5 Issues Needing Resolve in New Year

Enough with this talk of millennia. Let’s go back to taking things one year at a time.

That’s especially wise for Asia and for the American role there. A year is time enough for six separatist rebellions in Indonesia, five North Korean extortions, four Japanese governments, three Hong Kong court rulings pledging subservience to China, two Chinese political crackdowns and one (short-lived) Chinese opening--not to mention half a dozen switches in Asia policy by the Clinton administration.

What will we see in the year 2000? If you’re foolish enough to try to predict, go ahead. All this column can do is to lay out some of the big questions that will have to be answered in the coming year. Here they are:

1) Will Indonesia hold together?

In the first days of this new year, Indonesia was facing a rebellion in Aceh and fighting between Christians and Muslims in the Spice Islands. Are these early signs that the world’s fourth most populous country is beginning to fall apart amid a maelstrom of independence movements and ethnic strife? Or will the new government of Abdurrahman Wahid prove resilient enough to preserve the unity of this huge and diverse country?

2) What will China and Taiwan do after Taiwan’s presidential elections?

As usual, there are lots of important questions concerning China this year. Will the Chinese leadership manage to preserve a semblance of social stability as the economic growth rate falls? Will the U.S. Congress give China permanent trade benefits in the United States?

The biggest uncertainty involves Taiwan, which will choose a new president in March. That election could conceivably bring into office a candidate of the Democratic Progressive Party, which for years has been committed to independence. Even if the DPP doesn’t win, China, which has long wished for Taiwan’s feisty President Lee Teng-hui to go, will probably be disappointed to discover Lee’s successor won’t roll back his policies and pronouncements.

One way or another, you can look for new drama to play out across the Taiwan Straits by late spring or early summer.

3) Will the Clinton administration give India the recognition it deserves as an Asian power?

For more than a year, the administration has been planning a presidential trip to both India and Pakistan. These plans were upset by the recent coup in Pakistan, which made a stopover there less palatable.

Old-style Washington thinking says that India and Pakistan are so linked to each other that the president has to stop in both countries or neither of them. But India is too big and important to be slighted in this fashion. No American president has visited India since Jimmy Carter in 1978; a new presidential visit is long overdue. If Clinton can make a trip to China but not Japan, can’t he visit India but not Pakistan?

4) Will the United States and Japan work out a deal that settles the future of America’s military bases on Okinawa?

For years, officials in Washington and Tokyo have connived to keep in Okinawa most of the U.S. military bases and troops stationed in Japan--even though the Okinawans long have complained about the unfairness of this.

Now, Okinawan Gov. Keiichi Inamine is about to come to Washington to ask for a 15-year limit on the Pentagon’s use of an Okinawan airport. A summit meeting of world leaders will be held in Okinawa this summer; if the protracted dispute over the American military bases isn’t settled by then, it could become a major embarrassment for the U.S.

5) Will Vietnam finally open up for trade with the United States?

Clinton will probably visit Vietnam during his final year in office. When he does, the White House may hype the symbolism of the trip and the theme of reconciliation. The reality is that the United States normalized ties with Vietnam five years ago, and Clinton’s trip will have symbolic meaning more for the president himself than for America.

The larger question is whether Vietnam will approve a trade agreement with the United States. Vietnam’s leaders worked out a tentative deal last year but since then have backed off from signing it. They seem to be afraid that trade with the United States will undermine their political control, and they also seem to be worried that China, Vietnam’s powerful neighbor, may think Vietnam is growing too close to the United States.

Let’s savor the ironies here. China itself worked out a trade deal with America 20 years ago. Its trade with the U.S. produces annual surpluses for China of tens of billions of dollars--one of the driving forces behind China’s growing prosperity. Clinton paid homage to China with a long visit two years ago. Yet Hanoi now frets that China might take offense if Vietnam follows China’s example in dealing with the U.S.? Go figure.

If Vietnam approves the U.S. trade deal, then next year, some of those T-shirts and toys on the shelves of Kmart may for the first time carry the label “Made in Vietnam.” If Vietnam says no, it will in effect be rejecting China’s path to wealth through exports. Either way, there’s a lot at stake.

There are other uncertainties too. You can bet things won’t stay quiet in North Korea for a whole year. But if you can figure out what will happen on these five issues, you’ll know what America will be facing in Asia on Jan. 1, 2001, when we will (really) enter a new millennium.

Jim Mann’s column appears in this space every Wednesday.