How Obama Can Shape Asia's Rise

OPINION ASIA

NOVEMBER 15, 2009, 1:53 P.M. ET.

How Obama Can Shape Asia's Rise

Engaging Japan and Korea is key.

By CHUNG MIN LEE

Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, President Barack Obama's Asia tour will conclude this week with a visit to South Korea—the world's last Cold War frontier. Even as he ponders critical next steps in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran, the president in Asia faces a region on the cusp of fundamental change. More so than any of Mr. Obama's predecessors, how his administration chooses to help shape Asia's rise throughout the first quarter of the 21st century is going to have a critical impact on America's own future as a superpower.

For the first time in world history, three major regions—North America, continental Europe and East Asia—are sharing the world stage. This is possible in no small part because the U.S. engineered the post-World War II pacification and reconstruction of Germany and Japan. Indeed, the eventual formation of the European Union and Asia's rise over the past half century would have been impossible without two critical ingredients: America's security umbrella and the opening of its markets to European and Asian goods. Having created this tripolar world, the U.S. and especially President Obama now need to focus on three core issues to shape the world for the next half century.

First, the world's and Asia's long-term prosperity and stability depend increasingly on China's role as a viable stakeholder. This will depend in turn on the nature of China's engagement with the U.S. and the strategically consequential powers of Asia such as Japan, India, Indonesia, South Korea and Australia. China has replaced the U.S. as the biggest trading partner for many of Asia's leading economies. It also is growing more assertive of its territorial claims, for instance with the Spratly and Paracel islands in the South China Sea, and Beijing is more willing to send its navy further afield.

No Asian country is entirely comfortable with an increasingly powerful China. The region's advanced market economies and rapidly emerging powers such as India, Indonesia and Vietnam are wary of an overbearing China. The U.S. can play a useful role as a counterbalance even as it expands cooperation with China. Despite China's trading importance, the U.S. has in Asia what China does not: direct security ties with the region's key players and five decades of political trust. President Obama should seek ways to strengthen, rather than weaken, America's linkages with its Pacific allies.

This will involve a combination of strengthening America's existing Asian alliances; expanding freedom and democracy across the region by stressing the importance of human rights and ensuring the inclusion of democratization as a key agenda in the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations and other regional forums; and multipronged engagement with China commensurate with its growing influence but also aimed at advancing its social and political responsibilities at home and abroad. If NATO played a critical role in sustaining global prosperity and stability during the Cold War, America's Asian allies are going to play an equally significant role in the years to come.

Second, from a U.S. as well as a regional perspective, one of the most important bilateral relationships in East Asia is the Korean-Japanese partnership. Next year will mark the 100th anniversary of Korea's colonization by Japan. Significant historical disputes exist but it's time to move forward. South Korean President Lee Myung-bak has refused to exploit sporadic tensions in the Korean-Japanese relationship for political purposes and has expended political capital to ensure a closer partnership across the political, economic and even security sectors. As an expression of his commitment to fundamentally resetting his ties with Korea, Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama chose Seoul as his first foreign destination last month.

Maintaining a robust U.S.-Japan alliance is crucial to buttressing stronger ties between Korea and Japan since the U.S. serves as a common security denominator for Seoul and Tokyo. The Korean-Japanese relationship was traditionally the weakest link in the U.S.-Japan-Korea triangle but that's no longer the case. As President Obama reconfigures strategic linkages with Prime Minister Hatoyama, he should bear in mind the powerful synergy that flows from this critical and comprehensive trilateral democratic partnership.

Third, Mr. Obama needs to address the situation on the Korean peninsula, which stands at a historical tipping point. The North Korean nuclear threat continues to dominate the security agenda but far greater change lies over the horizon—the day when all Koreans on both sides of the 38th parallel can live in freedom. Managing such a transition on the peninsula is going to entail the closest of coordination between Korea and the U.S. and robust confidence building with all of its neighbors, but especially with China. Mr. Obama and Mr. Lee should begin a concerted dialogue on a range of possible outcomes on the peninsula but also share their visions and strategies for a unified Korea with key regional players.

All these steps will be challenging for all sides, as the dynamic between America and Korea shows. Seoul is playing a greater role in the Group of 20 economic summits and will host the 2010 meeting, redeploying forces to Afghanistan, and increasing overseas development assistance. But to play a constructive part in the future alliance with the U.S., Seoul has to support more fully democratic institutions in Asia by providing concrete financial and diplomatic assistance, and must step up economic reforms at home to boost its prosperity. As for Washington, continuing to delay the passage of the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement for myopic political interests will only elevate unnecessary tensions.

When U.S. President-elect Dwight Eisenhower visited Korea in the midst of war in 1952, he could never have imagined how America's alliances would transform the face of Asia and Korea. As President Obama travels through Asia, one of the leading barometers of America's continuing influence over the next two to three decades surely resides in how he chooses to manage America's Asian alliances.

Mr. Lee is dean of the Graduate School of International Studies at Yonsei University in Seoul.

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