The Second Bush Presidency: Priorities and issues for Asia (original) (raw)
The Paradoxes of Paramountcy: Regional Rivalries and the Dynamics of American Hegemony in East Asia
Global Change, Peace & Security, 2003
In the 1970s and 1980s a number of observers argued that the United States had entered a phase of irreversible decline, in which its economy would not only be overtaken by Japan's, 2 but would prove incapable of underwriting its strategic ambitions. 3 Yet, by the end of the 1990s, following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the seemingly terminal demise of socialism as an alternative to capitalism, to say nothing of the East Asian financial crisis and the remarkable renaissance of the US economy, pessimism was replaced by triumphalism, 4 and expectations about the rise of Asia were eclipsed by visions of a new American century. American observers and strategists routinely talked of a new 'unipolar moment' in which American power was set to enjoy an unrivalled and enduring position of dominance at the heart of a broadly supported, stable international order. 5 The new millennium, however, has witnessed yet another reassessment of America's position.
USAK Yearbook of International Politics and Law Vol.5, pp.195-225, 2012
Since 9/11, Southeast Asia began to attract U.S. attention and became the U.S. second front against terrorism. Under the influence of neo-conservativism, the Bush administration changed Washington’s “benign neglect” strategy against Southeast Asia and slowly led the U.S. back to the region. Under the Obama administration, the Washington has placed its emphasis on “complete return to Southeast Asia” and adopted a smart power strategy that applies both the carrot and the stick at the same time. The Obama administration seeks to balance China’s growing regional influence, advance U.S. status in East Asia and respond to issues such as global terrorism, financial crisis and climate change. This article seeks to address U.S. policy changes in Southeast Asia and identify important factors that affect policy transformation. The authors examine the policy differences and transitions between the Bush and Obama administration.
The US Asia-Pacific Policy and Regional Response
Pakistan Study Centre, 2020
China's economic growth and military modernization have forced the US to shift its focus from the Middle-East to the Asia-Pacific region. The US Pivot to Asia Pacific policy aims to maintain the US hegemony by containing China in this region. This article is an attempt to gauge the responses of those regional countries which are having close economic and political relations with China and the US. It also tries to highlight the factors which increased the US military and diplomatic involvement in the region. This article tries to find the answer of research question that why the US has introduced Asia-Pacific policy and how the regional countries have responded to it. As per the nature of the research, secondary sources have been used to complete this research. Three qualitative approaches such as historical, descriptive and exploratory within the broader framework of post positivist paradigm have been used to find the answer of the research question. This study is conducted under the lens of Hegemonic Stability Theory. This study concludes with the argument that regional countries have shown mixed reactions to the US policy and geo-political competition is likely to grow between the US and China in future.
2020
Michael Green examined United States policy toward the region along China's continental and maritime periphery, outlining an American grand strategy that addresses China, the other states in the region and the complex and sometimes troubled relationships between China and its neighbors. Green reviewed three models for a regional order. First, U.S.-led unipolarity is the model the U.S. pursued in the early part of the 1990s, but it is not viable today. The approach produced significant resistance at the time, ranging from soft counterbalancing by regional states to more full-blown blowback, especially in the aftermath of the Asian Financial Crisis when the U.S. supported a Washington Consensus-style approach and regional actors responded with the Chiang Mai initiative, ASEAN-plus-3 and other measures to reduce U.S. influence. Green suggested that there are potentially lessons here for a rising China. Second, a return to Sinocentric unipolarity. Evocative of the old tribute system, this holds some appeal for China, but it too is not feasible. The idea that China could be a benign regional hegemon was reflected in the Jiang Zemin-era notion of China's peaceful rise and the Hu Jintao-era ideas of peaceful development and a harmonious world. The model also fits with China's self-image as a stalwart proponent of non-interference in other states' internal affairs (in contrast with the U.S.'s approach) and its reliance on economic ties as the foundation of its regional relations. Despite its economic prowess, China is no longer the center of its world. Instead, China is enmeshed in an international economic system in which supply chains are truly global and capital flows in Asia are more extra-regional than intra-regional. Moreover, the states along China's periphery are averse to a new Sinocentric order. Their modern nationalism rejects quasi-tributary relations. Some remember a bitter history of China's use of force. Some have unresolved territorial disputes with China. Many distrust Beijing's agenda for the future. Third, a bipolar order steered by a U.S.-China condominium. This model is reflected in talk of a "G-2" and, more broadly, the long-standing U.S. policy of engagement with China that seeks to socialize China, making it into a normal power that can be incorporated into something resembling a concert of powers. This approach seemed to offer a means for the U.S. to Foreign Policy Research Institute E-Notes accommodate a rising China, much as Washington had sought-initially and often unsuccessfully-to handle rising powers in the twentieth century. But U.S. policy, especially notably in recent years, has also included significant elements of hedging and balancing a rising China. Examples include George W. Bush's opening to India and the Barack Obama administration's toughened stance on South China Sea issues. A G-2-type arrangement also would require that China be willing to share major international responsibilities, which Beijing has not been prepared to do. It also ill-fits with Asia's generally multipolar structure (given India's rise and Japan's persistence as major powers) and with a rich tradition of U.S. thought on strategic relations in Asia, which has tended to be multipolar and to emphasize alliances and influence along the Asian rimland as a means to manage continental powers in Asia. Green urged a fourth approach to guide U.S. strategy toward China and the region along China's periphery-one that engages and seeks to shape China, pays attention to the region as a whole, does not overplay the U.S.'s limited hand with Asian states, appreciates the security dilemma the U.S. faces with China, understands the importance of multiple resources, emphasizes positive values, and recognizes multipolarity and the virtues of multilateralism. In terms of resources, the U.S. should attend to: the military balance of power (which has been made more difficult by impending budget cuts and deeper concerns triggered by the 2011 federal budget impasse, but which has been potentially partly redressed by the wisely increased-although badly presented-reemphasis on/pivot to East Asia in U.S. defense policy); the economic balance of power (which depends on the U.S. improving its own economy and supporting an open international economic order); and an ideational balance of power (which is an area of relative U.S. strength, vis-à-vis China, given China's relatively weak soft power). In terms of "positive values," the U.S. should emphasize promotion of economic cooperation, good governance, human rights, free and fair elections and the like. If the U.S. treads too heavily here, it risks pushback from regional states that are generally closer to Beijing than to Washington in their views about "interference" in other states' "internal affairs." U.S. multilateralism and emphasis on multipolarity will hardly assuage China's concerns about what China sees as a U.S. containment strategy, but they are better for U.S. goals than a perception that Washington pursues unipolar dominance. A multipolar perspective fits with the mixture of cooperation and competition that will characterize U.S. relations with China generally and in the context of complicated relations along China's periphery. It also will support the U.S.'s understanding that getting Asia policy right and getting China policy right are interdependent goals. It can underpin appropriate policies of complex, multifaceted and multi-layered engagement with China's neighbors. Examples of this complexity include the coexistence of APEC, the East Asian Summit, the pursuit of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and U.S.-regional state bilateral and "minilateral" engagement. Multilateralism and an emphasis on multipoloraity also would be consistent with policies that addresses effectively the complexity and diversity of regional actors' political orders (ranging from consolidated democracies, to transitional states, to authoritarian regimes, to peoples who lack their own governments but seek greater autonomy), their agendas in relations with the U.S. (ranging from Japan's interest in a strong U.S. presence to several Southeast Asian states' pursuit of "just enough" U.S. involvement), and their formal relations with the United States (ranging from treaty allies such as Japan, Korea and Australia, to others with long-standing or recently strengthening but less formal ties, to until-recentlypariah states such as Burma, to ethnic groups such as Tibetans and Uighurs that straddle China's borders).