« Euro vision | Main | Nobel notions »
December 05, 2009
New orientation
Between the lofty, untested principles of political candidacy and the urgent and unexpected realities of governance lies something of a middle ground, or an overall orientation that can guide a president's foreign policy and serve as a prism through which he or she can interpret global events. In the first year of his presidency, and especially in the past month, Obama's general foreign policy orientation has begun to emerge.
A convenient way of interpreting such orientations is through political and economic geography. During the Cold War, U.S. foreign policy was oriented toward the containment of Communist expansion. This orientation was global in scale, but its geographic emphasis was Europe. Historically, this made sense. Both world wars had erupted in Europe, and the United States had invested significant resources in rebuilding and securing the continent after World War II. The region held a cultural affinity for millions of Americans, and it maintained close economic ties with the United States. Looking forward, the orientation on Europe also made sense. It represented the vanguard of Soviet expansion, with hundreds of thousands of troops in East Germany and the prospect of nuclear conflict representing the most dangerous security challenge in the world. Following the Cold War, the orientation of U.S. foreign policy began to drift, until 2001, when the 9/11 attacks refocused attention on the suppression of global terrorism.
Under President Obama, the suppression of terrorism still remains a paramount objective. But in his tone and his actions, it seems clear that terrorism is not the prism through which he views the world. Likewise, Obama places great value on the U.S. relationship with Europe. He has already paid several visits to the continent, and he is quite popular there. But from the U.S. perspective, the relative importance of Europe has been waning. This reality became increasingly clear in November.
During Obama's first trip to Asia this month, the president paid visits to Japan, Singapore, China, and South Korea. At each stop, the importance of Asia as Obama's prevailing foreign policy orientation became increasingly clear. Of all of the countries on his itinerary, it is Japan's relationship with the United States that has most resembled the United States' relationship with Europe. Japan rebuilt itself after World War II under the protection of the United States and developed a political and economic system that was friendly to the United States' Cold War ideology. To this day, Japan houses thousands of U.S. soldiers, and disagreement over the relocation of important U.S. bases on Okinawa dominated much of Obama's discussion with Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama. Obama also used Japan, as the oldest and most reliable U.S. ally on his itinerary, as the venue to deliver a wide-ranging speech on the importance of Asia. He emphasized the importance of long-standing U.S. treaty obligations in the region and the value of cultivating economic “spheres of cooperation, not competing spheres of influence.” Obama also announced that the United States would engage with the Trans Pacific Partnership, a regional Asia-Pacific free trade agreement that currently includes only four countries but could eventually form the basis for a much wider trade bloc.
In Singapore, Obama both reiterated a long-standing commitment in the region and began a new one. He participated in the meeting of leaders from the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) countries, which U.S. presidents have made a habit of doing in recent years. But Obama also participated in a summit with leaders from the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN). This was the first time a U.S. president had met with ASEAN leaders in a formal summit, and the act carried significant symbolic value. Paving the way for the joint summit was Obama's willingness to meet with a leader from Burma, an ASEAN member but also a notoriously repressive state. Obama's meeting with Prime Minister Thein Sein was the first time a U.S. president had directly interacted with a Burmese leader in over 40 years, and it was a reflection of his new strategy of trying to engage with the military regime there in the hope of encouraging reform. Obama's meeting yielded little in the way of specific concessions, but the fact that he valued deeper engagement in the region over a long-standing refusal to meet with Burmese leaders was an important shift in U.S. policy.
Obama's visit to China could be considered the heart of his trip to Asia. He held a town hall meeting with students in Shanghai and met with President Hu Jintao in Beiing. Critics have suggested that Obama left China with few concessions from the Communist regime. They note that he was unable to secure wider broadcast of his town hall meeting in Shanghai or convince the government to modify its currency policy or support a tougher approach toward Iran. On these points, the critics are correct. Whether that necessarily represents a failure, however, is not as clear. The reality is that the United States cannot dictate to China as it once could, or as it might wish to today. Not only is its economy large and growing, China also holds $800 billion in U.S. debt. It plays a significant role in financing the U.S. economy, and it has assumed a greater stake in a wider range of U.S. domestic policy than it ever has before. China has become increasingly concerned, for example, with the effect that health care reform legislation will have on the U.S. budget deficit. This is not to suggest that China can now dictate terms to the United States. But the economic and political realities have shifted such that the United States and China must now engage each other on more equal terms.
Obama's tour of Asia coincided with important developments on the other side of the United States, in Europe. In October, the European Union cleared the final hurdles toward ratifying the Lisbon Treaty (for more, see The Water's Edge, October 2009). Among the treaty's most important reforms was the creation of the posts of president of the European Council and of high representative for foreign and security policy (essentially an EU foreign minister). These positions could potentially strengthen the collective voice of the EU on the international stage. At a meeting of EU heads of government this month, Europe's leaders selected Belgian Prime Minister Herman Van Rompuy to be president of the European Council and EU Trade Commissioner Lady Ashton of the United Kingdom as the high representative for foreign and security policy. By all accounts, these were sound selections. But neither individual has the stature of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who was rumored to be in the running for the Council presidency. By selecting such obscure personalities to fill these new positions, the leaders of the EU's individual member states took a deliberately cautious approach. Instead of taking advantage of the Lisbon Treaty to create a stronger international presence for the EU, Europe's leaders sought to prolong the status quo, in which foreign policy is largely directed from the 27 national capitals of the separate EU member states. In other words, serious change was deferred.
That Obama's trip to Asia overlapped with the EU's selection of new leaders was purely coincidental. But it underscored the shifting orientation of U.S. foreign policy. Where Asia presented a series of genuine challenges to a once pre-eminent United States, Europe deferred action that would have seriously increased its global stature. This is not to say that Europe will become any less important to U.S. interests or to suggest that any other issue (such as terrorism) will fade from the U.S. agenda. Nor is the shift of attention entirely due to any conscious decision, by Obama or anyone else. Instead, geographical and political reality has coincided with the term of a new U.S. president who is eager to conduct foreign policy in a fundamentally different manner than his predecessor. Compared to the historical emphasis placed on Europe, the relative importance of Asia for both U.S. domestic and foreign policy is increasing at a dramatic rate. Meanwhile, during George Bush's presidency, many Asian leaders felt ignored by a United States preoccupied with foreign wars. During his tour of the region, Obama hoped to send the message that “the United States is back.” This is the clearest indication yet that U.S. foreign policy will become increasingly oriented toward Asia, during Obama's presidency and beyond.
Foreign Policy Association, 3 December 2009
Posted by Daniel Widome at 01:59 AM to Asia,
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.watsonblogs.org/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1732
