Assessment of US interest in Northeast Asia.

Northeast Asia,--China, Japan, North and South Korea, Mongolia and Pacific Russia remain politically suspicious of each other and economically un-integrated. Recently however, the growing importance of economic on foreign policy agendas has led to a call to multilateral economic cooperation at the regional level. It is in this context that the US national interest can be articulated; these include regional stability, regional cooperation, humanitarian concerns, maintaining a military presence in the Indian Ocean, inculcation of western values and maintain the flow of oil. However the later aims have generally taken a back seat in the overall US-Northeast Asia.

For the past 50 years the United States has preached the virtues of free trade. But in practice the U.S. security guarantees have facilitated in particular East Asian mercantilism in an effort to keep an anti soviet alliance together. This Cold War strategy makes less and less sense as the U.S. economy continue decline in relative terms and the Soviet threat continues to diminish.
East Asia’s superior economic performance, a performance that is underwritten by U.S. security guarantees—sustained over a long period will inexorably lead to long-term strategic superiority over the United States. To prevent this from happening, the United States needs to realign its security and economic objectives by scraping its Cold War security strategy. In its place the United States should move to build a regional security institution that will draw Japan more deeply into a power-sharing role in the region. Now that the Soviets are no longer a threat, including their satellite states, China increasingly focused its intentions on economic reforms and growth. Vietnam’s relationship with her neighbors in Northeast Asia improved. Only North Korea appears to be the remaining clear-cut threat.

The 1990’s produced two more trends that made it increasingly difficult for the United States to identify the enemies which U.S. forces are defending against in Asia. The collapse of the Soviet block and the sweeping redistribution of economic power from the United States to Asia, in general given these changes the Unites States now has the opportunity to realign its strategic and economic priorities. By virtue of its military superpower status, the United States will still have a balancing role to play in Northeast Asia. But the U.S has much more room for choice as to how actively it wishes to play that role and whether it wishes to share that responsibility with Japan, China and Korea.

In sum, a continuation of our Cold War National Interest Strategy in Northeast is not a building block for a new international order. The U.S policy since the end of the Cold War is quite incoherent, it is time for a change in the U.S, approach—time to build on our past successes, time to elevate our own economic concerns and military needs in face of the global war on terrorism and time to express confidence in Northeast Asians that they are ready to help us chart a new richer, and more pacific future for Asia in the 21st century.