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The Obama administration and US policy in Asia.

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President Barack Obama came to power facing daunting domestic and foreign crises. The United States led world economies into steep decline in 2008 and has continued falling in 2009. Active efforts by the US and other governments to deal with the causes and effects of the global financial crisis have showed little signs of substantially reversing economic fortunes. A prolonged recession--more serious than any experienced since the depression of the 1930s--seems likely. (1)

Economic calamity overshadowed what had been expected to be the new US government's most salient preoccupation--the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the violence and instability in the broader Middle East-Southwest Asian region. In 2009, continued progress in stabilizing security in Iraq and transitioning responsibilities to the Iraqi government opened the way to anticipated withdrawals of US combat forces from the country within the next two years. However, the deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan meant that US combat forces would be significantly increased in order to counter the resurgence of Taliban attacks and their expanding administrative control that has threatened to reverse gains following the overthrow of the oppressive Taliban regime by US-led forces in 2001. (2)

Pakistan's weakness compounded US difficulties in shoring up security in Afghanistan. Pakistan's ungoverned border region with Afghanistan harboured al Qaeda and Taliban militants working to overthrow the US-backed administration in Kabul. Pakistani terrorists also threatened India: one such group was implicated in the dramatic November 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai. Without stronger Pakistani government efforts to suppress such groups and stop blatant attacks on India, New Delhi's retaliation with military and other actions would raise the spectre of a major confrontation between the two nuclear armed rivals. Meanwhile, developments in the Middle East stalled prospects for advancing peace amid deep regional and global concerns over Iran's apparently active pursuit of nuclear weapons. (3)

Against this background, US relations with the rest of the Asia-Pacific region seemed likely to be of generally secondary importance for US policy-makers. The global economic crisis put a premium on close US collaboration with major international economies, notably Asian economies like China and Japan, in promoting domestic stimulus plans, supporting international interventions to rescue failing economies and avoiding egregiously self-serving economic and trade practices that could prompt protectionist measures seen to encumber any early revival of world economic growth.

Apart from the deeply troubled Middle East-Southwest Asian region, the other major area of US security concern in Asia is North Korea. Pyongyang climbed to the top of the Obama government's policy agenda through a string of provocative actions in 2009 culminating in North Korea's withdrawal from the Six Party Talks and its second nuclear weapons test in May. North Korea's first nuclear weapons test of 2006 represented a failure of the Bush administration's hard line approach in dealing with North Korea's nuclear weapons programme. In response, that US administration reversed policy, adopting a much more flexible approach, including frequent bilateral talks with North Korean negotiators, within the broad framework of the Six-Party Talks seeking the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula. Important agreements were reached but North Korea did not fulfill obligations to disable and dismantle plutonium-based nuclear facilities.

The Obama government had seemed poised to use the Six Party Talks and bilateral discussion with North Korea in seeking progress in getting Pyongyang to fulfill its obligations. The escalating North Korean provocations in 2009 and the Pyongyang regime's strident defiance of UN Security Council resolutions and international condemnation compelled a US policy review. Obama government leaders from the President on down also consulted closely with concerned powers, notably key allies Japan and South Korea, and China, in assuring a firm response from the UN Security Council in June that imposed sanctions in addition to those imposed after North Korea's first nuclear test and called for inspections of suspected weapons shipments to and from North Korea. The United States also planned its own unilateral sanctions in order to pressure Pyongyang to halt the provocations and return to negotiations. Available evidence in mid-2009 showed considerable skepticism that negative and positive incentives from the United States and other concerned powers would lead to improvement in North Korea's behaviour. Few were optimistic that the crisis atmosphere would subside soon. (4)

Meanwhile, beginning in 2008, longstanding US concerns with the security situation in the Taiwan Straits declined as the newly installed government of President Ma Ying-jeou reversed the pro-independence agenda of his predecessor in favour of reassuring China and building closer cross-strait exchanges. The Obama administration indicated little change from Bush administration efforts to support the more forthcoming Taiwan approach and avoid US actions that would be unwelcome in Taipei and Beijing as they sought to ease tensions and facilitate communication. (5)

The Obama administration and the strong Democratic majorities in both Houses of the Congress also gave high priority to promoting international efforts on the environment and climate change. Such efforts appeared ineffective without the participation of Asia's rising economies, notably China, the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases. An American approach of prolonged consultation and dialogue with China to arrive at mutually acceptable approaches to these issues seems likely. (6)

This article assesses salient strengths and weaknesses of the United States in Asia at the start of the Obama administration, and reviews the new US government's approach to key US allies in the region and other Asian powers. It then examines the US administration's policies and approach to Southeast Asian and Asian regional organizations and groupings where the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) plays a leading role.

The findings of the assessment show that the United States remains in a strong leadership position in Asia. The Obama administration has a major crisis on its hands in North Korea; there is no certainty in mid-2009 of whether or how the crisis will be resolved. Elsewhere, the new US government seems intent on correcting some generally secondary shortcomings in the Bush administration's efforts in the region. Apart from a possibly significantly higher profile for Southeast Asia and Asian multilateralism in US policy, the new US government's policy actions seem to reflect adjustments in order to increase benefits for the United States rather than larger scale policy revisions and change.

Strengths and Weaknesses of US Leadership in Asia

Media and specialist commentary as well as popular and elite sentiment in Asia tended to emphasize the shortcomings of US policy and leadership in Asia for much of the Bush administration years. Heading the list were widespread complaints with the Bush administration's hard line policy towards North Korea, its military invasion and occupation of Iraq, and assertive and seemingly unilateral US approaches on wide ranging issues including terrorism, climate change, the United Nations and Asian regional organizations. The United States appeared alienated and isolated, and increasingly bogged down with the consequences of its invasion of Iraq and perceived excessively strong emphasis on the so-called "war on terrorism". (7)

By contrast, Asia's rising powers, and particularly China, seemed to be advancing rapidly. China used effective diplomacy and rapidly increasing trade and investment relationships backed by China's double digit economic growth in order to broaden its influence throughout the region. China also carried out steady and significant increases in military preparations. (8)

This basic equation of Chinese strengths and US weaknesses became standard fare in mainstream Asian and Western media. It was the focus of findings of many books and reports of government departments, international study groups and think-tanks authored often by well respected officials and specialists. The common prediction was that Asia was adjusting to an emerging China-centred order and US influence was in decline. (9)

Over time, developments showed the reality in the region to be more complex. Japan clearly was not in China's orbit; India's interest in accommodation with China was very mixed and overshadowed by a remarkable upswing in strategic cooperation with the United States; Russian and Chinese interest in close alignment waxed and waned and appeared to remain secondary to their respective relationships with the West; and South Korea, arguably the area of greatest advance in Chinese influence at a time of major tensions in the US-Republic of Korea relationship earlier in the decade changed markedly beginning in 2004 and evolved to a situation of often wary and suspicious South Korean relations with China seen today.

Former US officials pushed back against prevailing assessments of US decline with a variety of tracts underlining the US administration's carefully considered judgement that China's rise was not actually having a substantial negative effect on US leadership in Asia, which remained healthy and strong. (10) They joined a growing contingent of scholars and specialists who looked beyond accounts that inventoried China's strengths and US weaknesses and carefully considered other factors including Chinese limitations and US strengths before making their overall judgments. (11)

Several commentators and think-tanks that had been prominent in warning of US decline and China's rise revised their calculus to focus more on Chinese weaknesses and US strengths. What has emerged is a broad based and mature effort on the part of a wide range of specialists and commentators to more carefully assess China's strengths and weaknesses along with those of the United States and other powers in the region.

The basic determinants of US strength and influence in Asia seen in the recent more balanced assessments of China's rise and US influence in Asia involve the following factors: (12)

Security

In most of Asia, governments are strong, viable and make the decisions...

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