Contents

Introduction

"Everything has changed"

Japan

China

Korea

ASEAN

Specialists

George W. Bush intends to make his first presidential trip to Asia to attend the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum leaders' meeting in Shanghai, October 19-20. His only previous visit to Asia was to China in 1975. Overwhelming all else on his agenda is sustaining and strengthening the coalition of nations supporting America's counterattack against terrorism.

President Bush's planned trip was truncated from an original itinerary of state visits to Japan and Korea before going to China, and to continue in China on an official working visit to Beijing, after Shanghai. The terrorist destruction of the World Trade Center in New York City and a portion of the Pentagon in Washington has put on a back burner elaborate plans to use the ten-day visit to the region to advance a new security architecture and promote economic growth in the post-cold-war period. With more than seven thousand lives lost in the attacks, the president has focused his energies on mounting an effective campaign to eliminate the sources of terrorism and those who support it.

"Everything has changed."

It is a commonplace in Washington to say that after the extreme violence of the September 11 attacks that "everything has changed." Partisan sniping on Capitol Hill came to an abrupt halt in a show of national unity. The flags and spontaneous displays of sorrow and patriotism throughout the country signaled that the previous political agenda has changed to an overwhelming emphasis on defeating terrorism.

The shift in priorities is evident in the Asia-Pacific region as well. Before the explosions, the end of the cold war in the early 1990s and the regional economic crisis of 1997-98 had left governments hungry for adjustments to the regional security and economic order, but unsure of the directions to take. Japan's faltering economy and China's economic dynamism accentuated a perception of change in fundamental power relationships. Japan has been gradually debating and developing close security ties with the United States, which China has regarded warily, out of resentment of America's unipolar position in global affairs.

New possibilities for reducing tensions on the Korean peninsula, symbolized by South Korean president Kim Dae-Jung's historic visit last year to Pyongyang, still rest uneasily atop a security posture geared for hostilities that could erupt in a heartbeat. Hopes for Korean reconciliation dimmed in late 2000, as promised steps by the North failed to materialize. In mid-September of this year, hopes returned, but faintly, amid a rancorous political environment in South Korea.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), whose ten leaders will attend the Shanghai meeting, has been drifting in recent years. Expansion of the organization to include less politically and economically developed members strained its capacity for consensus. New transnational problems, such as the financial crisis and dangerous smoke from neighbors' forest fires, as well as setbacks in the domestic politics of member countries, exposed cracks in ASEAN's institutional façade. ASEAN's homegrown contribution to building a regional security mechanism, the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), has yet to move from being a welcome talk shop to an organization with clout.

Amid these and other concerns, the region nurtured a durable ambivalence about the role of the United States in the Asia Pacific. In the mid-1990s, the United States had a succession of trade clashes with Japan and several years of political tensions with China. The Philippine Senate failed to approve a new agreement concerning military bases with the United States. Yet, many in the region feared a precipitate reduction of the U.S. military presence might foster instability, creating a power vacuum that Japan and China would compete to fill.

China grew increasingly suspicious of an American intent to contain China's influence. Beijing played on regional reactions to perceived U.S. unilateralism and the propensity of American leaders to promote values that rub against the domestic politics of some Asian nations. China's leaders remained vocally suspicious of the Bush administration's plans to develop missile defenses and to increase its military focus on Asia, relative to the rest of the world.

Finally, the deteriorating global economic environment was pressing itself ahead of these other items on the Asian agenda as the region's leaders prepared to gather. Some commentators borrowed the worrisome metaphor of "the perfect storm" to forecast convergence of economic slowdowns and severe recessions simultaneously over the coming year in the economies of Asia, the United States, and the European Union. Asian economies, including China's, have already been feeling the pinch of export declines, job losses, and inadequately restructured financial institutions, although China's strong domestic growth contributes to regional economic stability. Uncertainty accompanies the outlook for the American economy, on which most of the Asians depend heavily, and this is magnified as Washington responds to the terrorist challenge.

The terrorist intrusion into these preexisting concerns of the Asia-Pacific region is creating new opportunities to arrest some negative trends and to promote positive change; the American-led response will also carry some risks. Some of the implications for Japan, China, Korea, and ASEAN are discussed in the following sections.


Japan

In campaigning for the presidency, then Governor George Bush criticized President Bill Clinton's "bypassing" of Japan during his 1998 ten-day state visit to China. Since the election, President Bush and his top officials have repeated their priority to build strong relations with America's most important Asian allies, with Japan consistently topping the list.

Before September 11, President Bush planned to make his first state visit to Japan primarily symbolic, signifying Washington's intention to promote public support in both countries for good relations. The U.S.-Japan official relationship is already rich with substantive activity, standing alongside an economic relationship which, though often competitive, is increasingly complementary.

President Bush's plans included deepening a "strategic dialogue" with his counterpart, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. In addition to reviewing regional cooperation on the Korean peninsula, in Indonesia, and in China and Taiwan, the president hoped to nudge Japan from showing mere "understanding" of the U.S. position on missile defense to expressing "support." The United States also hoped Japan would enhance its participation in international collective security activities.

The Bush administration also planned to encourage continued economic reform by Prime Minister Koizumi's government. The two leaders were to preside over the first meeting of the Economic Partnership for Growth and of the combined private-sector and governmental commission they previously agreed to establish. Undersecretary equivalents of relevant bureaucracies were to meet on improving the atmosphere for foreign direct investment.

The terrorist attacks, which are believed to have cost the lives of twenty-five Japanese nationals, have postponed the state visit, but also positively compressed the U.S.-Japan agenda. Stunningly, Japan under Koizumi shed its image of doing too little, too late, in international crises, an image formed during the Gulf War in 1991. Instead, Prime Minister Koizumi quickly ended early expressions of caution and negotiated within his ruling coalition for a package of steps that would allow Japan swiftly to "show the flag."

The prime minister announced seven steps Japan is prepared to undertake to support the U.S.-led coalition against terrorism:

• dispatching a Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force squadron, including an amphibious airlift support ship, to the Indian Ocean;
• agreeing to lift supplies to Pakistan in Japanese Air-Defense Force cargo planes;
• providing Ground Self-Defense Forces to guard American bases in Japan;
• sending medical teams to the region;
• providing AWACS aircraft to supplement U.S. air-control aircraft;
• increasing assistance for an anticipated flood of refugees;
• and, overcoming Japan's reaction to Pakistan's nuclear-weapons testing and providing direct official development assistance to Islamabad.

To make these pledges stick, Prime Minister Koizumi flew to the United States, September 24-25, to repeat them personally to President Bush. By doing so, Koizumi made a bet that his high personal-popularity rating would translate into successful votes in the Japanese Diet for two pieces of implementing legislation that will be required to guard American bases and to send ships and aircraft to the Indian Ocean.

If implemented, these Japanese measures represent a strong and significant step forward in participation in collective security ventures, breaking a logjam of opposition to Japan becoming a "more normal country" in security affairs. This bold move by Koizumi was, of course, a by-product of the outrage at the terrorist actions. It also reflected the rise to influential positions in both Japan and the United States of knowledgeable, activist officials, who have long sought to loosen the legal bonds on Japan's security responsibilities, making it a more equal partner in the bilateral security alliance.

Prime Minister Koizumi's rushed trip to Washington occurred during visits by other allied leaders that were arranged to demonstrate support for the new antiterrorist coalition's objectives. But during his visit, the two leaders still found time to discuss economics. Bush endorsed the prime minister's expanded efforts to address the bad debt that infects and cripples Japan's economy. Bush pressed the prime minister to implement the sale of distressed assets in Japan, so that market prices could be established as a floor for economic growth. To do this, Japan needs to break down its phobia against foreign direct investment.

The subcabinet official meetings that were scheduled to occur during the state visit to Japan will take place nonetheless, although timing may be affected by the counterterrorist activities.

Koizumi's strong response to the crisis will pose some risks, however. In the current climate of revulsion against the loss of so many lives, few if any of Japan's neighbors will object openly to the dispatch of the Japan Self-Defense Forces to the Indian Ocean. Over time, however, China, and perhaps eventually India, will reveal suspicions about Tokyo's long-term security ambitions. Beijing, for example, has long preferred a weak and constrained Japan to any alternative.

Japan's own commitment to Koizumi's new course will be on probation during the antiterrorist campaign. Prolonged deployments, accidents, and failure all could set back public support for both the prime minister and Japan's new level of engagement. To the Bush administration, however, these risks, while real, are nonetheless manageable. Successful implementation, moreover, augurs a more capable and responsive alliance partner for the United States.


China

Beijing has had deeply ambivalent feelings about President Bush ever since the beginning of his election campaign in 1999. Then-governor Bush organized his campaign messages that summer, during which U.S. relations with China were reeling from the accidental U.S. bombing of China's embassy in Belgrade during the Kosovo war. China's official outrage and mass demonstrations at, and the destruction of, the U.S. embassy and consulates in China sent American attitudes about China plummeting, effectively destroying the atmosphere engendered during President Clinton's state visit to China in 1998. Under those circumstances, Bush spoke of China as a "strategic competitor," as opposed to the "strategic partner" that President Clinton had hoped China would become. Campaign aides alleged Clinton had shown weakness toward China, letting down the Japanese and Korean allies by not stopping at these two countries on his way to China for his state visit.

Campaign-related discussion of missile defense and a revamped U.S. military posture fed Chinese fears of an effort at "containing" China or of plotting by the United States to deny China its chance to become a major power in the region. These discussions mirrored growing American suspicions that China planned to lever the United States out of Asia. As the Bush inauguration neared, Beijing tried to console these fears by reminding itself that former President Bush would help his son understand China and moderate his policies. Many advised Beijing to remember that the Reagan and Clinton administrations began with rough periods in relations with China, but that these later stabilized as the presidential terms unfolded.

Beijing officially responded to this advice by putting on a calm demeanor and dispatching three teams of diplomats to Washington and elsewhere in the United States to try to open a dialogue with the new administration. The White House in turn responded by stretching its alliance-first protocol guidelines to receive Vice Premier Qian Qichen warmly in the Oval Office in March. The Bush team was well aware the new president would be going to China in October and could benefit by establishing some personal links into the Chinese leadership.

This tentative beginning received a severe blow the next month, however, when a Chinese F-8II fighter collided with an American EP-3E reconnaissance aircraft off China's Hainan Island. The Chinese pilot was lost, inflaming Chinese tempers. The American crew made a difficult emergency landing at a military field on Hainan, and was initially treated as enemy intruders. Especially complicating matters was China's reluctance or inability to respond to immediate inquiries from the U.S. side, through several channels, about the status of the plane and crew.

President Bush's advisers felt that the delay in a response had ill rewarded the president for extending the courtesy he had shown to Vice Premier Qian. Receiving no private response from Beijing, President Bush went public with a demand for information. The Chinese considered the president's wording too tough, and claimed to be compelled to respond equally harshly through President Jiang Zemin.

While a resolution of the impasse was worked out over eleven long days between the State Department and the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the new Bush administration faced a late-April deadline for deciding on new arms sales for Taiwan. Here, too, the Bush campaign had criticized the Clinton administration for being too irresolute with China in its policy toward Taiwan. Bush therefore decided on a formidable list of new military capabilities to be offered to Taiwan, although he noticeably refrained from offering Taiwan the one weapons system the China had drawn a "red line" around, AEGIS air-defense systems for warships.

Military-to-military contacts between the United States and Chinese defense establishments were iced by the Pentagon during this time, and only when progress developed toward American recovery of the EP-3E aircraft did Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld authorize extremely limited contacts on a case-by-case basis.

Meanwhile, Western press accounts reported on major rethinking in the Pentagon about the future of the U.S. military, with increasing emphasis on potential conflict in Asia, especially with China, as that country's power and ambitions presumably increase. China's media, in turn, exaggerated these reports into clear and, by implication, dangerous indications of what the Defense Department would report to the Congress in the Quadrennial Defense Review, due at the end of September.

The entire administration pressed ahead with plans to develop missile defense, something China seemed to fear and vigorously oppose. Partly because of China's hostile posture, partly because of the EP-3E affair, and partly because many in the administration do not want to engage China seriously on missile defense, for it has little to bargain with, Beijing received scant diplomatic attention on the subject.

In this climate of growing suspicion between the two sides' bureaucracies and populations, leaders of the two countries nonetheless groped to maintain stable relations. The day after the United States announced its robust arms-sales package for Taiwan, Beijing extended agreement, or approval, for the appointment of President Bush's friend Clark "Sandy" Randt, as the new ambassador to the People's Republic. A day after the removal of the U.S. EP-3E aircraft from Hainan, President Bush spoke by phone with President Jiang.

Secretary of State Colin Powell traveled to China in July, where the two sides agreed to renew a pattern of regular meetings between the Joint Commissions on Economics, Commerce and Trade, and Science and Technology. Strategic dialogue was scheduled for Deputy Secretary Richard Armitage in October in Beijing. (Due to the press of work to counterterroism Armitage sent Assistant Secretary James A. Kelly in his stead.) Policy-planning talks occurred in July, under Ambassador Richard Haas. After considerable maneuvering, the two sides also convened the Military Maritime Safety Commission in Guam in September, to review means to prevent further collisions between the two armed forces in the air and at sea. These talks received positive characterizations afterward, and further discussions take place.

The pattern of the last eight months' interaction between China and the United States suggests both sides were dealing with internal divisions and suspicions about each other. At key points, however, President Bush and President Jiang demonstrated a desire to avoid brinkmanship. Put differently, both showed a capacity to compartmentalize aspects of relations. For example, Bush displayed a firm but not reckless determination to defend Taiwan. Jiang, for his part, has yielded nothing on China's claim to the island and has continued to authorize increased military capabilities opposite Taiwan. Yet his government has recently backed away from hints of a short-term "timetable," or deadline, for Taiwan's return to mainland China.

Differences over human rights, nonproliferation, freedom of religion, the future of their respective political systems, Chinese punishment of American corporations that do business with Taiwan, and other sensitive issues will persist, and each side expects to assert its views forcefully. But both leaders seem equally determined not to allow differences in one area to affect cooperation in other areas where there is mutual benefit, as in trade and investment, or cooperation in maintaining regional stability. American facilitation of China's entry into the World Trade Organization throughout this year is a case in point. In sum, the two leaders appear to prefer-all things being equal-to avoid a new cold war in Asia, whatever their subordinates in some cases may believe.

China's reaction to the terrorism in the United States became an important test of this proposition. There was a moment of hesitation in Beijing's initial response to the events of September 11. Some signs emerged of a popular Chinese belief that America had got its comeuppance in terrorism for its high-handed international behavior and unilateralism. Chinese writers expressed concern that the United States was about to further diminish respect for the principle of sovereignty, an issue that divided Beijing and Washington over the Kosovo crisis, and that plays into Chinese suspicions about American plans for Taiwan.

Consultations within the Chinese foreign-policy elite, however, soon led to a shift in the official response. Obviously, the Chinese embassy in Washington, and CNN and other outlets, clearly registered with the leadership the profound response of Americans to the terrorism. Beijing observed the strong international support Washington received as well.

China also has homegrown terrorists with connections to Osama bin Laden. This is part of the motivation for the creation this year of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization of six nations (Russia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and China). These governments pool intelligence on terrorist activities and seek to cooperate to eliminate the terrorist threat to their nations.

Influentially, Chinese specialists on the United States argued internally that supporting the U.S. coalition presented an opportunity to China to quell the debate in the United States over the "China threat" and to subsume differences over missile defense into a broader context of cooperation. These specialists argued that a positive response to the American call could arrest and perhaps reverse the trend in American thinking toward higher tensions between Washington and Beijing.

Beijing subsequently indicated rhetorical support for the U.S.-led campaign against terrorism, termed Operation Enduring Freedom. President Jiang, in phone calls to other leaders of the permanent five-member states of the United Nations Security Council, set forth three relatively modest conditions for Chinese acquiescence: an undefined UN mandate for military action, avoidance of civilian casualties, and legal proof of suspects' guilt. All three are well within Washington's expectations and those of other coalition partners.

China did not interfere with Pakistan's decision to cooperate with the American-led coalition, although, as Islamabad's principal international backer, it could easily have done so, albeit at a high price in ties with Washington. Beijing may well have gone beyond non-interference and actually endorsed Pakistan's cooperation, but that is not publicly confirmed.

Nevertheless, Beijing has also left itself room to back away if problems arise in the prosecution of the attacks on terrorists. Some Chinese still, seemingly unrealistically, worry that the United States may seek to use the antiterrorist conflict to gain hegemony over Afghanistan and Pakistan, further "encircling" China. But backing away would put at risk the significant political gains Beijing has made to date with Washington.

Also unclear is the degree to which China would be willing in the final analysis to lend a practical hand in dealing with the terrorists. If Beijing were crassly to try to gain leverage over the United States on issues of concern, such as American support for Tibetan autonomy or missile defense, in exchange for cooperation with the coalition, it could undermine any gains made through the modest levels of international cooperation it is offering. Signs thus far, however, are that the Chinese understand this.

Chinese foreign minister Tang Jiaxuan visited Washington on September 20-21, on a trip scheduled before the September 11 horrors. His remarks indicated that Beijing plans to cooperate realistically with Washington. A team of counterterrorism experts from China visited the United States the following week. Channels were designated for intelligence sharing and cooperation within the UN on terrorism-related issues. Other officials have privately suggested China will even sponsor the United States for observer status in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, if the United States asks for it. Tang left the door open for other suggestions as the situation develops.

Now that "everything has changed" in Washington, there is a prospect that Congress will continue for the near-term to follow President Bush's lead on relations with China. Beijing therefore has an opportunity, through its help to the coalition, to demonstrate to the Congress that its worst fears about China may be misplaced.

Doing so will not come easily for the Chinese, whose media outlets for the last decade have become increasingly vocal against U.S. military operations through the Asia-Pacific region. As the coalition gears up to strike at the terrorists, America's ability to gain military access through Japan, Korea, Thailand, the Philippines, Singapore, India, Pakistan, and even Russia will be on ample display.

If China shows both forbearance and cooperation, it may induce a sea change in the original posture of the Bush administration toward Beijing. Although important and even dangerous differences will remain to be managed or resolved, China can shift the stress in relations from repeated spikes in bilateral tensions, such as those due to missile firings near Taiwan, the Belgrade embassy bombing, and the EP-3E incident. Operation Enduring Freedom offers a chance at enhanced bilateral and multilateral cooperation and reassurance.

In the original plans for President Bush's official visit to China, he was to preside over a series of activities and agreements that embraced a fairly broad range of areas for cooperation with China. These ranged from establishing a legal attaché's office in Beijing, to a rule of law initiative, energy and environmental dialogues, transnational crime cooperation, human rights dialogue, and defense consultative talks.

He was also to make an important address at American-founded Tsinghua University in Beijing and to pay a call to the Central Party School, where he would meet China's presumptive next leader, Vice President Hu Jintao. With the postponement of Bush's visit to Beijing, these plans will constitute a benchmark for measuring progress, or its absence, before a rescheduled trip to China occurs.


Korea

The president's visit to Seoul was intended to be largely symbolic. This was in part because the image of cooperation with South Korea's president Kim Dae-Jung needs some repair after an awkwardly managed visit to Washington in March, and in part because the substance of U.S.-Korean relations is otherwise in pretty good shape.

President Bush intended to conduct formal talks with Kim, hold a joint press conference, visit American troops, and examine South Korea's progress at the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) in opening a road and rail corridor to the North.

Since the planning began for the now-postponed visit to Korea, the tone of inter-Korean relations has shifted again. Resentment against North Korea's chairman Kim Jong-Il had festered throughout the year in South Korea, as he failed to fulfill promised work on the northern end of the DMZ road and rail connection, suspended family reunions, and avoided a promised return visit to Seoul. In early September, however, on the eve of a visit to the North by President Jiang Zemin, Chairman Kim returned to a focus on inter-Korean dialogue, and initial meetings between the North and South have resumed planning for a new round of family reunions.

Some of the resentment in the South had also been directed at President Bush, whom many Koreans concluded, from overdrawn media coverage, had treated President Kim with insufficient respect and Chairman Kim with too much distrust during the March visit of President Kim to Washington. A subsequent internal review of U.S. policy did much to close the breach in perceptions, but Bush's visit offered the further promise of demonstrating unity in dealing with the North, thereby strengthening President Kim's hand with the North.

President Bush will meet bilaterally with many leaders, including especially President Kim Dae-Jung, during his two-day stay at the APEC meeting in Shanghai. He should be able to convey in that meeting some of what he intended to accomplish with the state visit to Seoul. But rescheduling a state visit will be a high priority for both capitals, particularly for Seoul. President Kim's term of office expires in February 2002, and he will become a lame duck president relatively soon.

Unsurprisingly, the Republic of Korea responded quickly and positively to President Bush's appeal for a coalition against terrorism. The Korean National Security Council met immediately and proposed that President Kim send aid in two forms. First, Seoul will dispatch combat support teams to aid U.S. forces and others. The teams will consist of medical, sealift, and airlift units. Second, Korea will extend financial support for Pakistan to help it weather the effects of its current difficulties and the expected costs of supporting combat against terrorists. Further South Korean cooperation is possible, as needs develop. Seoul will also cooperate in sharing intelligence, monitoring travelers, and stemming financial flows that could aid the terrorists and those who harbor them.


ASEAN

Bilateral meetings were always planned for some of Southeast Asia's leaders during the course of the Shanghai meetings, and this is still true under the abbreviated schedule President Bush will follow. His administration wants to continue to voice support, first articulated by Secretary of State Colin Powell during ASEAN's own meetings in Hanoi in July, for ASEAN cohesion, continued economic restructuring, and support for a new global round of trade talks under the World Trade Organization.

Bush will also thank and encourage regional leaders for their support of Operation Enduring Freedom. Singapore, Thailand, and the Philippines are forming a vital air-and-sea bridge for weapons, ammunition, fuel, and supplies across the Pacific to Pakistan. Like other regional states, they are joining in the U.S.-led effort to gather intelligence, monitor and control the movements of suspected terrorists and those who support them, and to cut off financial flows that benefit them.

Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines have Muslim populations that include groups who have interacted with elements of the Osama bin Laden organization. Some of the populations continue to identify with bin Laden's objectives against the United States. This has complicated the politics of cooperation with the United States, much as it has caused leaders in the Middle East to proceed carefully in characterizing support for Operation Enduring Freedom. President Bush will attempt to remind the region's leaders that the choice between cooperation and noncooperation is stark, and not one for moral relativism.

The APEC leaders' meeting: Leaders have gathered at APEC meetings since 1993, when President Clinton invited the APEC leaders to meet at Blake Island near Seattle, Washington. The leaders' meeting occurs alongside the APEC ministerial meetings that have been held annually since 1989. Trade and foreign affairs ministers address the APEC agenda on trade expansion and facilitation, human resource development, and other economic- and security-related issues in a formal setting.

The leaders conduct a freer flowing meeting in a casual setting. Typically they address headline topics of concern. Two years ago, for example, violence in East Timor dominated discussion and led to stepped up cooperation by some of the APEC states, especially the United States and Australia. Last year, President Clinton and President Jiang met bilaterally on the margins of the larger meeting to resolve U.S. concerns about China's implementation of export controls to stem proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. (China has yet to implement the understanding.)

This year's APEC planning has revolved around reinvigorating the global economy, an APEC biotechnology initiative, market-based food security, and human resources development. These undoubtedly will be touched up by the leaders, especially a collective statement undertaking to use each country's means to stimulate economic growth in a rapidly deteriorating environment.

The dominant issue for leaders' discussion, however, undoubtedly will be terrorism and the American response to it. Most governments are likely to believe pragmatically that the American preoccupation with suppressing terrorism will relate directly to the speed with which the global economy recovers. That is, the more rapid and effective Operation Enduring Justice is, the less exposed each leader will likely be to the political and social effects of economic woes in his or her own country. That will affect positively the likely response of the region's leaders to Bush's call for greater or continued support.

If military operations have begun by the time of the meeting, the chances will increase somewhat that President Bush will be unable to attend, due to security concerns and a need to show leadership at home. But it is not a foregone conclusion that he would choose to stay away under those conditions. Demonstrating coalition leadership abroad, dispelling fear for his safety, and using the occasion to ask for more cooperation would also be important considerations in the White House decision.

Moreover, administration officials have repeatedly admonished that the conflict against terrorism will be prolonged and often invisible, and therefore people should get on with business as usual to the extent possible. The sooner public fear to travel and invest can be alleviated, the sooner economies will bounce back from the current downturn.

Risks seem small that the APEC leaders' meeting will expose disarray over terrorism among the region's countries. The law of unintended consequences certainly applies to the area around Afghanistan, as seen when the U.S.-supported Taliban ended up replacing the Soviets. It is not inconceivable that events in that region will upset Chinese interests, for example, in Pakistan. But those kinds of developments will likely emerge only much later in the campaign than the October APEC meeting.

In sum, when the story of the 2001 APEC leaders' meeting is recorded, it is likely to be about the Asia-Pacific region rallying to support, in a variety of ways, the American response to the common post-cold-war threat of terrorism. It may also tell how the United States and China found a realistic path to cooperation on common interests and to avoid or postpone a costly and grinding competition in the region.

Specialists

Marshall M. Bouton
President
Chicago Council on Foreign Relations
116 South Michigan Avenue
Chicago, IL 60603-6097
Tel: 312-726-3860
Fax: 312-726-4491
E-mail: mbouton@ccfr.org

Nicholas Eberstadt
Henry Wendt Chair in Political Economy
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
1150 17th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20036
Tel: 202-862-5825
Fax: 202-862-7163
E-mail: eberstadt@aei.org

Murray Hiebert
Washington Bureau Chief
Far Eastern Economic Review
1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW
Suite 800
Washington, DC 20036
Tel: 202-862-9286
Fax: 202-728-0624
E-mail: Murray.Hiebert@feer.com

John Holden
President
The National Committee on United States- China Relations
71 West 23rd Street, Suite 1901
New York, NY 10010-4102
Tel: 212-645-9677
Fax: 212-645-1695
E-mail: jholden@ncuscr.org

Sidney Jones
Executive Director
Human Rights Watch-Asia Division
350 Fifth Avenue, 34th Floor
New York, NY 10118-3299
Tel: 212-216-1228
Fax: 212-736-1300
E-mail: joness@hrw.org

David M. Lampton
Director, China Studies
Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies
Johns Hopkins University
Director, Chinese Studies
The Nixon Center
1619 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Room 612
Washington, DC 20036-2213
Tel: 202-663-7739
Fax: 202-663-5891
E-mail: dmlampton@mail.jhuwash.jhu.edu

Douglas H. Paal
President
Asia Pacific Policy Center
601 Thirteenth Street, NW
Suite 1100 North
Washington, DC 20036
Tel: 202-223-7258
Fax: 202-223-7280
E-mail: dpaal@attglobal.net

Nicholas Platt
President
Asia Society
725 Park Avenue
New York, NY 10021
Tel: 212-288-6400
Fax: 212-517-8315
E-mail: nplatt@asiasoc.org

John Wheeler
Vice President
Japan Society
333 East 47th Street
New York, NY 10017
Tel: 212-832-1155
Fax: 212-755-6752
E-mail: jwheeler@japansociety.org


Douglas H. Paal is President of the Asia Pacific Policy Center (APPC), a nonprofit institution in Washington, D.C., which advocates bipartisan policy in the promotion of trade and investment, as well as defense and security ties across the Pacific. Prior to forming the APPC, Mr. Paal was Special Assistant to President George H. Bush for National Security Affairs and Senior Director for Asian Affairs on the National Security Council, where he also served in the Reagan administration. Mr. Paal has worked in the State Department with the Policy Planning Staff and as a senior analyst for the CIA. He also served in the U.S. embassies in Singapore and Beijing. He studied Asian history at Brown and Harvard Universities and the Japanese language in Tokyo. He publishes frequently on Asian affairs and national security issues.

The opinions expressed in this publication do not necessarily represent the views of the Asia Society.