U.S. policy on Asia seen steady in new Bush govt

U.S. policy on Asia seen steady in new Bush govt

Karl Malakunas, Agence France-Presse/Singapore

Asian governments will miss Colin Powell's moderating voice in
the Bush administration but his resignation as secretary of state
does not necessarily signal a more hawkish U.S. approach to the
region, analysts said on Tuesday.

Asian leaders enjoyed working with Powell, whose accommodating
style contrasted with those of the so-called neo-conservatives
within President George W. Bush's team such as Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld, they said.

"Colin Powell was a very pleasant personality to deal with,"
former Association of Southeast Asian Nations secretary general
Rodolfo Severino told AFP.

"He was not abrasive and he tried to understand the other side
of the argument. His style was very much appreciated (by Asian
leaders). People certainly liked him a lot."

Brian Bridges, a North Asian expert from Hong Kong's Lingnan
University, agreed that Powell was seen as an important
moderating influence to Rumsfeld, Vice President Dick Cheney and
the other hawks of the Bush administration.

"Many Asian governments were disturbed by the style of the
Bush administration but they probably saw Powell as the slightly
more human face," Bridges said.

"I think there's been a general Asian respect for him as a
diplomat and they found the message from the Bush administration
highly more palatable expressed through his style rather than
through the style of Rumsfeld or Cheney."

The Japan government's spokesman, Chief Cabinet Secretary
Hiroyuki Hosoda, summed up on Tuesday the views of many in Asia
in expressing disappointment at Powell's resignation, which was
announced on Monday.

"As an extremely well-balanced secretary of state, he did a
great job," Hosoda said.

However disappointment over Powell's exit was being tempered
by the general view that his likely successor as secretary of
state, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, would adopt a
similarly soothing approach.

"As much as Colin Powell has been seen as a bulwark against
the neo-conservative push, it seems to me that Condoleezza Rice
may play the very same role," Tan See Seng, an assistant
professor at Singapore's Institute of Defense and Strategic
Studies (IDSS), told AFP.

"She strikes me as someone who very much fits into the same
conventional, traditional, realistic mold as Powell. She doesn't
seem like someone who would toe the neo-conservative line."

Michael Fullilove, the global issues program director at
Australia's Lowy Institute for International Policies, said it
was too early to conclude that Powell's exit was a defeat for the
moderate forces.

"It is certainly true that Colin Powell was the lone
internationalist voice in the Bush administration," Fullilove
said.

"(But) in my mind Condeleezza Rice is not an ideological
person. She's always struck me more as a manager than a policy
maker."

Severino also said that Rice "seemed to be a very balanced,
sober person".

While the analysts' said it was too early to determine what
the major foreign policy changes under a re-elected Bush
administration will be, they agreed the U.S. approach to Asia
would likely see no drastic revamp.

This included all the major Asian issues that the U.S. is
involved in, such as the six-party talks on North Korea, the
long-running China-Taiwan dispute and the regional theater of the
war on terrorism.

"I don't see any significant changes in a second Bush
administration as far as the Asia Pacific is concerned," the
IDSS's Tan said.

Tan emphasized the Bush administration's foreign policies in
Asia were generally inclusive and multilateralist, in contrast to
its global reputation for unilateralism.

On North Korea, Fullilove and Lingnan University's Bridges
said the United States would remain involved in the six-party
talks, albeit with a lack of enthusiasm.

"What other options have they got other than six-party
talks?," Fullilove said.

Bridges said he did not agree with speculation that if the
United States managed to deal with its problems in Iraq, it would
then focus on North Korea, which is along with Iran one of the
two surviving members of Bush's "axis of evil".

"My personal view is that Iran is possibly a faster rising
issue and the Bush administration would like to keep North Korea
on the back burner for the time being," he said.