'Bimbogate' diverts U.S. attention<\/p>\n
As the financial turmoil afflicting Asia has developed over
\nthe last six months, the role played by the United States has
\nbeen critical. The Jakarta Post Asia correspondent Harvey
\nStockwin attempts an overview of the U.S. posture towards Asia's
\ncrisis, and how it will be affected by the alleged scandal
\narising from President Bill Clinton's attempt to clear himself of
\ncharges of sexual transgressions.<\/p>\n
HONG KONG (JP): President Bill Clinton's so-called \"bimbo
\neruption\" could not have come at a worst time for East or
\nSoutheast Asia. \"Bimbo eruption\" sounds like a boil that needs to
\nbe lanced -- and politically, that is precisely the situation
\nwhich Clinton faces.<\/p>\n
The alleged scandal arises when Asia, by contrast, is faced by
\na situation in which the world's fourth largest nation,
\nIndonesia, seems close to financial collapse, as a result of the
\nfree fall of the rupiah, and a seemingly inevitable partial
\ndefault on its foreign borrowings.<\/p>\n
Even before the world outside the American Middle Kingdom ever
\nheard of Ms Monica Lewinsky, the Clinton administration appeared
\nto be giving less than its full attention to what is arguably the
\nmost serious Asian crisis since the Vietnam War.<\/p>\n
Now, as what will probably be called \"Bimbogate\" threatens
\nClinton's effectiveness and durability, and attains cyclonic
\nforce in the frenzied world of the sensation-seeking U.S. media,
\nit appears that the Americans are in real danger of joining the
\nJapanese: instead of providing and sustaining a solution to the
\nEast and Southeast Asian financial crisis, the Americans, too,
\nmay become part of the problem.<\/p>\n
They were in danger of becoming that anyway. Ever since the
\ngreat Southeast Asian stock and currency slide began last July,
\nto be quickly followed by the great East Asian Economic setback,
\nthe Clinton administration has been faced with a delicate
\ndiplomatic problem.<\/p>\n
On the one hand, the Clinton administration was bound, by the
\nvery nature of the crisis, to take positions which the super-
\nsensitive would misconstrue as inconsiderate at best, or
\nneocolonial at worst -- as some sections of South Korean opinion
\nalready have done.<\/p>\n
On the other hand, the Americans simply had to take a fairly
\nfirm stand, even if they did intend to visit the Asian crises
\nmainly on the coattails of the International Monetary Fund (IMF)
\nand the World Bank.<\/p>\n
The obvious answer was to combine a firm posture with a policy
\nof careful consideration and empathy for its friends and allies
\non the other side of the Pacific. The U.S. had no choice, for
\nexample, but to insist repeatedly to the South Koreans that their
\nlack of openness to the outside world lay near the heart of their
\neconomic crisis and must be rectified. It would have been easier
\nto stress this if it had been accompanied by some high-level
\nvisits to convey reassurance, thereby trying to undermine
\npredictable Korean xenophobia.<\/p>\n
Leaving aside what Clinton really does accomplish inside the
\nOval Office, in the real world it has been a case of \"none of the
\nabove\".<\/p>\n
U.S. policy towards South Korea has mirrored the self-
\ndefeating softness of past U.S. policy towards Japan -- thereby
\nimplicitly accepting essentially mercantilist policies which are
\nneither in the American nor the East Asian longterm interest.<\/p>\n
Unable to pay enough attention to Korea, until events on the
\nmoney markets forced it to do so, the administration soft-
\npedaled its justifiable demands for a more open economy. But
\nthat soft-pedaling has still been enough to enable xenophobia to
\ntake firmer hold. The Americans are in the unenviable position of
\nbeing damned if they do, and damned if they don't.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile Koreans are writing articles lauding the success of
\ntheir \"campaign\" to radically reduce the \"enemy\" of foreign
\nimports as a triumph of economic good sense. Nowhere is it
\npointed out in such articles that if Americans, Asians and
\nEuropeans felt the same way about curtailing Korean imports, the
\nKorean crisis would become unimaginably worse, and South Korea
\nwould never have achieved its present level of development.<\/p>\n
It is difficult to escape the conclusion that, at the heart of
\nthe trouble with they have handled the regional crises, the
\nAmericans have failed because they did not take the creeping
\ncrisis seriously enough as early as they should have done.<\/p>\n
Clinton himself illustrated this as he attended the Asia
\nPacific Economic Cooperation forum summit in December in
\nVancouver and was reported as referring to the crisis as merely
\nbeing a \"glitch\" in regional progress -- far too sanguine a view
\nin view of what had already happened at that stage.<\/p>\n
There may have been some U.S.-Singapore interaction at work in
\nClinton's remark. Singapore had also tended towards a far too
\nrelaxed view of the crisis, possibly because its stock and
\ncurrency have been less badly affected than any other nation.
\nPrime Minister Goh Chok Tong had long called the crisis a mere
\n\"blip\" on the ASEAN radar screen. Goh and Clinton played golf
\ntogether prior to Clinton making his \"glitch\" remark.<\/p>\n
Be that as it may, the lack of an American sense of urgency,
\nregarding Asia's financial woes, has been well illustrated in
\nrelation to Thailand. On the one hand, if an appropriate degree
\nof toughness early on had emanated from Washington DC in relation
\nto regionally damaging procrastination in Bangkok, it might have
\nhelped to bring about the earlier fall of the excessively corrupt
\nChavalit government.<\/p>\n
On the other hand, now that there has been a democratic change
\nto an administration which at least faces up to Thailand's
\ndifficulties, the U.S. seems only inclined to support it with
\nwords. This seemed to be the pattern as the Thai Minister of
\nFinance Tarrin Nimmanahaeminda visited Washington just before
\nBimbogate burst upon the scene.<\/p>\n
Given the Thai perception of themselves as longtime allies of
\nthe United States, as well as being a nation seeking to
\nstrengthen both its democracy and its economy, it really was
\nessential for the Clinton administration to give some tangible
\nsign of support. As far as can be seen it was not forthcoming and
\nthe Thai sense of disappointment was palpable. Washington was
\nseen, in Bangkok, as favoring far-from-democratic Indonesia.<\/p>\n
In point of fact, the America-centric nature of current U.S.
\nforeign policy was almost certainly illustrated by the treatment
\naccorded to Finance Minister Tarrin, even before Bimbogate.
\nHaving already failed to get Congress to renew Clinton's ability
\nto \"fast-track\" trade agreements (a crucial failure as far as
\nAsia is concerned), the Clinton administration is also far from
\ncertain about securing Congressional approval of an American
\nreplenishment of its pledges to the IMF.<\/p>\n
This replenishment, involving renewal of periodic pledges plus
\nsupport for a new emergency fund, is absolutely vital if the IMF
\nis to fulfill the role being allotted to it in the current
\ncrises.<\/p>\n
Anxious to demonstrate its toughness to Congress, Clinton and
\nTreasury Secretary Rubin no doubt felt they could not afford to
\n\"replenish\" the Thais. Hence they could only give Tarrin verbal
\nsupport, as domestic political considerations took precedence
\nover what should have been an important foreign policy
\nimperative.<\/p>\n
Put another way, the Clinton administration was on the
\ndefensive in its Asia policy before Bimbogate broke -- and now
\nthat the alleged scandal and its accompanying media frenzy has
\nbroken, it will probably be even more on the defensive.<\/p>\n
The sorry tale was superbly illustrated as Rubin finally got
\naround to delivering a lengthy and substantial speech about the
\nAsian financial crisis on Jan. 21 at Georgetown University.
\n\"Simply put,\" Rubin said, \"we cannot afford to stand back and
\ngamble that the crisis will resolve itself\".<\/p>\n
But that is precisely what the U.S. has appeared to do for far
\ntoo long. Rubin's speech itself should have been delivered months
\nago -- then his articulation of American views and policy
\nregarding the crisis might have had greater impact.<\/p>\n
Given the delay in delivering the U.S. crisis assessment, it
\nwould have been better if Clinton himself had now delivered the
\nspeech. But Clinton's mind was almost certainly elsewhere.
\nIronically, Rubin's articulation of U.S. aims was drowned out in
\nthe American media by the breaking scandal.<\/p>\n
Ironically, too, Asian leaders beset by financial woes will
\nprobably not be carefully reading the Rubin speech as they should
\nbe doing.<\/p>\n
Much more likely, they will be eagerly absorbing cables from
\ntheir ambassadors in Washington assessing whether or not a second
\nU.S. presidential resignation is in the offing, or whether a
\ndistracted Clinton presidency is likely to have the effect of
\ndeepening Asia's ongoing crisis.<\/p>",
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