The role of the United States in Asia

The role of the United States in Asia

SINGAPORE: Both Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong and Senior
Minister Lee Kuan Yew were overseas in the past week, the former
visiting the United States and the latter, China. While abroad,
both reiterated Singapore's support for a U.S. presence in East
Asia, with Lee making in Beijing the same point that the Prime
Minister was conveying in Washington.

"We are going to train in Taiwan, we are going to have the
United States given access to our bases. That position is
unchanged. That is in our interest," he said, when asked by the
media how Singapore would balance its ties to China and the
United States. And in Washington, Goh stated simply: "In the
strategic sense, the United States is very much a part of East
Asia. It has been, and still is, a positive force for stability
and prosperity."

In a wide-ranging speech to the U.S.-ASEAN Business Council,
he went on to describe how the United States might play a useful
role in helping to manage the on-going changes in East Asia. To
well-informed observers, the positions he took will not come as a
surprise, for they are consistent with Singapore's long-held
policies. Still, they bear reiteration.

Firstly, on the all-important U.S.-China relationship, Goh
observed that the recent EP-3 incident, involving the collision
of a Chinese fighter and a U.S. surveillance plane, "will not be,
and should not be, the defining factor in U.S.-China relations
during the Bush administration".

That relationship should be focused on the long view -- the
incorporation of China as a constructive player on the world
stage -- and ensuring that East Asia remains in balance even as
China grows. Balance, however, did not mean confrontation, he
stressed. It does not mean conscribing China's growth or
containing its power.

"It means that as China grows and becomes stronger, other
countries in Asia too should grow and become stronger, buttressed
by a strong U.S. presence. It means mutually beneficial growth."
One would hope that the various forces in Washington that are now
debating U.S. policy towards China will bear in mind this crucial
distinction between balance and containment.

As former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger has noted, the
fact that the previous administration's policy of a "strategic
partnership" with China has failed, does not mean that the only
alternative is strategic rivalry or outright enmity.

On another issue, of more immediate concern to Singapore, Goh
urged the U.S. not to neglect Southeast Asia. "Given the
strategic weight that America deploys, if the United States
regards ASEAN less seriously, it could become a self-fulfilling
prophecy," he warned.

Neglect may compromise ASEAN's economic recovery; and that, in
turn, will compromise Japan's recovery, for its economy is
closely integrated with Southeast Asia's. On Indonesia, he urged
that once the political situation there stabilized, the U.S.
should help it regain international confidence.

Goh did not say this, but many in the region are conscious
that Washington was more engaged with Indonesia during the height
of the global financial crisis of 1997-1998 than it has been
since. The fear of contagion, the feeling that financial upheaval
there may ricochet through the region and possibly affect the
United States, prompted that concern. But now that fear has
subsided, so too has the concern.

But as Goh reminded his audience, the facts of geography have
not changed: Indonesia, a vast archipelago, still sits astride
vital sea lanes. An unstable Indonesia will not be just an East
Asian but a global problem. Contagion did not really end in 1998,
it merely changed form.

-- The Straits Times/Asia News Network