.S. role is desired by all Asian nations, conscious as they are that none of them can single-handedly promote overall harmony.

During the Cold War, Japan abandoned its historic self-reliance and nestled under the protection of the United States. A determined economic competitor, it nonetheless subordinated its foreign and security policies to those of Washington. America’s interests were perceived to be symmetrical with Japan’s.

This attitude is unlikely to continue. Korea and China are gaining in military strength, and the most unimpaired portion of Russian military power is in Siberia. All these countries have been Japan’s historical rivals and, during the last century, enemies at war. Under post-Cold War conditions, Japanese planners will not believe they can always rely on the United States to perceive Asian rivalries from their perspective.

It can be no accident that the Japanese defense budget has been creeping upward. It is now the third largest in the world. Though little more than 1% of Japanese gross national product, it grows along with the GNP and is actually understated, because several military-related items are off-budget.

Greater Japanese autonomy is the inevitable consequence of the changed distribution of world power. But the degree of that autonomy and the kind of policy it supports depend on the nature of U.S.-Japan relations. Japan’s ability to navigate the passage between freewheeling nationalism and political dependence will determine the future of peace in Asia.

More autonomous Japanese foreign and security policies impose two requirements on Washington: to continue U.S. engagement in Asia, symbolized by a military presence, and to strengthen and redefine the U.S.-Japan alliance.

Economic rivalries between Japan and the United States should not overshadow political necessities. Japan must find a way to moderate predatory economic nationalism. The United States should end its confrontational style, which will spur American isolationism and Japanese nationalism.

Above all, a new dimension must be given to political dialogue and to the coordination of foreign policies, especially in Asia. A useful symbol would be continued U.S. support for admitting Japan as a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council.

The United States must also understand that its attitudes toward Korea will decisively affect U.S. relations with Japan. Korea is that part of the mainland closest to Japan and has been the first target of Japanese imperialism. Japan is thus particularly sensitive to developments there.

This imposes two requirements on the United States. Troop withdrawals of any magnitude from South Korea are likely to be interpreted as the beginning of U.S. disengagement from Asia. They must in no case be linked with the attempt to induce North Korea to remain non-nuclear. U.S. military disengagement in Korea would almost certainly accelerate Japanese rearmament.

We must have no illusion: Failure to resolve the North Korean nuclear threat in a clear-cut way will, sooner or later, lead to the nuclear armament of Japan.

Above all, the vitality of the Japanese alliance depends on the nature of Sino-U.S. relations. Japan has had a long historical relationship with China and feels a considerable affinity to its culture even while torn by ambivalence about the recent past. Tension between China and the United States tempts Japan into acting as mediator, which, in practice, implies a degree of dissociation from the United States. Moreover, Japanese mediation could easily generate temptations to achieve hegemony in Northeast Asia.

China is important as well for America’s overall policy in Asia. It wants the United States to remain engaged, recognizing that Washington is needed to balance Japan and a possibly re-emerging Russia. But a policy of ties with countries simultaneously perceived as potential threats to Chinese security requires careful and regular synchronization of Sino-American policies.

Nothing is more grating to the Chinese than U.S. refusal to engage in regular Cabinet-level discussions. A top priority must be to restore a high-level dialogue, not as a concession to Beijing but because the long-term interests of the United States demand it. There are, in fact, few clashing Sino-American interests other than human rights.

Clinton’s decision to postpone implementing conditions on human rights shows a way out. One of the most creative aspects of his executive order was to remove the issue of missile proliferation and trade from the agenda of conditionality. It means the United States will continue to pursue these issues by normal diplomatic means rather than by attaching conditions to MFN. The year’s breathing space should be used to achieve the same approach on human rights.

Once the United States has redesigned its relations with China and Japan, it will be able to go beyond a set of bilateral relationships and enable the nations of Asia to communicate with each other in some larger framework. In the long run, an Asian security conference, including Russia and the United States, could be an important first step in that direction.

One consequence of the end of the Cold War should be to give the Pacific equal priority with the Atlantic. Yet, it has never had the sort of integrating concept the Marshall Plan and other initiatives provided for Europe. That is the ultimate challenge before the United States and the nations of Asia.