The Bush Administration's Approach to Asia: Before and After September 11

By Professor Harry Harding
Dean, Elliott School of International Affairs, The George Washington University

Hong Kong, November 12, 2001

The horrible events of September 11 (hereafter 9/11), caused shock, grief, apprehension, and outrage throughout most of the world. But as dramatic as the terrorist attacks were, their deeper significance remains unclear. Did they, as some say, change the world fundamentally, such that U.S. domestic and foreign policies have been significantly and permanently transformed? Did they add a new dimension to international affairs, without pushing other issues entirely aside? Or could they possibly be a transient or episodic phenomenon, which can be overcome with a bit of hard work and good luck, without any major or enduring impact on international relations?

Without trying to answer that question in any fundamental way, let me address what I see as the effect of 9/11 on American policy thus far. To do this requires me to identify the major themes in the Bush administration's policy before 9/11, and then to examine whether any of those themes have been modified or transformed.

This task is complicated by the fact that the Bush administration has been remarkably inarticulate about its foreign policy in general and its Asia policy in particular. The President has not made a comprehensive speech about the administration's approach to Asia. Such a speech was apparently planned as a prelude to the President's trip to Asia in October. However, just as the trip itself was truncated, with visits to Tokyo, Seoul, and Beijing dropped from the schedule, so too was the speech a casualty of 9/11. It is possible that the basic themes of the speech served as the basis for Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly's address to the Heritage Foundation a week or so ago, but so far I have not seen a copy of those remarks. Thus, my analysis is based on a review of other speeches and documents, as well as my own interpretation of the actions of the administration to date.

As I see it, the Bush administration's approach to Asia can be summarized in five themes or propositions. Each of these has been affected, to some degree, by the events of 9/11. Some have been reinforced; others have been modified. But it is important to acknowledge how the administration was adjusting its initial policies to accommodate the realities of the region, even before the terrorist attacks.

Emphasize America's alliances

Even before it entered office, the new administration made clear that it would place great emphasis on revitalizing America's alliances in Asia. It believed that the Clinton administration had placed excessive focus on relations with former or potential adversaries: North Korea over South Korea, China over Taiwan and Japan, and possibly even Vietnam over the non-Communist states of ASEAN.

The early pattern of visits and phone calls by members of the new administration was intended to indicate that we would assign a higher priority to our allies. Thus, higher level officials were dispatched to South Korea and Japan than to China. And President Bush called his counterparts in allied capitals, but not in Beijing. In addition, some in the administration, particularly our new ambassador to India, Robert Blackwill, had advocated the formal multilateralization of America's alliances, turning what had historically been bilateral relationships into something that might resemble the multilateral alliance structure in the North Atlantic.

Before 9/11, it was proving more difficult to strengthen the alliance framework than one might have anticipated. The alliance with South Korea was troubled by the administration's initial skepticism about Kim Dae-jung's "sunshine policy" toward North Korea -- about which I will say more later. The alliance with Japan was plagued by another tragic incident that seemed to illustrate the cost of a strategic relationship with the United States: the sinking of the training ship Ehime Maru after a collision with an American submarine off the coast of Hawaii. The alliance with Australia was complicated by Canberra's lukewarm response to Deputy Secretary of Defense Richard Armitage's comments that the test of a faithful ally was its willingness to shed blood on behalf of the United States.

The events of 9/11 have provided a new focus for America's alliances, in Asia as elsewhere: the struggle against terrorism. The impact on America's strategic relationships has been mixed. In some cases, 9/11 has facilitated the reinvigoration that the administration had been trying to promote. Australia, Korea, and the Philippines were all quick to express their support. Japan, in particular, adopted a new piece of legislation permitting the Self Defense Forces to provide logistical and other support for U.S. operations, just as previous legislation had enabled it to do so for contingencies in the Western Pacific.

However, some other friends and the allies of the U.S. have been more ambivalent. This has been especially true of those with Muslim populations. Malaysia, Indonesia, and even Thailand (with a small Islamic minority, mainly in the south) have expressed concern about the extent and duration of American military actions. Even Singapore's voice has been uncharacteristically muted during the present crisis.

Greater skepticism toward China and North Korea

Just as the Bush administration tried to move closer to America's allies in the region, so did it distance itself from both China and North Korea. As noted above, it expressed clear reservations about South Korea's "sunshine policy" toward the North. Equally, it abruptly stopped the high-level contacts with Pyongyang that had led to Madeline Albright's visit and to speculation about a presidential visit at the very end of Clinton's term in office. It also downgraded official contact with the PRC -- although by no means so dramatically -- and pointedly referred to China as a "strategic competitor" rather than a prospective "strategic partner."

Even before 9/11, this new orientation was proving unsustainable. In the case of North Korea, the pressure came from Seoul, which sought endorsement of -- rather than dissociation from -- the "sunshine policy" toward Pyongyang. Accordingly, the administration announced that, after "review," it had decided to support a conciliatory approach to Pyongyang, on the condition that a wider range of American concerns -- especially missile proliferation and conventional force balances on the Korean Peninsula -- were addressed and progress made.

In the case of China, the pressure came from the EP-3 incident, which illustrated the risks of a more competitive pattern of deployments by the armed forces of the two countries. In response, the administration dropped its references to China as a "strategic competitor" of the United States, and spoke of its desire for a "productive," "constructive," and "cooperative" relationship with Beijing.

9/11 has had far more impact on U.S.-China than on U.S.-DPRK relations. To be sure, North Korea quickly denounced the terrorist attacks and dissociated itself from al-Qaeda, clearly hoping that this would help remove it from the American list of states that sponsor or harbor terrorists. But this has not produced any fundamental breakthrough in either U.S.-DPRK dialogue or in North-South relations. In contrast, U.S.-China relations have seen significant improvement. Despite initial reports that many Chinese analysts and citizens believed that the U.S. "had it coming," the Chinese government quickly expressed its sympathy and offered its cooperation. This not only led to a relatively successful meeting between Bush and Jiang in Shanghai, where both sides agreed to seek a constructive and cooperative relationship, but also seems to be providing a common interest in the security realm that had been missing since the waning of the Cold War in the mid 1980s. However, it remains to be seen whether the common struggle against terrorism will completely supplant the mutual perception that China and America are doomed to strategic rivalry as China's relative power grows vis-a-vis that of the U.S.

A reorientation of security policy

This is directly related to the third theme in the Bush administration's Asia policy. When the new government entered office, it was scheduled to undertake a quadrennial review of U.S. security policy. Reports soon circulated that nothing short of a revolution in defense policy was underway. There was speculation that the QDR would shift U.S. strategic priorities from Europe to Asia, with a particular concern with the need to balance the rise of Chinese power. All this was in addition to the Bush administration's more enthusiastic endorsement of national missile defense, partly as a way of undermining China's growing strategic capability.

The QDR was largely drafted before 9/11. Even so, the changes of relevance to Asia were not that dramatic. To be sure, the document continued to endorse national ballistic defense. However, if the focus shifted away from Europe, the new emphasis was as much on contingencies in the Middle East and on homeland defense as on maintaining the balance in East Asia. The envisioned redeployments to East Asia, although significant, were at least matched by redeployments of forces to the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Gulf. The reference to China as a strategic threat was muted: the QDR referred only to the "possibility...that a military competitor with a formidable resource base will emerge in the [Asian] region." In interviews following the release of the QDR, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, long regarded as a hawk on China, said that the Bush administration did not assume that China would necessarily become a strategic competitor of the U.S., and that its policy was to prevent such a contingency from occurring.

9/11 did not produce major substantive changes in the content of the QDR, but it did raise questions about how quickly and thoroughly it could be implemented. It is conceivable that the struggle against terrorism could indefinitely delay the redeployment of forces to East Asia envisioned by the QDR, let alone any identification of China as the principal threat facing the U.S. The implications of 9/11 for the Bush administration's NMD program -- especially its place in the Defense Department budget -- are also unclear.

A fresh look at India

One of the least-noted changes in the Bush administration's policy toward Asia has been its approach to India. India's large size, its increasingly dynamic economy, its nuclear capability, and its determination to play a greater role in international affairs outside the subcontinent make it increasingly relevant to U.S. policy in the Asia-Pacific region. In keeping with this new vision, the Bush administration reorganized the National Security Council staff, such that India is now the responsibility of the Senior Director for Asia, rather than the Middle East.

Even more important were the signs of a closer strategic relationship between the two countries. Toward the end of the Clinton administration, the two countries had greatly expanded their dialogue, with an exchange of visits by U.S. President Clinton and Indian Prime Minister Vajpayee. This process continued in the Bush administration, with an early visit to New Delhi by Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage. Although the two governments took care not to say so, many analysts in both countries portrayed his new relationship as a potential counterweight against China.

It is here that 9/11 has had particularly profound effects. The improvement in China-U.S. relations in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks removed some of the strategic urgency from the improvement of U.S.-India relations. Even more important, the military campaign in Afghanistan required the U.S. to seek the cooperation of Pakistan, India's rival. This has stymied India's long-standing desire to break out of a situation in which the U.S. regarded India and Pakistan as equally important players, and also raised concern that Washington would now turn a blind eye toward the Pakistani support for Islamic militants in Kashmir. As a result, the momentum toward a closer India-U.S. relationship has noticeably slowed.

Skepticism toward "top-down" multilateralism

The Bush administration has frequently been accused of acting unilaterally, both in Asia and elsewhere. However, it would be more accurate to say that it has been skeptical of multilateralism of certain varieties.

The new administration has not wished to be bound by multilateral rule-making processes that produced outcomes that run contrary to American interests. Thus its opposition to the Kyoto protocols on the environment, and to the enforcement mechanisms for the convention on biological weapons. Even more, it has been very dubious about the prospects for achieving cooperative security through organizations with universal membership, such as the ARF. For a time, it even seemed skeptical about multilateral trade organizations as an instrument for trade and investment liberalization, preferring instead to negotiate bilateral free trade areas with like-minded partners.

On the other hand, the Bush administration continued to endorse other non-proliferation regimes, and to support China's membership in the WTO as a way of promoting greater access to the Chinese market. As noted above, it has also explored the possibility of multilateralizing America's alliances in Asia, just as it has supported the enlargement of NATO.

The most appropriate way of describing this policy, then, is indeed what the head of the State Department's Policy Planning Staff, Richard Haass, once described as "multilateralism a la carte." That is, the Bush administration supports certain multilateral regimes and organizations but not others. In the security sphere, it is skeptical about building multilateralism from the top down, through organizations with universal membership, but much more enthusiastic about building multilateralism from the bottom up, by linking America's bilateral alliances and building ties with other friendly nations in Asia.

This is another area where American policy changed rather sharply after 9/11. The Bush administration quickly learned that, whatever its general preference for "multilateralism a la carte," multilateralism was the only item on the menu when it came to combatting terrorism. A broad united front against terrorism is key to providing American military actions with legitimacy. Similarly, coalitions with many partners are essential to successful military, financial, law enforcement, and intelligence operations against terrorist organizations that act globally. The Bush administration, which had initially been skeptical about APEC, mobilized its members to issue a statement supporting the American struggle against terrorism.

It is not yet certain, however, how far this new-found enthusiasm for multilateralism will go, and what kind of multilateralism the Bush administration is prepared to endorse. The U.S. is now keen to use multilateral organizations with universal or near-universal membership, such as the United Nations and APEC, to provide it with diplomatic support, and is turning to the U.N. to address the problem of nation-building in Afghanistan once the Taliban have been removed from power. But in the military struggle against terrorism the U.S. is still placing greater emphasis on building and maintaining ad hoc coalitions from the bottom up. And it still asserts the right to act unilaterally in self-defense.

Moreover, even if the U.S. is acting more multilaterally on this particular issue, it remains to be seen whether the multilateral impulse will apply with equal force to other international issues, especially those involving conventional security concerns.

Summary

As compared with its predecessor, when it entered office the Bush administration compared to that of its predecessor, placed more emphasis on alliances, was skeptical about the prospects for cooperative relations with China and North Korea, promised a fundamental reorientation of U.S. security policy, explored a closer partnership with India, and showed less enthusiasm toward such regional organizations as APEC an ARF.

Even before 9/11 -- but even more because of it -- many of these initial impulses have been revised. The struggle against terrorism has given new focus and urgency to American alliances in the region. But it has also taught the Bush Administration the need for multilateralism and the possibility and desirability of a more cooperative relationship with China. It may have slowed the trends toward a closer relationship with India and a reorientation of American national security policy toward an emerging Chinese threat.

Whether or not these changes remain in effect will depend, of course, on how well the struggle against terrorism proceeds, and the extent to which that struggle becomes tie fundamental security problem of the early twenty-first century. But even if the fight against terrorism is over more quickly than many expect, the fact that the Bush administration's approach to Asia had already begun to change before 9/11 suggests that the revisions may be relatively enduring.