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The Obama administration's policy toward East

Asia

Victor Cha

To cite this article: Victor Cha (2010) The Obama administration's policy toward East Asia, The
Korean Journal of Defense Analysis, 22:1, 1-14, DOI: 10.1080/10163270903522804

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The Korean Journal of Defense Analysis
Vol. 22, No. 1, March 2010, 1
14

The Obama administration’s policy toward East Asia

Victor Cha*

Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., U.S.A.

Conventional wisdom argues that President Obama inherited a U.S. reputation

that was badly damaged around the world. While this may hold true in Europe, in
Asia, where U.S. standing matters most, there was never such a precipitous
decline. To Europeans, the Iraq War stirred moral outrage and rabid opposition.
However, the situation in the Persian Gulf simply did not matter as much to
Asians. There were pockets within Asia that were critical of U.S. actions, but this
was overshadowed by an overwhelming support for values such as democracy and
human rights. Evidence shows that even vis-à-vis China, U.S. standing has not
faced a significant decline in the region. The result is that Asians continue to
perceive the United States as the closest thing to an honest broker in the region, as
evidenced by positive reactions to the leadership role that the United States took
in response to the 2004 tsunami. Representing 60 percent of the world’s
population, compared to Europe’s seven percent, Asian views are probably
most important for the future of the United States. Thus, President Obama has a
solid base in Asia from which to build leadership and goodwill, but he must do so
amidst the challenges of the global financial crisis and heightened expectations.

Introduction
The conventional wisdom in scholarly and policy circles is that the Obama
administration inherited not just two wars and a financial crisis, but a badly
damaged reputation of the United States around the world. Part of the enthusiasm
worldwide for President Obama’s election, pundits have argued, was the wholesale
change it signaled for United States in persona and policy from eight years of the
George W. Bush administration.
U.S. status and reputation among allies has seen undeniable fluctuations over the
past eight years. However, the precipitous decline in U.S. reputation shows
significant variations across regions. The decline was by far worse in Europe, and
the traditional Eurocentric focus of most international relations specialists has
colored much of the discussion of U.S. reputation. In Asia, by contrast, U.S.
standing has not suffered nearly as badly. And it is Asia’s view that matters more in
the future of world politics.
For Obama, the good news is that his administration is not inheriting the
‘‘damaged goods’’ of U.S. reputation that is so often touted, which should give him
more of a basis from which to build leadership and goodwill. The bad news is that
the challenges to U.S. standing are far from over. The global financial crisis has the
potential to damage severely U.S. reputation in Asia and the world.

*Email: [email protected]
ISSN 1016-3271 print/ISSN 1941-4641 online
# 2010 Korea Institute for Defense Analyses
DOI: 10.1080/10163270903522804
http://www.informaworld.com
2 V. Cha

Why Asia?
Europeans had developed a wholly negative view of U.S. standing in the world over
the past eight years of the Bush administration. In 2002, 64 percent of Europeans
viewed U.S. leadership in world affairs as desirable and 31 percent as undesirable. In
2008, only 36 percent viewed U.S. leadership as desirable while 59 percent viewed it
as undesirable.1 There is an inherent tendency to see the views of Europeans as
indicative of world opinion. This trend is manifested in the overall ‘‘consensus’’ view
in the world today, as documented in European Newspapers, that the U.S. reputation
has plummeted to historic lows.
The question is: Who cares what Europeans think? Together they represent only
seven percent of the world’s population. The fact that this percentage’s views are
portrayed as representing those of the entire world still reeks of post-colonialism. By
contrast, Asia and Africa together represent 73 percent of the world’s population.
Charting the U.S. reputation among these numbers appears to be a more accurate
indicator of the world’s view of the United States.2
Furthermore, the views in Asia probably matter more than those in Europe for
the future of the United States. Asia represents one-third of the world’s population
and one quarter of the world’s global output. It represents two-thirds of the world’s
foreign exchange reserves. Thirty percent of total U.S. merchandise exports go to
Asia, while the comparable figure for the entire European Union is 19 percent.
Moreover, seven of the top 15 U.S. manufacturers’ export destinations are in Asia,
and eight of the top 15 agricultural export destinations are in Asia.
Thus, if the educated observer wants to know how well or poorly the United
States is doing in the world in a way that matters significantly for U.S. interests, then
he or she should want to know more about how Asia thinks about the United States.

What Asians think of the United States

The majority view in the literature judges that actions and policies in the George W.
Bush administration’s first term contributed to a largely negative view.3 While some
literature holds a similar assessment through Bush’s second term, there is a body of
emerging work and new empirical evidence that suggests either improvements in U.S.
standing in Asia or assesses that negative judgments of the first term were
overstated.4
I will look at U.S. standing in East Asia as well as in Southeast Asia. Because the
region is quite diverse in terms of regime type and outlook, it might be best to
evaluate U.S. standing first among its key allies in Asia, then U.S. standing vis-à-vis
China in the region, and finally a word on U.S. standing in Southeast Asia.

United States’ standing among allies in Asia

Understanding how the United States is viewed by its key allies in Asia is important
for several reasons.5 First, these allies play host to the most relevant material arm of
American power and influence, the basing structure in Asia. A downgrading of
American standing that impacted host nation support for the basing structure would
have wider implications for U.S. global deployments. Second, allied views of the
United States is a minimal but critical test for U.S. standing in the sense that if the
 The Korean Journal of Defense Analysis 3

United States is losing standing among these so-called ‘‘easy cases,’’ then there is
little likelihood that the rest of the region judges the United States favorably. Third,
where the United States stands vis-à-vis its allies has direct causal bearing on the
region’s assessment of China’s relative standing in the region. While not exactly a
zero-sum relationship, discussions of China’s rise in Asia are made in the context of
American decline.
Virtually all observers judge U.S. standing in Asia among its key allies to have
suffered in the aftermath of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. In making this judgment, the
literature does not distinguish between the aspects of reputation and standing,
instead making very broad judgments. If we had to unpack this, however, U.S.
standing in terms of its credibility and policy effectiveness and overall leadership did
not suffer nearly as much as its reputation in terms of the normative underpinnings
of its leadership.
U.S. standing in terms of credibility and effectiveness did not suffer because
Bush’s preemptive attack on Iraq, however criticized, ironically did address an
underlying insecurity of many Asian treaty allies about the willingness of the U.S. to
take casualties in combat. This hit at the heart of Asian allies’ quiet concerns about
the ‘‘Vietnam syndrome,’’ and the credibility of U.S. extended deterrence commit-
ments in the post-Cold War era. The United States similarly did not appear to suffer
in terms of allied deference to U.S. leadership. On the contrary, Asian allies were
among the earliest and strongest supporters of Bush’s global war on terror. Australia
contributed special forces to both Iraq and Afghanistan. Japan and the ROK were
the second largest financial backer and third largest ground contingent in Iraq,
respectively. The willingness to follow the United States stemmed from a perceived
mutual defense treaty commitment. Bush and then-Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice often couched U.S. requests in private in terms of fulfilling the terms of the
mutual defense treaty. Then-Prime Minister John Howard of Australia openly
justified his troop commitments to Iraq, though domestically very unpopular, as
mandated by the treaty commitment. But this support also stemmed from a
perceived opportunity by these countries to expand and deepen the scope of their
alliance relationships, making them more relevant to the United States.6 In Japan,
Australia, and Korea, the global war on terror became the functional context in
which the ideational scope of the alliances became global. An ‘‘alliance based in
common values’’ that operated together around the world in the name of freedom
became the moniker for these relationships.
It is, however, in the dimension of reputation relating to the normative
underpinnings of leadership that the United States lost ground. Even as Asian allies
dutifully supported U.S. endeavors, there was growing questioning of American
leadership.7 Though all understood at some level the actions against Iraq, there was
a prevailing notion that the United States was ‘‘breaking rules’’ in prosecuting this
war*whether in the form of disrespect for international institutions, or detainment
of terror suspects. This existed to an extent among the policy elite, but was
particularly evident among the general public. Anti-war protests were common in
the streets of many capitals and talk of the United States as a potential ‘‘rogue
superpower’’ in the classrooms was common.8 Nowhere was this questioning more
apparent than in the ROK during the Roh Moo-hyun presidency, where realists like
John Mearsheimer and liberal institutionalists like John Ikenberry each described
Korea as a frontline cold war state which was now openly critical of American
4 V. Cha

unilateralism.9 Bush’s State of the Union speech in 2002 in which he included an

Asian country (North Korea) in the axis of evil and the National Security Strategy
doctrine of preemption dramatically bolstered public perceptions of the United
States as a potential revisionist force in Asia.10 Young, educated, affluent, and
English-speaking South Koreans were polling that the United States presented more
of a threat to peace on the peninsula than North Korea*despite Pyongyang’s
runaway nuclear weapons program and its offensively positioned military forces in
the demilitarized zone (DMZ).11
Views of the United States on this normative dimension of leadership turned
upward in Bush’s second term as the administration was perceived to take a more
diplomatic approach on North Korea. The use of the Six-Party Talks, involving
Japan, China, Russia, the United States and the two Koreas, as the main arena of
negotiation gave the impression that the United States was engaging in greater
consultation as opposed to the unilateralism of the first term. It may seem a bit of a
stretch to extrapolate changes in standing in Asia based on this one issue, but almost
all of the literature ties the Six-Party Talks to greater U.S. standing in the region.
North Korea was the region’s immediate crisis. And the active consultations with
China, in particular, reduced the region’s concerns about a neoconservative anti-
China policy remerging in the administration. This literature does not argue for
American self-satisfaction as there are many things the United States needs to do to
maintain its standing.12

The bounded nature of allied disenchantment

Asian allied views of U.S. standing, while experiencing dips, ultimately varied within
a small band*certainly a much smaller one than America’s European counterparts.
The bounded nature of these views could be attributable to several factors. First,
Iraq simply did not matter as much for Asians as it did for Europeans. Small
mistakes in policy toward North Korea therefore cost Washington much more in
standing than big mistakes in Iraq. As Robert Sutter notes:
Bush administration unilateralism over Iraq and other issues has been widely perceived
and criticized among Asian popular and elite opinion, but it is a secondary
consideration to most Asian governments . . . Asian governments also give much higher
priority to dangerous crises in East Asia, particularly North Korea, than to Iraq or U.S.
unilateralism elsewhere. They find that over the past two years the Bush administration
has behaved in a consultative and moderate way on North Korea, reassuring Asian
powers.13
The second cause may have to do with understandings of Asian allies with regard
to their place in the world. That is, Asian governments may not view themselves or
each other in the same role of key stakeholders in the international system as their
Western European counterparts might. They therefore responded more pragmati-
cally to Iraq seeking ways to accommodate and take advantage of the United States
rather than expressing moral outrage and categorically opposing Bush’s policies as a
threat to world order. As Michael Green explained:
Nor has the damage to U.S. moral authority caused by the abuses at Abu Ghraib and
Guantanamo caused a significant backlash against the norms of the U.S.-led neoliberal
order. On the contrary, the universal principles of democracy, human rights, and the
rule of law have never had more currency in Asia than they do today.14
 The Korean Journal of Defense Analysis 5

Green’s point is an important one: though many in Asia are critical of America’s
actions in Iraq, this does not dilute the broader support for democracy and socio-
political values in the region. This continued support is significant because it
ultimately rebounds to American benefit in a region of the world where the
normative battle between liberal democracy and non-democracy still exists.
A third cause for Asia’s lack of opposition to U.S. policies may be structural,
relating to the nature of American architectures in Asia versus those in Europe. U.S.
alliances in Asia are characterized by bilateral institutions with large power
asymmetries between the client ally and the patron United States. Unlike in Europe,
there is no multilateral organization in which U.S. power is diluted by a one-state,
one-vote process. Instead, U.S. alliances in Asia, since their origins at the beginning
of the Cold War, afford the U.S. extraordinary power. While multilateral institutions
in Asia mute American power, the bilateral institutions in Asia amplify American
power.15 This allows the United States to extract more from its allies as Japan, South
Korea, and Australia did in Iraq and Afghanistan, while affording it less criticism
and opposition.

United States standing vis-à-vis China

The literature on U.S. standing vis-à-vis China in Asia offers a similar two-toned
quality. Initially a wave of work heralded China’s usurping of America’s position of
preeminence in Asia. These arguments focused on one or any combination of
variables to explain China’s rise, but focused in particular on the influence wielded by
the burgeoning size of its economy. Other works praised subtle Chinese diplomacy
and soft power attuned to the region’s desires for new architectures. Yet others
explained how China benefited from the region’s latent hierarchical tendencies.16 The
empirical evidence for much of this work in international relations theory was the
absence of any overt balancing against rising Chinese capabilities.17
Either implicit or explicit in this literature was the proposition that the rise in
Chinese standing took place at the expense of U.S. standing.18 The catch phrase in
policy-expert circles was that China was ‘‘eating our lunch in Asia.’’ Or as Fareed
Zakaria put it, China was winning a ‘‘soft war’’ for power and influence.19 The
Chinese even began believing this rhetoric as they would confidently begin high-level
meetings with U.S. government officials by jokingly assuring that their purpose was
not to eat our lunch! These authors pointed to the loss of U.S. standing because of
our distractions in Iraq; our moral absolutism; and our singular focus on the global
war on terror. In short, the United States’s obvious disinterest in Asia and its short-
term exploitation of regional resources for the global war on terror had the effect of
rendering the United States irrelevant while China quietly positioned itself for the
United State’s Eastern sunset.20
A debate is emerging in the literature; however, that reevaluates the negative
judgments about the United States in Asia. While not explicitly addressing issues of
the United States’ standing or reputation in Asia, these works address empirical
anomalies in the ‘‘China rising’’ work that approximate the discussion on reputation.
Much of this second wave of work, for example, acknowledges the growth of the
Chinese economy and its relative position in Asia, but notes that the absence of overt
balancing against China does not translate linearly into Chinese influence and
standing. Despite talk among pundits about a ‘‘Beijing consensus,’’ there is no
6 V. Cha

substantive and overwhelming belief in Asia about Chinese leadership credibility;

there is no normative belief in China as the region’s leader; and there is no deference
to Chinese leadership in the region.21 On the contrary, this literature pointed out the
flawed predictions in many international relations theories’ post-Cold War
arguments about impending conflict in Asia,22 and credited U.S. policies (i.e. not
Chinese policies) with helping to create this outcome. This literature therefore argues
that U.S. standing has not declined precipitously and may have even increased
compared with that of the rest of the world.23 Former critics like Joshua Kurlantzick
and Yoichi Funabashi are seen doing stunning 180-degree turns, the former claiming
that the century does not yet belong to China and the latter recanting, ‘‘[d]espite
misgivings about the Bush administration, Asia’s leaders generally regard its record
more positively than do their counterparts in other regions.’’24
There are variables that account for this assessment range among authors, but
they include the view that the United States, despite Iraq, is still perceived as the
closest thing to an honest broker in a region where historical animosities remain
quite relevant. The Bush administration, particularly in its second term, succeeded in
deepening its alliances with Japan and South Korea while also maintaining a
pragmatic working relationship with China. Moreover, the U.S. position in Asia is
buoyed by the geostrategic calculation that a power vacuum left by a U.S. demise
would be filled by either Japan or China*not a desirable outcome in Asian eyes. The
United States also has been central to maintaining a relatively stable triangular
relationship with Japan and China, the two major powers in the region.25
Developmental variables may also play a role in the continued support for the
United States. Parts of Asia are still enamored with the democratic brand in ways
that more mature and jaded democracies in Europe may not be. In spite of
unpopular U.S. actions around the world, this brand still may remain untarnished.
As Green notes, the one umbrella institution in East Asia (the East Asia Summit)
which excluded the United States, still drafted a governing charter that would have
made Thomas Jefferson proud, calling for ‘‘active strengthening of democratic
values, good governance, rejection of unconstitutional and undemocratic changes of
government, the rule of law, including international humanitarian law, and respect
for human rights and fundamental freedoms.’’26
Perhaps most important to its standing, the United States is still perceived as the
country that provides public goods to the region. Nowhere was this more apparent
than in the 2004 tsunami disaster in Southeast Asia, when in the midst of a plethora
of arguments about China’s rise in Asia, all parties instinctively looked to the United
States as the only country capable of leading a response to the worst crisis to hit Asia
in recent memory. This view of the United States as the public goods provider
stretches from issues like freedom of navigation to avian flu to investor confidence,
and will influence views of U.S. standing long after changes in material capabilities
vis-à-vis China. Joseph Nye once responded to earlier questions about the decline of
the American presence in Asia by referring to the metaphor of ‘‘oxygen’’ that still
remains relevant, according to authors of this school. Asians do not much appreciate
the U.S. presence when it is there, much like a human being does not appreciate
oxygen when it is there. Asia will be happy to play China off against the United
States to secure benefits from both powers. However, the absence of the United
States is like taking oxygen away from the region*once it is gone, it is the only thing
a human being can think about to survive.27
 The Korean Journal of Defense Analysis 7

Recent empirical evidence

The Chicago Council on Global Affairs and East Asia Institute poll in 2007
08 and
the CSIS/SIPRI study, ‘‘Strategic Views on Asian Regionalism,’’ (released February
2009) offer empirical evidence in support of the proposition that U.S. standing has
not declined as precipitously in Asia as many had thought. Mapping the relative
effectiveness of U.S. and Chinese soft power, the Chicago Council poll found that the
United States is still viewed positively in five areas of soft power enumerated in the
study: economics, culture, human capital, diplomacy, and politics.28 While Asians do
not deny China’s growing influence economically and culturally (e.g. 70 to 91 percent
of Asians surveyed believe it is important for their children to learn Chinese), and
believe that Asia will eventually see China playing the leading role (68 percent United
States, 78 percent Korea; 55 percent Japan), they do not view this in a positive light.
Only 10 percent of Japanese, 21 percent of Koreans, 27 percent of Indonesians, 56
percent of Vietnamese, and 27 percent of Americans were comfortable with this
outcome.29
The Chicago Council study’s results see U.S. standing in Asia in a positive light:
[T]he United States appear[s] to remain the preeminent influence in the region, ranking
at or near that top of every soft power category. U.S. influence in the region extends
deep beyond the policy level. The survey finds that U.S. influence informs the thinking
of Asians on economic, cultural, and even human capital matters.30
Summary tables (Tables 1
5) are reproduced here from pages 14
15 of the Asia Soft
Power Survey.
The CSIS/SIPRI 2009 study surveyed policy elites in North, South, and
Southeast Asia, and offered similar findings on how Asians think about the United
States.31 Asked to assess challenges to Asia over the next 10 years, Asian policy elites
all acknowledged that China would be the strongest country in ‘‘overall national
power’’ in Asia (weighted average of 65.5 percent, compared with 31 percent for the
United States), and would be the ‘‘most important country’’ to their interests
(weighted average of 59 percent versus 36 percent for the United States). Yet, these
same elites named China as the greatest threat to peace and stability over those 10
years (39 percent for China versus 12.9 percent for the United States), and saw the
United States as the greatest force for peace and stability (40 percent versus 29
percent for China).32
Contrary to American ‘‘Eastern sunset’’ arguments, the Chicago Council survey
found that pluralities in Japan (47 percent), Korea (42 percent), China (45 percent)

Table 1. Political Soft Power (scale of 0 to 1).

Survey U.S. soft Chinese soft Japanese soft South Korean soft
countries power power power power

U.S.A.
.34 .67 .51

China .68
.63 .68
Japan .66 .41
.57
South Korea .75 .48 .67

Indonesia .73 .71 .74 .68
Source: Chicago Council on Global Affairs and East Asia Institute, Soft Power in Asia: Results of a
Multinational Survey of Public Opinion (Chicago Council on Global Affairs, 2008), 14
15.
8 V. Cha
Table 2. Diplomatic soft power (scale of 0 to 1).

Survey U.S. diplomacy Chinese diplomacy Japanese diplo- Korean diplomacy

countries effective? effective? macy effective? effective?

U.S.A.
.40 .58 .47

China .60
.52 .61
Japan .56 .44
.47
South Korea .59 .51 .52

Indonesia .69 .69 .72 .65
Vietnam .68 .67 .71 .67
Source: Chicago Council on Global Affairs and East Asia Institute, Soft Power in Asia: Results of a
Multinational Survey of Public Opinion (Chicago Council on Global Affairs, 2008), 14
15.

Table 3. Cultural soft power (scale of 0 to 1).

Survey U.S. Chinese Japanese South Korean

countries culture culture culture culture

U.S.A.
.56 .72 .51

China .66
.57 .67
Japan .69 .57
.61
South Korea .66 .54 .59

Indonesia .53 .62 .59 .53
Vietnam .67 .77 .71 .74
Source: Chicago Council on Global Affairs and East Asia Institute, Soft Power in Asia: Results of a
Multinational Survey of Public Opinion (Chicago Council on Global Affairs, 2008), 14
15.

Table 4. Economic soft power (scale of 0 to 1).

Survey U.S. economic Chinese Japanese South Korean

countries influence influence economic influence economic influence

U.S.A.
.52 .69 .50

China .73
.68 .67
Japan .70 .57
.58
South Korea .75 .57 .71

Indonesia .73 .73 .77 .66
Vietnam .80 .70 .81 .68
Source: Chicago Council on Global Affairs and East Asia Institute, Soft Power in Asia: Results of a
Multinational Survey of Public Opinion (Chicago Council on Global Affairs, 2008), 14
15.

and Indonesia (56 percent) believe that U.S. influence has increased, not decreased,
over the past decade. Clear majorities (Japan 69 percent, China 66 percent, Korea 54
percent and Vietnam 76 percent) view this influence as ‘‘somewhat’’ or ‘‘very
positive.’’33 Perhaps most interestingly, one could deduce from the poll findings that
the perceived decline in American standing could stem from harsh judgments at
home*while the rise in China’s standing stems from overconfidence in Beijing. In
other words, the Asia Soft Power Survey found that the respondents who were most
 The Korean Journal of Defense Analysis 9
Table 5. Human capital soft power (scale of 0 to 1).

Survey countries U.S.A. China Japan South Korea

U.S.A.
.55 .69 .46

China .87
.68 .61
Japan .83 .58
.57
South Korea .87 .64 .75

Indonesia .91 .74 .80 .64
Vietnam .89 .80 .91 .82
Source: Chicago Council on Global Affairs and East Asia Institute, Soft Power in Asia: Results of a
Multinational Survey of Public Opinion (Chicago Council on Global Affairs, 2008), 14
15.

critical of U.S. policies in Asia were Americans; while respondents who were most
praiseworthy of Chinese diplomacy were*you guessed it*the Chinese.
Very recent empirical studies also offer interesting findings on the relationship
between Asian regionalism and U.S. standing. The standing argument has been that
Asia’s support for regional institutions which either exclude the United States (e.g.
Mahathir’s East Asia Economic Caucus (EAEC)) or do not privilege its membership
(e.g. the East Asia Summit (EAS)) is often pointed to as another metric of reduced
U.S. standing. Enthusiasm for such regional institution-building has been widely
cited in the literature as evidence that the United States matters less and less in
Asians’ vision of the future. Undeniably, the level of development in Asia precipitates
more independence in strategic thinking among Asian countries compared with their
initial relations with the United States as war-torn, post-colonial societies after
World War II. But recent studies show interestingly that Asian policy elites’
confidence in regional institutions is not nearly as high as is conventionally believed.
The CSIS/SIPRI report, ‘‘Strategic Views on Asian Regionalism,’’ found that a
surprisingly small number of East, South, and Southeast Asian policy elites viewed
regional institutions as the preferred vehicle for dealing with the challenges likely to
face Asia over the next decade. When asked what organization best addresses
responses to natural disasters, national security threats, health pandemics, terrorism,
and nuclear proliferation, the rankings tended to favor national capabilities and
international organizations like the United Nations or World Health Organization.
Regional organizations like Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) or the
Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) were given little support, with the
one exception being the region’s support for the Six-Party Talks as about the only
indigenous institution given any confidence. While these findings do not offer direct
evidence of U.S. standing, they do undercut some of the conventional view that
Asians view regional organizations as supplanting the United States as solver of
problems.
I should note that this debate between ‘‘optimists’’ and ‘‘pessimists’’ of U.S.
reputation and standing in Asia is far from resolved. It is just now beginning to play
out. Some literature has responded vigorously to the proposition by some authors
that U.S. standing has increased, refusing to accept that the Bush policy could have
resulted in anything but negative outcomes (Pempel, Sigal, Mahbubani, Gurtov),
citing earlier Pew Global Attitudes polls. The Chicago Council study came out in
June 2008 in the midst of this debate as the newest data point. Some, who formerly
were very critical of U.S. standing, have ‘‘converted’’*acknowledging a more
10 V. Cha

productive U.S. record than originally credited (Funabashi). This is a debate that is
sure to continue. It is a far more vigorous one than exists in Western Europe where a
conventional wisdom has already taken root. Yet the debate’s ultimate resolution in
Asia has far greater significance for U.S. interests.

Lower standing in Southeast Asia

The sub-region of Asia, where U.S. standing has declined the most, is probably in
Southeast Asia. Here there is little disagreement in the literature. Washington’s
global war on terror made the region the ‘‘third front’’ (after the Middle East and
South Asia) when it had been previously pretty much neglected by the United States.
The singular focus on terrorism by U.S. policymakers in ASEAN capitals was
justified because cooperation did quietly foil numerous plots and save countless lives
but it hurt U.S. standing. As countries were persuaded to sign counterterrorism pacts
that required intelligence sharing and freezing of terrorist assets, concerns grew that
outside intervention in sovereign affairs was being legitimized and codified as a result
of the global war on terror.34 This led to a marginalization of the United States as
Southeast Asians believed Washington was not interested in any other issues
regarding Southeast Asian welfare.35
An important watershed in U.S. policy was the 2004 disaster response and relief
effort for the tsunami. The appreciation by Southeast Asians of the leading role
played by the United States fostered a mini-renaissance in U.S.
Southeast Asian
relations, beginning with the restoration of military-to-military ties with Indonesia.
A host of significant accomplishments followed, including a Free Trade Agreement
and new strategic partnership with Singapore, the Enterprise for ASEAN initiative,
Trade and Investment Framework Agreements (TIFAs) with ASEAN nations,
education initiatives for Indonesia, H5N1 virus initiatives, HIV/AIDS initiatives, and
major non-NATO membership status for Thailand and the Philippines. The United
States’s reputation in the region, however, did not experience major improvements.
The 2008 Chicago Council polls showed that the two countries that consistently
polled lower in terms of positive views of U.S. influence and soft power in the region
were the two Southeast Asian countries, Vietnam and Indonesia.
This is because what is as important as performance to Southeast Asians is
presence. Regardless of the number of substantive agreements reached with parties in
the region, if the United States does not show up for events in Southeast Asia, its
reputation suffers inordinately. U.S. reputation and prestige for Southeast Asians
suffers dearly when U.S. leaders do not give face and respect to leaders in the region.
The cancellation by then-Secretary Rice of trips to attend the ASEAN regional
forum, and a canceled trip by Bush to Singapore did more to hurt U.S. standing than
the absence of agreements.36 On this, there is very little disagreement in the literature.
In this regard, the decision by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to visit Indonesia as
part of her first overseas trip represented a conscious effort to raise the view of the
United States in Southeast Asian eyes.

Enduring U.S. capacity?

Perhaps the most important insight to be derived from this review of the American
position in Asia is that there is an intimate and direct link between U.S. power and its
 The Korean Journal of Defense Analysis 11

reputation.37 Upswings and downturns in how Asians view the United States have
more to do with the perceived American provision of either private or public goods.
Put simply, if the United States is providing these goods*whether this be in the form
of alliance relations, tsunami relief, or development assistance*then the region
views the United States favorably. These material provisions matter far more than
the style of U.S. diplomacy or the perceived multilateral or unilateral bent of the
United States in broader global affairs. This view contrasts starkly with Europe
where the style of U.S. diplomacy matters much more for judgments of U.S.
reputation and standing in the world.
The Obama administration faces two difficult dilemmas when it comes to
maintaining U.S. standing in the region. While there is an undeniable up-tick in views
of the United States with his election, the longer-term trends are troubling. First, the
global financial crisis, and U.S. belt-tightening in response to the crisis, is bound to
have an impact on America’s capacity to continue providing the same level of public
and private goods to the region. Second, the Obama administration*like every U.S.
administration before it*faces the dilemma of heightened expectations. That is, the
region always takes for granted what the United States provides, and then only
expects more.
Both of these trends could mean a potential downturn in America’s reputation in
Asia*unless the administration pays careful attention to averting such trends.

Notes
1. http://www.transatlantictrends.org/trends/.
2. This paper focuses on Asian views of the United States. African views of the United States
are beyond the scope of the paper. Asia’s population of 4.05 billion still represents a larger
portion of the world, compared with the African continent’s 934 million.
3. Representative works include Kurt Campbell, ‘‘Still Searching for a Vision,’’ in George W.
Bush and East Asia: A First-Term Assessment, ed. Robert Hathaway and Wilson Lee
(Washington, D.C.: Wilson Center, 2005); Mel Gurtov and Peter Van Ness, eds.,
Confronting the Bush Doctrine: Critical Views from the Asia
Pacific (London & New
York: Routledge Curzon, 2005); Frank Jannuzi, ‘‘North Korea: Back to the Brink?,’’ in
Gurtov and Van Ness, Confronting the Bush Doctrine; Yoichi Funabashi, ‘‘Power of Ideas:
The U.S. is Losing,’’ Global Asia (Fall 2007), 38
42; Jim Laney and Jason Shaplen,
‘‘Washington’s Eastern Sunset,’’ Foreign Affairs (November
December 2007), 82
97;
Kishore Mahbubani, ‘‘Wake Up, Washington: the U.S. Risks Losing Asia,’’ Global Asia
(Fall 2007), 16
23; T.J. Pempel, ‘‘How Bush Bungled Asia: How Unilateralism,
Militarism, and Economic Abdication have Weakened the U.S. Across Asia,’’ (unpub-
lished correspondence with author); Jonathan Pollack, ‘‘Learning by Doing: The Bush
Administration in East Asia,’’ in Hathaway and Lee, George W. Bush and East Asia, 99

116; Clyde Prestowitz, ‘‘The Purpose of American Power in Asia,’’ Global Asia (Fall 2007),
10
15; Charles L. Pritchard, Failed Diplomacy: The Tragic Story of How North Korea got
the Bomb (Washington, D.C.: Brookings, 2007); Leon Sigal, ‘‘Asian Blunders,’’ Foreign
Affairs (January/February 2008); Jisi Wang, ‘‘America in Asia, How Much Does China
Care?,’’ Global Asia (Fall 2007), 24
28.
4. Representative works include Robert Sutter, The United States in Asia (Lanham, MD:
Rowman and Littlefield, 2008); Gerald Curtis, ‘‘The U.S. in East Asia: Not Architecture,
but Action,’’ Global Asia (Fall 2007), 43
51; Michael J. Green, ‘‘The Iraq War and Asia:
Assessing the Legacy,’’ Washington Quarterly 31, no. 2 (2008), 181
200; Yoichi Funabashi,
‘‘Keeping Up with Asia,’’ Foreign Affairs (September/October 2008): 110
25; Ashley
Tellis, ‘‘Preserving Hegemony: the Strategic Tasks Facing the United States,’’ in Strategic
Asia 2008
09 (Seattle, WA: NBR, 2008); Ashley J. Tellis, Mercy Kuo, and Andrew Marble,
eds., Strategic Asia 2008
09: Challenges and Choices (Seattle: The National Bureau of
12 V. Cha

Asian Research, 2008); and Victor Cha, ‘‘Winning Asia: Washington’s Untold Success
Story,’’ Foreign Affairs 86, no. 6 (November/December 2007), 98
113.
5. ‘‘Key allies’’ generally refers to U.S. treaty allies, Japan, Republic of Korea (ROK) or
South Korea, and Australia.
6. Japan, for example, deployed for the first time in the post-war era, naval forces in the
Indian Ocean and ground troops in Iraq. See Michael J. Green, ‘‘The Legacy of the Iraq
War in Asia,’’ Washington Quarterly, 31.2 (Spring 2008), 181
200.
7. G. John Ikenberry, Strategic Reactions to American Preeminence, U.S. National
Intelligence Council Conference Report (July 28, 2003), http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/
awcgate/cia/nic2020/strategic_reactions.pdf.
8. Mel Gurtov, ‘‘American Unilateralism: Past and Present,’’ in Gurtov and Van Ness,
Confronting the Bush Doctrine, 1
38.
9. John Mearsheimer cited in Ikenberry, Strategic Reactions to American Preeminence, 4.
10. Leon Sigal, ‘‘Misplaying North Korea and Losing Friends and Influence in Northeast
Asia,’’ July 12, 2005, http://northkorea.ssrc.org/Sigal/.
11. Chung-in Moon and Jong Yun Bae, ‘‘The Bush Doctrine and the North Korean Nuclear
Crisis,’’ in Gurtov and Van Ness, Confronting the Bush Doctrine, 39
62.
12. See Asia Foundation’s Blue Ribbon commission report, America’s Role in Asia
(Washington, D.C.: Asia Foundation, 2008).
13. Robert Sutter, ‘‘U.S. Power and Influence in Asia,’’ in The Use of U.S. Power, ed. Stanley
Sloan, Robert Sutter and Casimir Yost (Washington, D.C.: Institute for the Study of
Diplomacy, 2004), 79.
14. Green, ‘‘The Legacy of the Iraq War in Asia,’’ p. 18.
15. Victor Cha, ‘‘Currents of Power: U.S. Alliances with Japan and Taiwan during the Cold
War,’’ in Uses of Institutions: The U.S., Japan, and Governance in East Asia, ed. G. John
Ikenberry (New York: Palgrave, 2006), 103
29; and Victor Cha, ‘‘Powerplay: Origins of
the U.S. Alliance System in Asia,’’ International Security 34/3 (Winter 2009/2010), pp.
158
196. Also see Jeremy Pressman, Warring Friends: Alliance Restraint in International
Politics (Ithaca, NY: Cornell, 2008).
16. Joshua Kurlantzick, Charm Offensive: How China’s Soft Power is Transforming the World
(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007); David Shambaugh, ed., Power Shift: China
and Asia’s New Dynamics (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2005); David
Shambaugh, ‘‘China Engages Asia: Reshaping the Regional Order,’’ International Security
29, no. 3 (2005): 64
99; Bronson Percival, The Dragon Looks South: China and Southeast
Asia in the New Century (Westport, CN: Greenwood Press, 2007); Mahbubani, ‘‘Wake Up,
Washington’’; Fareed Zakaria, ‘‘Losing another War . . . in Asia,’’ Newsweek, April 30,
2007; Evelyn Goh, ‘‘Great Power and Hierarchical Order in Southeast Asia: Analyzing
Regional Security Strategies,’’ International Security (Winter 2007/08), 113
157; Pre-
stowitz ‘‘Purpose of American Power’’; Yoichi Francis Fukuyama, ‘‘Re-Envisioning
Asia,’’ Foreign Affairs 84, no. 1 (January/February 2005), 75
87; Morton Abramowitz and
Stephen Bosworth, ‘‘Adjusting to the New Asia,’’ Foreign Affairs (July/August 2003);
Morton Abramowitz and Stephen Bosworth, Chasing the Sun: Rethinking East Asian
Policy (New York: Century Foundation Press, 2006), 119
131; David Lampton, The Three
Faces of Chinese Power (Berkeley, CA: University of California, 2008); Bates Gill, Rising
Star: China’s New Security Diplomacy (Washington, D.C.: Brookings, 2007); Joshua
Cooper Ramo, The Beijing Consensus (London: Foreign Policy Centre, 2004); Kent
Calder, ‘‘The New Face of Northeast Asia,’’ Foreign Affairs (January/February 2001),
106
112.
17. David Kang, China Rising (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007).
18. Representative works include Michael Vatikiotis and Murray Hiebert, ‘‘How China is
Building an Empire,’’ Far Eastern Economic Review, November 20, 2003, 30
33; Jane
Perlez, ‘‘Asian Leaders Find China a More Cordial Neighbor: Beijing’s Soaring Economy
Weakens U.S. Sway,’’ New York Times, November 4, 2004; Philip Pan, ‘‘China’s Improving
Image Challenges America in Asia,’’ Washington Post, November 15, 2003.
19. Fareed Zakaria, ‘‘Does the Future Belong to China?’’ Newsweek May 9, 2005.
20. Laney and Shaplen, ‘‘Washington’s Eastern Sunset.’’
 The Korean Journal of Defense Analysis 13

21. For a classic and early statement, see Gerald Segal, ‘‘Does China Matter?,’’ Foreign Affairs
(September/October 1999), 24
36. Other works that question this literature include Jeff
Legro, ‘‘What China will Want: The Future Intentions of a Rising Power,’’ Perspective on
Politics (September 2007), 515
534.
22. Aaron Friedberg, ‘‘Ripe for Rivalry,’’ International Security (Winter 1993
94), 5
33;
Richard Betts, ‘‘Wealth, Power, and Instability,’’ International Security (Winter 1993
94),
34
77; Paul Bracken, Fire in the East (New York: HarperCollins, 1999); Kent Calder,
Pacific Defense (New York: William Morrow, 1996).
23. Key works in this school are Betts, ‘‘The United States and Asia’’; Cha, ‘‘Winning Asia’’;
Curtis, ‘‘The U.S. in East Asia’’; Green, ‘‘The Iraq War and Asia’’; Sutter, United States in
Asia, Funabashi, ‘‘Keeping Up with Asia’’; Tellis, ‘‘Preserving Hegemony.’’
24. Joshua Kurlantzick, ‘‘So Far, It Just isn’t Looking Like Asia’s Century,’’ Washington Post,
September 7, 2008; Funabashi, ‘‘Keeping up with Asia,’’ 110.
25. This triangular relationship is seen by many Asians as the key to regional stability, and the
result of good policy choices made by the United States. Nearly every author in the ‘‘ripe
for rivalry’’ school assumed conflict along this axis either for reasons of power transitions,
historical enmity, or value conflicts. See Cha, ‘‘Winning Asia,’’ http://www.washington
post.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/05/AR2008090502657.html
26. Michael Green, ‘‘America’s Quiet Victories in Asia,’’ Washington Post, February 13, 2007,
A21.
27. For the oxygen argument, see Joseph Nye, ‘‘East Asian Security: the Case for Deep
Engagement,’’ Foreign Affairs (July/August 1995), 90
102; for the public goods argument,
see Cha, ‘‘Winning Asia.’’
28. Chicago Council on Global Affairs and East Asia Institute, Soft Power in Asia: Results of
a Multinational Survey of Public Opinion (Chicago Council on Global Affairs, 2008). The
study was carried out in China, Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, and Vietnam and was the
first public opinion survey of its kind in Asia. Surveys were conducted in January and
February 2008. Bates Gill, Michael Green, Kiyoto Tsuji, William Watts, Strategic Views
on Asian Regionalism: Survey Results and Analysis (Washington, D.C.: CSIS, 2009).
29. Ibid., 5.
30. Chicago Council on Global Affairs and East Asia Institute, Soft Power in Asia, 6.
31. Surveyed countries were the United States, Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Singapore,
Thailand, Japan, and the Republic of Korea.
32. Respondents could name any country but their own to these questions.
33. Chicago Council on Global Affairs and East Asia Institute, Soft Power in Asia, 6.
34. Sheldon Simon, ‘‘Southeast Asia’s Defense Needs: Change or Continuity?,’’ in Strategic
Asia 2005
06 Military Modernization (Seattle: The National Bureau of Asian Research,
2005), 271; Pamela Sodhy, ‘‘U.S.
Malaysian Relations during the Bush Administration,’’
Contemporary Southeast Asia (December 2003).
35. Catherin Dalpino, ‘‘The Bush Administration in Southeast Asia; Two Regions? Two
Policies?,’’ in Hathaway and Lee, George W. Bush and Asia, 103
16; Nayan Chanda,
‘‘Southeast Asia After September 11,’’ in Hathaway and Lee, George W. Bush and Asia,
117
30.
36. Dana Dillon, ‘‘Rice Misses the ASEAN Regional Forum: Now What?’’ Heritage
Foundation Issues Web Memo 813 (2005), http://www.heritage.org/Research/Asiaandthe
Pacific/wm813.cfm_34k.
37. See Jeff Legro, Jack Snyder, and Martha Finnemore, U.S. Standing in the World: Causes
Consequences, and the Future*A Long Report of the Task Force of the American Political
Science Association (Washington, D.C.: American Political Science Association, 2009),
www.apsanet.org/media/PDFs/APSA_TF_USStanding_Long_Report.pdf.

Notes on contributor
Victor Cha is Senior Adviser and Korea Chair at the Center for Strategic & International
Studies (CSIS), and Director of Asian Studies at Georgetown University. From 2004 to 2007,
he was Director for Asian Affairs at the White House, where he was responsible for
14 V. Cha

coordinating U.S. policy for Japan, the two Koreas, Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific
Island nations. He also served as U.S. deputy head of delegation to the Six-Party Talks and has
acted as a senior consultant on East Asian security issues for different branches of the U.S.
government. A recipient of numerous academic awards, including the prestigious Fulbright
scholarship (twice) and MacArthur Foundation fellowship, Dr. Cha spent two years as a John
M. Olin National Security Fellow at Harvard University and as a postdoctoral fellow at
Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation. Dr. Cha is the
author or coauthor of numerous books and articles, including Beyond the Final Score: The
Politics of Sport in Asia (Columbia University Press, 2009), Nuclear North Korea: A Debate on
Engagement Strategies (Columbia University Press, 2003), and Alignment Despite Antagonism:
The U.S.
Korea
Japan Security Triangle (Stanford University Press, 1999). He is also a
frequent contributor and guest analyst for various media outlets. Dr. Cha holds a B.A., an
M.I.A., and a Ph.D. from Columbia University, as well as an M.A. from Oxford University.