COMMENTARY
East-West seminar well suited for tracking Asian tectonics

By John Griffin

Progress amid problems and growing complexities — that's the picture of the United States in Asia that emerged from last month's Senior Policy Seminar of 32 American and Asia-Pacific experts gathered by the East-West Center.

Topics included North Korea and its nuclear threats, views of the United States and its policies, the war on terrorism soon entering its third year since 9-11, the role of economics on U.S. policy, and the need for new systems of cooperation among nations in the changing region.

Iraq and Afghanistan were not on the formal agenda, but the wars and aftermath there cut across various topics as reminders of U.S. power, its limits, and controversial consequences of both.

For a variety of reasons, the United States enjoys good relations with the big powers in Asia — China, Russia, Japan and India — and with most of the smaller ones. But that did not block criticism and questions raised by the diplomats, scholars and officials from a dozen countries.

Issues and ironies abound in such free-flowing discussion around tables arranged in a square. Under the ground rules, to encourage candor, specific comments can't be attributed. But here are some of the main points and personal thoughts that struck me as an observer during the three days:

• The talks on North Korea that were held in Beijing offered both an enormous challenge and an opportunity for new cooperation and peace in Northeast Asia where big power interests meet.

A deal to guarantee North Korea's security in return for that rogue state's giving up nuclear weapons could prove possible eventually, especially if China continues its key positive role. But nobody at the seminar was underestimating the uphill odds.

And the experts went over the tough questions: If the talks failed, could the world live with a nuclear North Korea that continues its outlaw ways? If a deal were made, could North Korea finally face joining the international community as a responsible member? There are doubts about both. So then what?

If regime change was not required, one got the feeling that some kind of regime reform would be necessary behind the diplomatic wording of any deal.

• Charges of American unilateralism were made with Iraq as the prime example. But they were also answered with assurances that what we did in virtually going it alone in Iraq is not a pattern for elsewhere, and especially in the Asia-Pacific region where we stress cooperation and various alliances.

Still the unilateral-multilateral debate is not that simple. Our alliances are evolving with need, as noted in the North Korea talks. The term "ad hoc" was used a lot in talking about both alliances to meet new problems and in military innovations.

• The idea of a growing "American Empire" that emerged this year was termed an exaggeration, if only because the American people don't want one and Iraq is proving we couldn't afford it anyway.

But, along with some praise for good steps the United States is taking in Asia and the Pacific, there were suggestions that American imperialism and arrogance were more valid charges about the missionary zeal and world goals of the Bush administration.

At the least we have a severe public relations problem due to mixed messages from a sometimes-divided Washington and the "good cop, bad cop" tactics of the administration. Add to that the image of a gunslinger president that many Americans may like but others find hostile, alarming or at least confusing.

• Southeast Asia continues as a second front in the war on terrorism. Most concern goes for an unstable Indonesia where feelings toward the United States seem on a pendulum between bombing incidents that dramatize the war on terror and opposition to the U.S. role in Iraq and the rest of the Muslim world.

Both Indonesia and the Philippines call for forms of American involvement. Yet both also show the danger of the United States mixing into domestic controversies amid the war on terrorism.

In all cases, it remains most important for Americans to realize that terror is just a tactic and symptom of deeper social and political issues that must be addressed. In that sense, we must learn to wage peace as well as we wage wars.

• South Asia was not emphasized so much in this fifth of annual EWC senior policy seminars, although women diplomatic and academic specialists from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh made good points.

Still, last month's bombings in Bombay, India, underscored the longtime and continuing dangers of terrorism in South Asia and possibilities of escalating regional conflict, including with nuclear weapons, that have become a permanent feature.

That, in turn, makes the point against nuclear proliferation in East Asia where a nuclear North Korea might be followed by Japan, South Korea and Taiwan wanting and developing such weapons.

• On economics, one heard several references to how increased trade and globalization were sometimes restraining elements against violence and for peaceful solutions — bucks over bullets, if you will.

China's emphasis on economic growth has been a factor for its international moderation and more cooperation with the United States. Japan remains the No. 2 world economic power but its long recession has diminished its influence in the region.

On another front, an economist noted that the countries of East Asia now account for 70 percent of global foreign exchange reserves compared with only 30 percent in 1990.

Central banks of East Asia nations friendly to the United States have been using those funds to prop up the dollar exchange rate. And that allows the United States to play the role of global superpower while running unprecedented deficits.

This is unlikely to change for now because of heavy trade with the United States. But some might wonder about the future.

• Anti-terrorism was said to have a limited shelf life as a unifying factor in an East Asia where old alliances need to change and evolve with time. Events will drive such new alliances or at least move nations toward new relationships, as has happened with the expansion and new missions for NATO in Europe.

In Asia, the United States has operated on a now-dated "hub and spoke" concept where we were at the center with ties out to others in bilateral alliances. But now some of the spokes like South Korea are restless and we have to face the idea that China may want to be a hub as well.

In all this, I was impressed how several speakers referred to our changing geopolitical world in geological terms of shifting tectonic plates around the globe.

People are often shocked and sobered by dramatic earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. But those are just symptoms of the slower and more profound movements, the deeper shifts of the huge plates below Earth's surface.

Similarly, we all feel the quakes and eruptions in world political and economic events that make headlines. Yet it is the role of the East-West Center and other institutions to look for and understand the deeper ongoing events that will change our lives and history.

And that seems only right for a Hawai'i that itself was built by magma flowing up from the deep via a "hot spot" or hole in a Pacific tectonic plate and is itself moving slowly but surely toward Asia.

John Griffin is the former editor of The Advertiser's editorial pages and is a frequent contributor.