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I think that the new President of South Korea, Madam Park, has
very aptly characterized the present
regional situation in East Asia when she speaks about the "Asian Paradox."
My understanding is that while visiting the White House, she lectured to President Obama for some time
on the nature of this paradox. As I understand it,
that paradox consists of the fact that
we're talking about a region that is booming economically. We have the first, second and
third largest economies in the world (the United States, China and Japan), along with
South Korea (now the fifteenth largest economy in the world), in addition to several emerging
new powers (such as Indonesia, India, and several countries in Southeast Asia). This
has generated an extraordinarily dynamic economic situation. That's the good news—the booming
economies. The bad news (and this is the other side of the paradox) is the geopolitical tensions
in the region. I'll just take a moment to enumerate those as they're very numerous and
very worrisome.
First there is the inevitable friction between the rising power China and the dominant power
the United States—what Graham Allison of Harvard has called the "Thucydides Trap."
The Thucydides Trap (all of you historians will understand immediately) has to do with
the origins of the Peloponnesian War and the explanation by Thucydides that the war was
largely caused by the rise of Sparta and the fear this caused in Athens at the time.
Accompanying this structural problem in U.S.-China relations are specific issues that I'm sure
Ambassador Lord will go into, including the recent cyber attack issue along with a host
of economic issues. Taiwan remains an issue. North Korea remains an issue. That is number
one—what might be called the strategic drift that many people worry about when it comes
to U.S.-China relations. Hopefully the recent summit has set in motion
a process to address that.
The second major source of tension in the region is North Korea,
which I'm sure Evans
will tell, you in great detail, is determined to remain an unrestrained nuclear power, developing
both nuclear weapons and missiles to carry them. In addition, North Korea has recently
stated it is no longer interested in denuclearization and no longer even accepts the principle of
denuclearization that it agreed to in earlier meetings in 2005 and 2007. This declaration
has the potential to not just threaten North Korea's neighbors, but also to disrupt the
entire anti-proliferation regime that has so carefully been crafted by us in recent
years.
The third problem is the lingering tension between Japan and South Korea.
Territorial issues
and different views about
historical factors have been a source of particular concern to the
United States, because those two countries are our allies and we would like to see greater
trilateral security cooperation. That remains on hold as long as these tensions persist.
Fourth are territorial and maritime issues in the South China and East China seas that
involve both China and Japan. This is one set of frictions. China and several Southeast
Asian countries (Vietnam and the Philippines particularly) is another set of frictions.
Then there is what many have come to call an "assertive China," determined to protect
what it refers to as its "core interests." I would add to this list an absence of any
formal regional security architectures (such as NATO in Europe) plus growing nationalisms
throughout the region.
This is a very dangerous and volatile mix. Those of us with a sense of history point
to the fact that we don't want to see Asia
repeat the experience of Europe in the twentieth century—
when a combination of power rivalries, rival nationalisms and territorial disputes
led to two disruptive world wars.
led to two disruptive world wars.
led to two disruptive world wars.
We're still living with the consequences of that.
We're still living with the consequences of that.
We're still living with the consequences of that.