East Asian fiasco

George Bush's tour of East Asia after attending the APEC summit does not produce any major success stories.

P. S. SURYANARAYANA in Singapore

SUMMIT diplomacy, flawed by the indiscriminate use of military power to advance foreign policy goals, failed to lift the sagging political spirit of United States President George W. Bush, as he toured East Asia in the second half of November.

The high point of his visit was the 14th summit of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Forum in Hanoi on November 18 and 19. The event was, in Washington's original calculation, ideally suited to project Bush as the great new friend of an old enemy, Vietnam. In the end, while he managed to please his Vietnamese hosts much to the chagrin of some of his so-called "pro-democracy" critics, he could hardly measure up as a statesman in regard to any of the current crises - the North Korean nuclear arms issue or even the Doha Round of global trade talks that remained stalled as of writing.

The U.S.-Vietnam interlude of political bonhomie and economic engagement, enacted on the sidelines of the APEC summit, was largely a product of Hanoi's proactive diplomacy. To an extent Bush did respond, keeping an eye on China as the major regional power which, in his thinking, should not be allowed to wean a new Vietnam away from the potential embrace of the U.S. However, Bush was constantly dogged by criticism that he was bending over backwards to please Hanoi at a time when his own maladroit military invasion of Iraq appeared likely to end in a comprehensive U.S. defeat as in Vietnam three decades ago.

Throughout the tour, Bush did attempt to draw a huge distinction between the Vietnam War of the bygone Cold War era and his current military adventure in Iraq in a period of evolving history with "no" ostensible power blocs.

As he completed the tour, during which time even staunch U.S. allies in the region saw him as a wounded hero at best, Bush could hardly count on any success story. His participation in the APEC summit led to no consensus on the major regional issue of North Korea's nuclear programme, and his brief visit to Indonesia before he winged his way back home was marred by anti-U.S. rallies and the absence of any new political or strategic deal with Jakarta. That left his visit to Singapore, prior to his arrival in Hanoi for the APEC summit, as the only tension-free episode during the entire tour.

There were no great crises to be resolved during his stay in Singapore. Although a good friend of Washington in the defence cooperation domain as well, the city-state has never styled itself as a military ally of the U.S. The two countries have a vibrant economic relationship, underpinned in more recent times by a free trade agreement, and China has never really figured as an issue of concern to either side in this bilateral equation. This has remained the defining feature of their public diplomacy, despite Singapore's well-known identity as a multi-cultural society with an ethnic Chinese majority.

That being the case, Bush made an impact in Singapore by delivering a major foreign policy speech. In it, he outlined the current U.S. thinking on the Asia Pacific region. Surprisingly, he hardly mentioned China except, in passing, as a key player in the six-party talks on the de-nuclearisation of the Korean peninsula. Whether his conspicuous action of denying China a prominent place in a major U.S. foreign policy speech was by design or otherwise, he somewhat made up for the lost ground at the APEC summit.

On the sidelines of that conference, Bush met his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao and praised China as "a very important nation" for the "security of the world". Hu was no less effusive about being "very happy" over the present trend of "healthy and stable expansion of China-U.S. relations". While these comments should eclipse the strategic gap in regard to China in Bush's Singapore speech on November 16, he did not, while in Hanoi later, conceal the real purpose of Washington's current goodwill towards Beijing.

Bush said, quite explicitly, that he believed that the U.S. and China could, by working together, help solve the nuclear crises relating to not only North Korea but also Iran. China's status as a veto-empowered permanent member of the United Nations Security Council underpins Bush's thinking in this regard, and China's own special links with North Korea, which date back to the Korean War of the early 1950s, are of secondary importance, in a relative sense.

In this perspective, China's value to him transcends its presence as an East Asian power. So, Bush may have, in his carefully vetted foreign policy speech in Singapore, decided to focus greater attention on the other Asia Pacific powers that have no say comparable to China's at the U.N. This also explains his scant attention to Russia, another influential player at the U.N. and an Asia Pacific power.

Nonetheless, it is equally important that Bush cited seven countries as being Washington's existing and potential "partners" for "security cooperation in Asia" in the defence domain. These are Japan, South Korea, Australia, the Philippines, India, Vietnam, and Singapore.

Of these, the conspicuous new entrants are India and Vietnam. Recalling the "historic" defence cooperation agreement that the U.S. had already entered into with India, he elucidated that the range of cooperation would extend from joint military exercises to intelligence sharing.

The American Senate's passage of the U.S.-India Nuclear Cooperation Bill coincided with Bush's stay in Singapore, and he lost no time to hail the "strategic partnership" between the two countries. Noting that the Bill would "further strengthen" this partnership, he emphasised that the bilateral executive agreement, which formed the basis of the Bill, would "bring India into the international nuclear non-proliferation mainstream".

Debatable as these issues are in the larger India-U.S. dialogue on issues concerning civil nuclear energy cooperation, Bush regarded his intervention in Singapore as a further testament to his political will for placing India firmly on the Asia Pacific map of America's strategic interests. Regardless of India's final line on this issue of an exemption from the U.S. laws on nuclear energy-related cooperation with foreign powers, Bush left no one in doubt about his desire to draw India into a warm U.S. embrace, on Washington's terms, though.

Among the other countries that Bush cited, Japan remains firmly in the U.S. camp, while South Korea, a long-standing military ally, has made no secret of its decision against "full-scope" participation in the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI). The U.S.-led PSI specialises in the interdiction of cargo, being carried by any means of transport, with a view to "prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction". South Korea's objections relate to its sensitivities about interdicting such cargo coming from or going to North Korea, a close ethnic neighbour. In an exit line, though, South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun had told Bush on the sidelines of the APEC summit, that Seoul would remain committed to the goals of the PSI.

Yet another staunch U.S. ally, Australia, has been sending out unmistakable signals about its desire to chart an autonomous course on some strategic issues in East Asia. Prime Minister John Howard has kept Bush informed of Australia's policy of "non-containment" towards China.

As for Vietnam's status as a potential U.S. "partner", Bush is aware of the fiercely independent line that Hanoi is fond of taking in its own national interest. Singapore is no less careful a player, and the Philippines, too, has been seeking better ties with China.

So, if China is indeed the unstated but pretty obvious power that Bush would like to confound, if not also seek to contain, by stitching a tapestry of U.S.-friendly partnership in East Asia, the odds are very heavy indeed. India in particular has made it clear, during Hu Jintao's latest visit to New Delhi, how much it values improving ties with China.

In all, therefore, Bush's latest catalogue of real and potential "partners" is an attempt to respond to a perceived situation in which, according to scholars such as Stephen M. Walt, "while Americans debate how they should use their power, the rest of the world is preoccupied with what it can do to tame American power".