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East Asia in the “New Era” in World Politics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 June 2011

Lowell Dittmer
Lowell Dittmer
Affiliation:
University of California, Berkeley
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Extract

In the ongoing war on terrorism that highlights the “new era” in world politics, East Asia constitutes a crucial swing vote. Its importance derives from its growing economic heft in the world, as well as its central role in three key trends that have characterized international politics since the end of the cold war: globalization, regionalism, and a reequilibration of the national balance of power. This article examines the impact of September 11 on the region, focusing on these three trends as indicators. It finds that while the impact of the war has been in significant respects different in Southeast Asia and in Northeast Asia, in both subregions the dominant preference has been to pursue this new campaign more as a police effort than as a “war” against selected alleged terrorist-harboring nation-states. In this respect, antiterrorist efforts have been modest but thus far fairly effective. Yet the antiterrorist effort has not eclipsed other realms of international diplomacy (such as economic cooperation and regional development) to the extent that it has in American foreign policy. Thus there is some risk that the divergent priorities of Washington and the East Asian nations may unwittingly contribute to a form of regional consolidation in which the U.S. plays a diminished role.

Type
The New Era in World Politics after September 11
Information
World Politics , Volume 55 , Issue 1 , October 2002 , pp. 38 - 65
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 2002

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References

1 The East Asian economies in 1960 accounted for only 4 percent of world GNP; by 1991 the figure was about 25 percent; from 1978 to 1988 trade in the region had increased by 230 percent, accounting for about half of the growth of world trade. The most dramatic growth rates were enjoyed from 1960 to the mid-1990s, when GDP per capita growth for the region averaged 4.6 percent annually. See Crafts, Nicholas, “East Asian Growth before and after the Crisis,” International Monetary Fund Staff Papers 46 (June 1999Google Scholar), 139ff; and Akyuz, Yilmaz, Chang, Ha-Jun, and Kozul-Wright, Richard, “New Perspectives on East Asian Development,” Journal of Development Studies 34 (August 1998CrossRefGoogle Scholar).

2 See Quadrennial Defense Review Report (Washington, D.C.:Department of Defense, September 30, 2001Google Scholar).

3 Gershman, John, “Is Southeast Asia the Second Front?” Foreign Affairs 81 (July-August 2002CrossRefGoogle Scholar), 60ff. According to Rohan Gunaratna, of the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at St. Andrews University in Scotland, Asia has been experiencing the highest level of terrorist attacks in the world. Cited in Desker, Barry and Ramakrishna, Kumar, “Forging an Indirect Strategy in Southeast Asia,” Washington Quarterly 25 (Spring 2002CrossRefGoogle Scholar), 161ff.

4 Rice, Condoleezza, “Promoting the National Interest,” Foreign Affairs 79 (Januarys-February 2000), 61CrossRefGoogle Scholar. This was not strictly speaking accurate, of course. The emphasis on multilateralism originated in the “new world order” rhetoric of Bush pere; Clinton then expanded upon it. In the early 1990s Washington prodded the UN to take on numerous peacekeeping mandates, then neglected to provide adequate political, financial, or military support but nonetheless held the organization responsible for any ensuing failures. By Clinton's second term his team had adopted a “multilateral when we can, unilateral when we must” guideline, refusing to ratify (or adhere to) the Ottawa convention forbidding production or use of land mines, for example, because it would jeopardize the defense of South Korea. The Clinton administration also continued research on national missile defense (NMD), though at a lower funding level than the Bush administration, despite apprehensions that it would violate the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty.

5 Thus Powell said he would support Kim Dae Jong's sunshine policy toward North Korea, only to hear Bush criticize that policy; Powell said he would support the European Union's plan to set up a rapid-reaction force, while Rumsfeld expressed apprehension that this might occur at the expense of NATO; Powell sought to articulate a new set of sanctions against Iraq around which the allies could unite, while Wolfowitz openly dismissed any Iraqi sanctions regime. Economist, March 31,2001.

6 Powell, Rumsfeld, and Rice have lunch weekly and a daily teleconference call at 7:15 a.m; Economist (fn. 5).

7 See Miller, Eric and Yetiv, Steve, “The New World Order in Theory and Practice: The Bush Administration's Worldview in Transition,” Presidential Studies Quarterly 31 (March 2001CrossRefGoogle Scholar), 56ff.

8 Cohen, Elizabeth, “Bush ‘Realists’ Say Goodbye to Democracy Promotion,” NACLA Report on the Americas 35 (November-December 2001), 39–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 The assumptions of deterrence theory have been challenged by Bush administration defense planners from two directions: first, by threatening to supplant deterrence with defense, in the various plans for national and theater missile defense; and second, in proposing to supplant deterrence with preemption, based on the assumption that some conceivable attackers cannot be deterred by the prospect of counterattack (as, for example, if Iraq were to provide weapons of mass destruction to al-Qaeda operatives).

10 Whereas the administration granted Taiwan a sizable increase in arms purchases (four Knox-class destroyers, twelve P-3C “Orion” antisubmarine surveillance aircraft), they did not give them all they asked for. Thus they deferred the sale of Arleigh Burke-class destroyers with Aegis radar, which would have provided stable platforms for tactical antimissile defense, and withheld third-generation Patriot III missiles, which would also have contributed to theater missile defense (TMD). The provision of diesel submarines represents an escalation in kind, as the United States has never before countenanced the sale of what could be interpreted as offensive weaponry-but their configuration will be as hunter-killer subs to be deployed against the much larger PRC submarine fleet (including four advanced Kilo-class vessels recently purchased from Russia) in the event of a PRC blockade of the island.

11 The UN General Assembly passed a resolution calling generally for the suppression of international terrorism, while the Security Council's resolution called for strict sanctions against the Taliban, giving them thirty days to close terrorist training camps and extradite bin Laden (but neither resolution specifically endorsed an attack on Afghanistan). Making similar declarations were NATO, the European Union, the Organization of American States, ASEAN, the Organization of African Union, and ANZUS-which mobilized for the first time in its history; Australia and New Zealand even sent ground troops to Afghanistan. When the U.S. launched Operation Enduring Freedom against the Taliban in early October 2001, no fewer than 136 countries offered a range of military assistance to the campaign.

12 Kurlantzick, Joshua, “Fear Moves East: Terror Targets the Pacific Rim,” Washington Quarterly (Winter 2001CrossRefGoogle Scholar), 19ff.

13 Though this engagement was intentionally limited at the outset, there was speculation that it might become a standing commitment. Though the troops were scheduled to depart on July 31,2002, Philippine President Arroyo reportedly planned to extend the stay and seek a wider deployment for joint operations; see Sunday Times (Singapore), June 21, 2002. But the American detachment was withdrawn on schedule on July 31,2002. The 1999 Visiting Forces Agreement does sanction ongoing cooperation, however, and some 250 special forces troops have remained in the southern Philippines, with plans to augment them further in January 2003; New York Times, December 1,2002.

14 See Deng, Yong, “Hegemon on the Offensive: Chinese Perspectives on U.S. Global Strategy,” Political Science Quarterly 116 (Fall 2001CrossRefGoogle Scholar).

15 Lampton, David M., “Small Mercies: China and America after 9/11,” National Interest, no. 66 (Winter 2001Google Scholar).

16 McNally, David, “Globalization on Trial,” Monthly Review 50 (September 1998Google Scholar).

17 Bank, World, The East Asian Miracle: Economic Growth and Public Policy (New York:Oxford University Press, 1993Google Scholar).

18 See Ikenberry, John, Reasons of State: Oil Politics and the Capacities of American Government (Ithaca, N.Y.:Cornell University Press, 1988Google Scholar); also Hiwatari, Nobuhiro, “The Domestic Sources of U.S.-Japan Economic Relations” (Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, San Francisco, August 1996Google Scholar).

19 This decline occurred for a number of reasons. Southeast Asian firms had saturated many of their traditional market sectors, such as clothing, footwear, and household electronics, and were facing increasing competition from other low-wage producers, such as China. Devaluation of Chinas RMB (by 50 percent) in 1994 helped cause the American dollar to appreciate against the yen, and many of the Southeast Asian economies had fixed exchange rates pegged to the dollar, so they found themselves priced out of their export markets. For all these reasons, East Asian exports increased by only 4.3 percent in 1996, after a growth of 20 percent in 1994 and 22 percent in 1995.

20 Straits Times (Singapore), August 16,1998.

21 See Dittmer, Lowell, “Globalization and the Asian Financial Crisis,” in Kim, Samuel, ed., East Asia and Globalization (Lanham, Md:Rowman and Littlefield, 2000Google Scholar).

22 Baker, Chris and Phongpaichit, Pasuk, Thailand's Boom and Bust (Chiang Mai, Thailand:Silkwork Books, 1999), 284Google Scholar–85; and Indonesia Employers' Association, Seminar Paper for 1999, ILO/Japan Asian Regional Tripartite Seminar on Industrial Relations and Globalization, as cited in Kurlantzick (fn. 12).

23 See Stubbs, Richard, “ASEAN Plus Three: Emerging East Asian Regionalism,” Asian Survey 42 (May-June 2002CrossRefGoogle Scholar).

24 See Gleason, Gregory, “Inter-State Cooperation in Central Asia: From the Commonwealth of Independent States to the Shanghai Forum,” Europe-Asian Studies 53 (November 2001Google Scholar).

25 For an outstanding exception, see the works of Gilbert Rozman: Rozman, “The Great Power Balance in Northeast Asia,” Orbis 42 (Winter 1998Google Scholar); idem, “A Regional Approach to Northeast Asia,” Orbis 39 (Winter 1995Google Scholar); idem, “A New Sino-Russian-American Triangle?” Orbis 44 (Fall 2000Google Scholar), 541ff; and idem, “Cross-National Integration in Northeast Asia: Geopolitical and Economic Goals in Conflict,” EastAsia: An International Quarterly 16 (Spring-Summer 1997Google Scholar).