AEI's Michael Auslin, weighing in on the feud over China's denying US Navy ships access to Hong Kong at Contentions, argues that US credibility has suffered from a failure to respond to China's behavior other than by sending the USS Kitty Hawk back to Japan via the Taiwan Straits.He says, "A number of my Asia-wonk …
Tag: US Asia policy
Hold steady on China
Following the ASAT test conducted in January of this year, the behavior of the PLA is once again providing China hawks in the US with reason to bang the war drums (or perhaps just the containment cymbals, not that those are any less distressing). The latest incident, of course, involves China's last-minute rejection of a …
New wind in Asia?
Is it me, or in a few short months has the mood in Asia changed?Remember Sydney in early September? A bedraggled Prime Minister Abe, fresh from proclaiming a new era of cooperation among Asian democracies in India, went to Sydney for APEC, where he met with President Bush and Australia's John Howard. It was at …
Towards a new alliance
Looking over Secretary Gates's visit to Tokyo, there were few surprises.He "demanded" to legislators that Japan renew its refueling mission. He voiced his opposition to proposed cuts in Japan's host-nation support (i.e., the sympathy budget) for US forces in Japan. And has become standard for ministerial visits to Japan, he reasssured Japan of the viability …
The vanishing ally
Candidate Clinton has penned her contribution on foreign policy for the ongoing feature in Foreign Affairs on the foreign policies of the major presidential contenders.I haven't found much of value in the contributions thus far, and Senator Clinton's is no exception. Her world view essentially emphasizes "power and principle." I'm not entirely clear how that …
The three stooges
At the tail end of the APEC summit, Messrs. Abe, Bush, and Howard met for a much-vaunted security summit that came in the wake of the US-India-Australia-Japan-Singapore exercises in the Indian Ocean (the "quad" + one?).Commentator Richard Halloran believes that the quad is shaping up to be a "informal defensive pact based on shared national …
That area east of Iraq
President Bush, after an unannounced layover in Baghdad, has arrived in Sydney for the APEC summit.The Washington Post's article on the trip (inadvertently?) identifies the problem with Asia policy in the waning years of the Bush administration. The headline reads, "Bush Arrives in Australia for Summit," but the body copy proceeds to focus entirely on …
The US plays the game
With this week devoted to meetings running up to the weekend's APEC summit (I'm curious about what leaders will wear for the Australian "national costume" photo), there is lots of talk about the shape of US Asia policy as the Bush administration comes to a close.Kim Beazley, a former leader of Australia's Labor Party, writes …
Bush talks sense on China
This week is the 2007 APEC summit in Sydney, and in advance of the week-long summitry, President Bush has been talking Asia — and saying the right things.In a round table discussion with foreign journalists (hat tip: The Swamp), Mr. Bush spoke of the "complex relationship" between the US and China, but also noted, "...I …
In Asia’s future, flexibility first
In the week since Prime Minister Abe called for an organization of democracies that would implicitly encircle China, his proposal has been met with deafening silence from the capitals of the countries that would be involved, illustrating just how out of touch with new realities the prime minister's foreign policy thinking is.As I've argued before, …
Tobias S. Harris 