Current Issues : Obama's Asia policy so far, so good

With one important exception, US relations with the countries of East Asia are better today than when the Obama administration took office.

This is no small accomplishment since, again with one (different) exception, relations were already quite good - the Bush administration left Asia in pretty good shape.

Let's look at the exceptions first. The one relationship that has gotten worse under President Obama is perhaps the most important one, between Washington and Tokyo. The fault lies primarily (but not exclusively) with Japan; a new government took power there, led for the first time ever by the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), which ran against the policies of the past.

While Prime Minister Hatoyama still pays rhetorical allegiance to the US-Japan alliance relationship as the foundation of his foreign policy, tensions have grown over his apparent decision to walk away from a base relocation agreement negotiated between the Bush administration and the previous government which had been accepted, as any government-to-government agreement should have been, by the Obama administration. As we approach the 50th anniversary of the alliance (Jan. 19), both sides are trying hard to get the relationship back on track. This will require some patience on Washington's part and some political courage on Tokyo's.

The Bush administration's major Asian dark spot was North Korea, where its efforts to craft a denuclearization agreement crumbled as Pyongyang walked away from its earlier pledges to verifiably give up its nuclear weapons. Things quickly went from bad to worse as the North welcomed the Obama administration first with a long-range missile test and then with its second-ever nuclear weapons test amid pledges to never return to the Bush-initiated Six-Party Talks In the face of strict United Nations sanctions and a consistent hard-line approach from Washington and Seoul, the North now appears to be relenting at least on the latter point, and the prospects of a resumption of dialogue now appear good (even though the prospects of actual denuclearization are as low as ever).

The relationship that has seen the greatest improvement is between the US and South Korea. Presidents Obama and Lee Myung-bak have crafted a joint vision statement laying out the future course of the alliance relationship and the two seem in lock step when it comes to dealing with North Korea. The big stumbling block as we move forward will be on the Korea-US Free Trade Agreement (KORUS), which Bush and Roh negotiated and which Lee supports and candidate Obama ran against. KORUS makes sense (not to mention dollars and cents) for both sides but it will take some political courage on Obama's part to get it past Congress. Both sides must also carefully review the milestones associated with the transition to ROK operation control (OPCON) of its own forces during wartime by 2012; many in the ROK remain unconvinced about the wisdom of this action or at least question the timing, absent some breakthrough with the North.

Nowhere in Asia is Obama more popular than in Southeast Asia, especially in Indonesia, but if another year passes without an Indonesia visit of some substance (as opposed to a brief stop-over), his "soft power" will begin to erode. Meanwhile, his outstretched hand to Myanmar, while failing (at least thus far) to bring about the desired release of Aung San Suu Kyi, has increased the prospects of deeper cooperation with the rest of ASEAN, as this 10-nation grouping (under Indonesian leadership) seems to finally be getting serious about promoting human rights and good governance.

Finally, Obama's decision to initiate a senior-level strategic dialogue with Beijing (led by Secretary Clinton herself) represents a clear desire to move US-China relations to a new, higher level of cooperation on a diverse range of issues ranging from countering proliferation to combating climate change. Obama was persuasive enough to get Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao to show up at the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference but not successful in getting the Chinese to agree to anything beyond blaming the West for all the world's climate (and other) concerns. It remains unclear if China really wants a strategic relationship with the US or just wants to say that it has one. On the surface, Sino-US relations are as good or better than ever. But, as Mark Twain once said, "even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there."

In short, as President Obama looks back on his first year, he can be generally pleased with his Asia policy thus far. But, his first order of business for the new year is getting US-Japan relations back on track, sustaining the positive momentum on the Korean Peninsula and in Southeast Asia, and then testing Beijing's sincerity about being a "responsible stakeholder", a term left over from the Bush years and a hope still largely unfulfilled.

Ralph A. Cossa is president of the Pacific Forum CSIS (pacforum@hawaii.rr.com), a Honolulu-based non-profit research institute affiliated with the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, and senior editor of Comparative Connections (www.csis.org/pacfor).