A Pacific Quad along the lines of the Atlantic Quad would be impractical
at this time. Moreover, sharp constraints exist in the form of distrust
among Japan, China and Korea, which will make progress slow and
difficult. Indeed, the PRC and ROK do not now have diplomatic
relations.
Nonetheless, we have a high stake in gaining greater Asian (and
especially Japanese) support for our foreign policy. To this end, we
believe it might be possible for the U.S. to devise parallel policies and political interaction
with Japan and China through a more concerted approach to high-level
exchanges of visits (by Eagleburger, Wolfowitz and their counterparts) and to Department
guidance on key international issues (e.g., Kampuchea, Afghanistan and
INF). In fact, the Chinese plan to
approach the Japanese shortly to discuss their growing and shared
concerns over Soviet SS–20 deployments
in Asia. We also could test Tokyo’s and Beijing’s receptivity to a more
structured approach by seeking initially to arrange trilateral meetings
on specific but very modest economic, scientific or educational issues,
such as marine resources or coal technology. We could pursue a similar
trilateral approach with Japan and Korea where, despite national
antipathies, cooperation between Nakasone and Chun may afford a basis for more marked progress. The
Deputy Secretary might initiate similar meetings to brief these
groupings on carefully selected diplomatic issues, (e.g. Mideast,
southern Africa).
These two sets of trilaterals, with only Washington and Tokyo
participating in both, would reinforce the central Japanese-American
foundation for our East Asian and Pacific relationship. These
institutional arrangements also could be developed through Japan’s
involvement in the Summit–7, to include meetings of political directors
or Under Secretaries between the summits. Trilateral arrangements could
facilitate our wish to deepen Japanese cooperation internationally.
The attached paper analyzes the limits, opportunities and possible
tactical approaches to such a long-term strategy. I do not want to
overstate the case or minimize the obstacles, but there may be an
opportunity here to strengthen the potential in our northeast Asian
relationships which merits your consideration.
Attachment
Paper Prepared in the Policy Planning Council3
Washington, undated
Toward a Strategic Concept for U.S. Policy Toward Northeast Asia
East Asian Dynamics
Three major elements are particularly striking about the current
situation in East Asia.
- —
- Success. With the notable exceptions of
Indochina and the Philippines, the region is characterized by
stable peace, sustained prosperity and sound prospects. While
recurrent talk about the coming “Pacific Century” may be
premature, East Asia is likely to play an ever-larger role in
global politics and in the world economy. We should seek to
shape and channel these emerging forces to our advantage.
- —
- ASEAN
Cooperation. The growth of ASEAN unity and cooperation since the end of the
Vietnam war is one of the great regional success stories.
National divergencies have been subordinated to a common line on
Kampuchea and a rallying-around Thailand, the threatened
front-line sister-state. The ASEAN states also represent a set of some of the
fastest growing national economies in the world. In brief,
ASEAN has made a real
difference to the security and stability of post-war southeast
Asia, and is an important factor for stability as we face the
crisis in the Philippines.
- —
- Northeast Asian Ad-hocery. Growing
unity in free southeast Asia contrasts sharply with the rather
singularly national approaches of China, Japan and South Korea,
which (together with North Korea) make up the Northeast Asian
region but do not constitute any type of political grouping or
entity. As long as China was at dagger’s points with the U.S. and with Japan, it was only
natural that we deal with each of these countries separately and
that they deal with each other similarly. But the tentative
improvement of China’s relations with Washington and Tokyo, the
first budding sprouts of a Seoul-Beijing connection and cautious
albeit recurrent ROK proposals
for an inter-Korean “cross-rapprochement”, suggest that the time
soon may be ripe for a more strategic US view of its policy
toward Northeast Asia.
[Page 703]
Atlantic vs. Pacific Connections
The current separability of our relationships with Japan, China and
South Korea are especially noteworthy when compared with the
structure of US connections with our West European allies. Our
Atlantic ties are embedded in a regional security organization
(NATO), economic grouping
(OECD) and in our economic and
political relationships with the European Community. The
intensification of diplomatic business in the Atlantic Quad
represents the most recent organized effort to coordinate policy
with our European allies on out-of-area issues, albeit so far with
relatively modest concrete results. Nonetheless, these and other
Atlantic multilateral organizations have succeeded over nearly 40
years in stimulating collective Western efforts in the security and
economic fields and in channelling West German energies in generally
manageable directions.
Japan does participate in the OECD
and is for the first time, under Nakasone, an increasingly vocal member of the
exclusive Summit–7 Club. But there are no northeast Asian
institutions—beyond U.S. security
treaties with Japan and Korea—that afford a regional context for our
policies, that provide a regional safety net for our crucial
relationships with Japan or that influence China’s role in the
region. China, of course, belongs to none of these organizations and
is only now moving toward membership in the ADB and IAEA.
Improving US-Northeast Asian Cooperation
This lack of strong reinforcing pillars for our set of relationships
in northeast Asia impedes US efforts to promote shared interests and
to soften the suspicions of Japan and China which are harbored by
the South Koreans (and by the ASEAN governments). This is not now a significant
obstacle to the pursuit of U.S.
interests. But it does mean that we lack safety mechanisms in case
heavy pressures from trade or defense disputes weaken our vital
relationship with Japan, or in the event that the Taiwan issue or
domestic PRC developments undercut
Sino-American relations. It also tends to limit the potential for
deepening cooperation between the U.S. and northeast Asian nations. That cooperation will
become increasingly important in the years ahead as we seek to
diversify the strategic bases of our global policies.
In an ideal world, we would want to correct
these shortcomings of our northeast Asian relationships by forging a
trilateral political and consultative relationship among the U.S., Japan and China to parallel the
Atlantic Quad. We also would seek to develop at least modest ties
amongst that grouping, the ROK and
ASEAN. Such a Pacific
Community, with all its diversity and distinctive national
interests, and lack of common security arrangements, would over time
have a marked impact on the
[Page 704]
international scene. It would develop ties with the European
Community; indeed the EC already is
deepening its relationships with ASEAN. It also would forge increasing commercial links
to the Mideast, Africa and Latin America. It is this vision that
doubtless beckons advocates of a still nebulous “Pacific Basin
Community” concept.4
There obviously are sharp constraints making
such a broad Pacific—or even northeast Asian—vision impractical in
the foreseeable future. Profound distrust continues to obstruct the
development of relations among Japan, China and South Korea, not to
mention the antipathy characterizing inter-Korean relations, where
Seoul seems determined to use the next five years single-mindedly
building the economic and military strength to deal effectively with
Pyongyang. Moreover, our own relationship with China remains
unstable. And even the core U.S.-Japanese relationship remains vulnerable to
threatening trade storms, domestic politics and Japanese sharp
practices in the technological field.
These constraints are important. But they do not argue for simple
satisfaction with the status quo. However stable and prosperous Asia
now appears, the growing economic importance of East Asia in the
world, and the potential significance of Japan and China for our
global strategy, require a more imaginative conceptual basis for our
approach to Asia in general and Northeast Asia in particular.
Northeast Asia Strategic Concept
Security Bulwark
I believe we should seek to elaborate a strategic concept that more
explicitly views the US, Japan, China and
South Korea, together, as a security bulwark
against Soviet expansion, and as a basis for generating the
cumulative political and economic strength of the US and these
northeast Asian nations in a more coordinated fashion. This
northeast Asian bulwark encompasses more than one-fourth of the
world’s population and nearly one-fourth of its GNP. The U.S. and Japan alone amount to nearly one-half of the
non-communist world’s output. Those figures are likely to grow,
vis-a-vis Europe, through the rest of this century. Our interests in
Asia will grow with them and northeast Asian states will loom larger
in our global geopolitical strategy.
This is, of course, not at all a startling proposition. The United
States obviously has long sought to contain Soviet aggression in
northeast Asia through separate mutual security pacts with Japan and
the ROK, and through its developing
ties with China. We fought a major war in Korea to this end.
Moreover, these northeast Asian security arrangements are reinforced
by the ANZUS pact5 and by our bases in
[Page 705]
the Philippines. We need now to produce a
strategy that draws more consciously and coherently on these
assets.
Under such a concept US policy would identify Japan
as the linchpin and China as a key member of the northeast Asian
tier. Such a strategy would place Japan where it belongs—at
the center of US Asian policy—without rejecting China as an
important strategic partner. This conceptualization also has the
advantage of disposing of the past practice of treating Japan and
China as separate parts of Asian policy. The northeast Asian concept
also would facilitate U.S.-Japanese-Korean cooperation, whatever the future
course of Seoul’s relations with Beijing or Pyongyang.
Parallel Policies
A northeast Asian concept should be conceived of as a strategic
concept in the sense that NATO is
a strategic concept. However, encumbering it with alliance
relationships and formal institutional ties would be undesirable and
unnecessary. Accordingly, the northeast Asian concept is a way of
thinking about and interacting with Japan, China and South Korea,
rather than formally organizing joint efforts.
This northeast Asian concept is not a basis
for immediate joint efforts, but does open the door to a US strategy based
on parallel policies toward the key regional
powers, especially Japan and China. In short,
it is premature to pursue de jure trilateral consultations with
Tokyo and Beijing akin to the Atlantic Quad, but it may be feasible
to pursue parallel approaches to those two
capitals designed to advance de facto
trilateral cooperation. Similar parallel
approaches are feasible with Tokyo and
Seoul; indeed, such a strategy could be helpful in
diminishing mutual suspicions among these US allies, which do not
serve US interests.
These parallel approaches might involve periodic visits (perhaps
twice a year) on international issues by the Under Secretary for
Political Affairs to northeast Asian capitals and triennial visits
by the EA Assistant Secretary. The
Policy Planning Council already meets annually with its Japanese and
Korean counterparts and is discussing such a meeting later this year
in Beijing.6 These visits
would be in pursuit of specific international agendas, discussed in
coordinated fashion in Tokyo and Beijing and in Tokyo and Seoul. It
would probably result in an intensification of bilateral exchanges
in capitals between local Embassies and Foreign Offices on these
topics, and, in time, to similar
[Page 706]
visits to Washington from Chinese, Japanese
and Korean counterparts. It also should result in a more coordinated
approach to our instructions to these capitals on U.S. international objectives. These
activities could be supplemented, in Washington, by meetings in
which the Deputy Secretary briefs the local Japanese and PRC or Japanese and Korean Ambassadors
on current international issues.
Trilateral Cooperation
The long-term goal, evidently, is to convert this de facto parallel approach gradually into a more concrete
form of trilateral cooperation. This could take the form of
US-Japanese-Korean meetings, or, initially a single
US-Japanese-Chinese meeting in Tokyo. We should start along both
triangles with a modest, specific non-political subject, such as
marine life, coal technology or fisheries, rather than security
matters. Over time, we might be able to move to other forms of
educational, economic and scientific cooperation that permit the
U.S. and Japan jointly to
address China’s interest in economic modernization and to discuss
trilaterally such key international questions as Kampuchea and
Afghanistan. Progress on the political front might be more marked
with our two allies, Japan and Korea, where there are truly common
interests in such issues as the SS–20 threat to northeast Asia.
These two sets of trilaterals, with only Washington and Tokyo
participating in both, would reinforce the central Japanese-American
foundation for our East Asian and Pacific relationship. These
institutional arrangements also could be developed through Japan’s
involvement in the Summit–7, to include meetings of political
directors or Under Secretaries between the summits. Trilateral
arrangements could facilitate our wish to deepen Japanese
cooperation internationally.
Broader Asian Policy
Such a northeast Asian concept also would mesh nicely with our
broader US Asian policy. In this framework, US Asian policy could be
said to consist of northeast Asian, ASEAN and ANZUS
elements.
Conclusions
Needless to say, no US regional or subregional strategic concept is
meaningful if our bilateral ties with the key states are poor. A
larger framework can reinforce or reinsure bilateral relationships,
but must build on strong foundations. This means simultaneously
strengthening our bilateral and international cooperation with Japan
and China. We should have no roseate illusions about Nakasone and Deng, both of whom have their own
agendas and neither of whom are politically immortal. But both are,
at least at present, pursuing policies broadly compatible with US
objectives and both have seen their political goals and fortunes
linked to some degree to the benefits of cooperation with the
US.
[Page 707]
Progress in shaping a northeast Asian policy concept also will have
implications that transcend the Asia region. We are sure to capture
Moscow’s attention. I believe the deepening of US cooperation and
consultation with the Asian powers also may stimulate our European
partners to accord more respect and support to their American
connection and to their own Asian connections.
