An Asia Policy: Muscular Modesty

Not bad. Secretary of State Warren Christopher and entourage will be in Jakarta next week to make nice with East Asian leaders. In public, Japanese Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto and President Bill Clinton act these days like pair of frat brothers. Even normally dour Chinese officials agree that U.S. relations are taking a turn, however modest, for the better. Once-fading Japanese investment in America is surging anew and PacRim trade is at historic levels. Not bad at all, really. So what can America do not to blow it? Here are a half-dozen suggestions from your resident PacRimster:

* Stop looking down on everyone. Many Asians, not to mention Latin Americans, loathe U.S. arrogance. If we don’t watch ourselves, the next hot-selling anti-American book will be “The Korea That Can Say No,” on the heels of the current chart-climber “China Can Say No” (cloned after the 1991 bestseller, “The Japan That Can Say No”). And so on across the Asia-Pacific. Our worst trait--a misplaced sense of cultural superiority--riles up anti-Americanism throughout the region, especially among student groups, Asia’s future leaders.

* Get a grip on Asia’s diversity. It is Japan and China and Korea and Vietnam and Indonesia and Malaysia and so on, not some homogeneous monolith. There is more diversity in Asia than in North America. Don’t call it a “community,” either, thunders Abe Lowenthal, who founded the L.A.-based Pacific Council on International Policy in part to help Americans become less dumb about Asia. Instead, advises this globe-trotting USC professor, we should be talking about shared interests, common problems and cooperative solutions, while facing up to some irreconcilable conflicts of interest that need to be managed very gingerly.

* Match every high-level diplomatic trip to Europe with a trip to Asia or Latin America. Despite his Los Angeles roots and Pacific familiarity, Christopher has jetted off to Damascus 28 times, but only once to China. President Clinton has never been to China; he has instead been to such places as Ireland, quite the European superpower. This speaks volumes about the upside-down foreign-policy priorities of the U.S. establishment.

* Get along with China, no matter what. I’m not saying appease. I’m not saying cower in the shadow of the ancient civilization. I’m saying work hard on the relationship, consider no other more important. Yes, China will be difficult, cunning, deceptive. So what--so, historically, are the French. And the U.S. relationship with Beijing is titanically more important than the one with Paris. And, advises Gary Larsen, head of the Asia Society of Southern California and a former veteran U.S. diplomat: “We must accommodate ourselves to the fact that the Chinese are going to demand that they make some of the rules, as we have; we must decide how we are going to live with that.”

So with Taiwan, please be careful, Congress. The plucky little island democracy came scarily close to driving Asian regional stability right off the cliff by taunting Beijing earlier this year. Now, fortunately, Taiwan is cooing conciliatorily, chirping for new ways to work with Beijing under the vaunted (but delightfully vague) “one China, two systems” formula. But back in Washington, watch out for unrelenting congressional feel-good flag-waving for Taiwan. It could prove about as stupid as U.S. policy could get. Better to underwrite Taipei’s current effort to steer the careful course that keeps Taiwan free and Beijing from going ballistic.

* Don’t get blindsided by the coming Asian energy struggle: If the Asia-Pacific economy continues on a roll, the region’s appetite for energy of all kinds will be stupefying. The big Asian powers (China, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, India) will get more devilishly involved than ever in Mideast politics. Washington will need to understand Asia’s energy needs more fully if it is to make any better sense of Asian behavior. Nixon Center scholar Geoffrey Kemp, a former Reagan administration national security advisor, opines: “China’s game-playing with Iran is probably related to oil. China is looking at its energy needs over the next 20 years and is saying, we’d better get our ducks in a row.”

You want to keep China from exporting weaponry capable of mass destruction, perhaps to oil-rich Middle East countries? Then you will have to support our politicians and officials who cut visionary deals like the one with North Korea, trading them a pair of energy-producing nuclear reactors in exchange for their nuclear-weapons program. Dream angelic thoughts if you wish, but bet the ranch on Machiavelli.

* Keep up the U.S. military presence in the region. While America should lower its screaming condescension level, it shouldn’t lower its military profile. In the current issue of Foreign Affairs, William Kristol and Robert Kagan argue that only the U.S. provides the muscle necessary to keep the shaky world order from losing its balance completely. Sure, there were some in Asia who chafed when Washington sent aircraft carriers to glower around the Taiwan Strait during the spring tension. Still, somebody had to. Someone has to have the big stick to shake. Someone has to make the occasional point that unlimited mischief won’t be tolerated indefinitely.

And while America is not always gracious and not always right, at this point in history it offers the only stick the world has to shake.