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McCain Leads the Presidential Pack on Asia

Of the six leading Republican and Democratic contenders for presidential nominations, only Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, and former Senator John Edwards, Democrat of North Carolina, have produced comprehensive policies toward Asia that each would implement if elected to the White House.

Two more, Senator Hillary Clinton, Democrat of New York, and the former Republican governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney, have sketched out proposals for approaches to Asia. The last two, the Republican former mayor of New York, Rudy Giuliani, and Senator Barack Obama, Democrat of Illinois, have said little about this issue.

Senator McCain's plan, laid out in an essay in the journal Foreign Affairs, is perhaps the most extensive. He says: "Power in the world today is moving east; the Asia-Pacific region is on the rise." Moreover, he says: "The linch pin to the region's promise is continued American engagement."

Specifically, McCain says: "I welcome Japan's international leadership and emergence as a global power." He supports Japan's effort to become a permanent member of the United Nation's Security Council alongside Britain, China, France, Russia, and the US. He would encourage a partnership with India, a stronger alliance with Australia, and would rebuild frayed relations with South Korea.

McCain is cautious about China: "Dealing with a rising China will be a central challenge for the next American president." On the sensitive issue of Taiwan, McCain says: "When China threatens democratic Taiwan with a massive arsenal of missiles and warlike rhetoric, the United States must take note."

The senator would seek an "elevated partnership" with Indonesia and would "expand defense cooperation" with Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Vietnam. That last is intriguing since McCain, a naval aviator shot down over North Vietnam during the Vietnam war, spent five and a half years as a prisoner of war and was brutally beaten many times.

Former Senator Edwards is not so detailed as McCain but more sweeping than opponents within his party. Overall, he says on a web site, the US must "strive to maintain our strong partnerships with longtime allies, including the United Kingdom, Japan, and the transforming European Union."

Edwards asserts that US relations with China are "delicate." He argues: "China's influence and importance will only continue to grow" and asserts that "our overarching goal must be to get China to commit to the rules that govern the conduct of nations."

On India, Edwards says: "The United States and India are natural allies, and the U.S.-Indian strategic partnership will help shape the twenty-first century." He advocates reforming the United Nations to include a place for India on the Security Council.

Senator Clinton has stirred discussion in Asia with a declaration about China that is at odds with the views of many other American politicians. "Our relationship with China," she says in an essay in Foreign Affairs, "will be the most important bilateral relationship in the world in this century."

In contrast, President Bill Clinton, a Democrat and the senator's husband, reflected a widespread view among both Democrats and Republicans. While he was in the White House, he said: "The United States has no more important bilateral relationship than our relationship with Japan. We are strategic allies and our futures are bound up together."

Moreover, Senator Clinton asserted: "We must persuade China to join global institutions." Yet the Central Intelligence Agency's World Factbook reports that China, one of five nations with a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, belongs to about 70 international organizations. (In comparison, the US belongs to about 80.)

In another surprising statement, Clinton writes that Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia, was one of the "springboards for 9/11," the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington in 2001. Yet most reports say Osama bin Laden, a Saudi, and his al Qaeda followers, also Saudis, as having conspired in Afghanistan to hijack the airliners that crashed into the twin towers in New York and the Pentagon in Washington.

Republican Mitt Romney sees Asian nations, particularly China, as economic competitors rather than as security partners or adversaries. "China and the rest of Asia," he says on his web site, "are on the move economically and technologically."

He lumps all Asians together despite differences in political systems, economic development, and social order, saying: "They are a family oriented, educated, hard-working, and mercantile people." He argues: "If America acts boldly and swiftly, the emergence of Asia will be an opportunity."

Romney's opponents might agree with his concluding thought: "If America fails to act, we will be eclipsed."

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Related Topics: asia | election 2008 | foreign policy |

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