助成

Institute forInternational Policy Studies
・Tokyo・

IIPS International Conference“Building a Regime of Regional Cooperation in
East Asia and the Role which Japan Can Play”

Tokyo
December 2-3, 2003

“From Cold War to the Age of Unipolarity and Terrorism”
By
Dr. G. John IkenberryPeter F. Krogh Professor of Geopolitics and Global Justice,Georgetown University

America in East Asia:

From Cold War to the Age of Unipolarity and Terrorism

G. John Ikenberry

Introduction
American foreign policy toward East Asia -- and the geopolitical organization of theregion itself -- is a creature of the Cold War. But American policy toward the region has also
exhibited remarkable continuity despite the end of that great conflict. In certain respects this isbecause the Cold War has not fully ended in East Asia. The Berlin Wall came down in Europe
but the walls -- real and imagined -- remain in place across the Taiwan straits and the Korean
peninsula. Indeed the strategic warming of relations with China during the 1970s was primarily aproduct of America’s bi-polar struggle with the Soviet Union, and with the disappearance of theSoviet Union this rationale for strategic partnership with China is lost. In Asia, the end of theCold War was less of a world historical transition than elsewhere.
But the explanation for continuity in American policy is also due to a larger reality. The
United States is a global hegemonic power that has constructed a political-security order in East
Asia -- as it has around the world -- and there is no alternative order that it or the countries in theregion can conjure up that is more stable or mutually beneficial. Perhaps they will some day but
not yet. American policy toward East Asia and the regional order that has evolved over the
decades reflects this hegemonic reality: key countries in the region are dependent on American
military protection and the American market. American extended deterrence and regional tradedependence are at the heart of this American-East Asian order.
The Bush’s administration’s post-September 11th radical turn in American foreign policy
has unsettled relations around the world – and raised questions about the stable and continuous
postwar American relationship with East Asia. Hard-line and neo-conservative officials in theadministration have articulated a vision of American foreign policy that depreciates the role ofalliances – bi-lateral and multilateral – and raises the “war on terrorism” as the organizing
mission of American foreign policy. Countries are either with the United States or against it. The
preventive war on Iraq – which represents the policy expression of these new ideas – has divided

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allies and placed the postwar structure of alliances and multilateral cooperation at risk. But thisradical turn in American foreign policy is non-sustainable over the longer-term. Cooperative
security approaches – manifest in the multilateral engagement of North Korea – cannot be
avoided even by an administration that is eager to pursue an aggressive and unilateral assault onrogue states and terrorism.
In this paper I will do three things. First, I will sketch American policy toward East Asia
– built as it is around hegemony, bilateral security ties, and soft multilateralism -- and trace how
American policy has been evolving since the early 1990s. Second, I will step back and look at
the broader liberal, realist, and neo-conservative grand strategies that the United States wields
around the world an in the region. Finally, I look at the more recent efforts to maintain ahegemonic leadership position in the region by reinvigorating the bilateral US-Japan alliance,
pursuing multilateral cooperative arrangements in security and economic areas, and searching fora lasting rationale for the American presence in the region.
American Policy toward East Asia
American policy toward East Asia is built around hard bilateral security ties and soft
multilateral economic relations. Embedded in these policies are a set of political bargains
between the United States and the countries within the region. The U.S.-Japan alliance is thecornerstone of the security order and APEC and the trans-Pacific trade and investment system isthe cornerstone of the economic order. The hub-and-spoke defense system has its roots in theearly Cold War and the failure of more multilateral security arrangements which were intended
to mirror the Atlantic security pact.1 The U.S.-Japan alliance was established to deter the
expansion of Soviet power and communism more generally in the Asia-Pacific. This Cold War
anti-communist goal led the United States to use its occupation of Japan and military victory in
the Pacific to actively shape the region – doing so more successfully in Northeast Asia thanSoutheast Asia. The United States offered Japan – and the region more generally – a postwar
political bargain. The United States would provide Japan and other countries security protection
and access to American markets, technology, and supplies within an open world economy. In
return, Japan and other countries in the region would become stable partners who would provide
diplomatic, economic, and logistical support for the United States as it led the wider
American-center postwar order.
From the beginning, this bilateral security order has been intertwined with the evolutionof regional economic relations. The United States facilitated Japanese economic reconstruction
On the idea floated by the United States of a multilateral security institution in Asia in theearly 1940s and during 1950-51 that was to be a counterpart to NATO, see Donald Crone, “Does
Hegemony Matter? The Reorganization of the Pacific Political Economy,” World Politics, Vol.
45 (July 1993).
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after the war and actively sought to create markets for Japanese exports, particularly after theclosing of China in 1949. The United States actively sought the import of Japanese goods into
the United States during the 1950s so as to encourage Japanese postwar economic growth andpolitical stability.2 The American military guarantee to partners in East Asia (and Western
Europe) provided a national security rationale for Japan and the Western democracies to open
their markets. Free trade helped cement the alliance, and in turn the alliance helped settle
economic disputes. In Asia, the export-oriented development strategies of Japan and the smaller
Asian tigers depended on America’s willingness to accept their imports and live with huge trade
deficits; alliances with Japan, South Korea, and other Southeast Asian countries made thispolitically tolerable.3
The alliance system – and the U.S.-Japan security pact in particular – has also played awider stabilizing role in the region. The American alliance with Japan has solved Japan’s
security problems, allowing it to forego building up its military capability, and thereby making
itself less threatening to its neighbors. This has served to solve or reduce the security dilemmas
that would otherwise surface within the region if Japan were to rearm and become a moreautonomous and unrestrained great power. At the same time, the alliance makes American power
more predictable and connected to the region. This too reduces the instabilities and “riskpremiums” that countries in the region would need to incur if they were to operate in a more
traditional balance of power order.4 Even China has seen the virtues of the U.S.-Japan alliance.
During the Cold War it was at least partially welcome as a tool to balance Soviet power -- anobjective that China shared with the United States. But even today, as long as the alliance does
not impinge on China’s other regional goals -- most importantly the reunification with Taiwan –the alliance does reduce the threat of a resurgent Japan.
In the late-1940s, in an echo of today’s situation, the United States was the world’s
dominant state – 45% of world GNP, leadership in military power, technology, finance, andindustry, and brimming with natural resources. But the United States nonetheless found itself
building world order around stable regional partnerships. Its calling card was its offer of Cold
War security protection. But the intensity of political and economic cooperation between the
United States and its partners went well beyond what was necessary to counter Soviet threats.
The remarkable global reach of American postwar hegemony has been at least in part driven by
the efforts of European and Asian governments to harness American power, render that power
more predictable, and use it to overcome their own regional insecurities. The result has been avast system of America-centered economic and security partnerships.
2

See Stuart Auerbach, “The Ironies that Built Japan Inc.” Washington Post, 18 July 1993.

This argument is made in Robert Gilpin, The Challenge of Global Capitalism: The World
Economy in the 21st Century (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000), Chapter Two.
3

4

I discuss this logic of “security binding” in the next section.

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The political bargain behind the East Asian regional hegemonic order was also aimed atmaking American power more predictable and user friendly. If the United States worried aboutfinding partners to help wage the Cold War and build an American-centered world order, thesepartners worried about American power -- both domination and abandonment. Thus the East
Asian regional bargain was also about the restraint and commitment of American power. The
United States would agree to operate within bilateral and multilateral institutional frameworks
and the junior partners would agree to operate within and support the American order.5
American hegemony would become more open, predictable, reciprocal, and institutionalized –and therefore more benign and tolerable. But the United States would be able to lock othercountries into operating within a legitimate and American-centered order.
The end of the Cold War and the shifting economic and political environment in East
Asia has altered the region and presented challenges to this postwar regional hegemonic order.
The geopolitical landscape has changed. The Soviet Union has collapsed and now Russia is aweakened great power – too weak to play a dominant role in the region. The peace negotiations
between the Koreas also is likely to lead to the reassessment of relationships and bargains. The
end of the Cold War makes it more difficult for some Americans to understand why the UnitedStates continues to provide security protection to Japan and the wider region. But in other ways,
the relations and bargains remain critical to regional order -- and they remain largely in tact. The
United States is even more powerful today than it was in the past, particularly with the ongoing
economic malaise in Japan and the growth of America’s new economy during the 1990s. The
United States is still the world’s leading military power. Fifty percent of world military spending
takes place in the United States and it accounts for 80 percent of world military research anddevelopment. The United States also remains the leading destination for East Asian exports.
There is a wide array of regional vested interests – on both sides of the Pacific – in favor of open
trade and investment. This creates on going incentives for the countries of the region to engage
the United States and attempt to establish credible restraints and commitments on American
power. The United States government clearly is convinced that its security and political presencein the region is as important as in the past, despite the end of the Cold War. The NyeCommission on the mid-1990s provides a critical intellectual and policy rationale for thecontinuation of the extended American leadership role in the region. As a result, the asymmetriesof power and prevailing strategic interests make the basic bargain between the United States andits partners as relevant and valued as ever before.
The alliance may have lost its Cold War function but it remains critical in forestallingsecurity dilemma-driven conflict and arms races in the region and it makes the United States amore predictable and institutionalized superpower. APEC also serves this function. The UnitedStates gets some insurance through APEC that regional economic relations will remaintrans-Pacific (rather than intra-Asian) in scope and move in the direction of liberalization andThis argument is explored in G. John Ikenberry, After Victory: Institutions, Strategic Restraint,
and the Rebuilding of Order after Major War (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001).
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openness. In exchange, other countries in the region get some insurance against Americanbilateral discrimination and they get an institutionalized forum to help shape how the UnitedStates operates within the region. The bargains behind the regional hegemonic order are evolving
but they are also being recreated.
America’s Grand Strategies – Realist, Liberal, and Neo-Conservative
Behind American thinking toward East Asia stands at least two intellectual traditions -and a newer, neo-conservative grand strategy. The oldest is a realist grand strategy, of course,
and it is exhibited in the balance of power and containment policies that the United States has
pursued. The original rationale for alliance partnership in East Asia was driven by this realist
geopolitical logic. This realist view still informed the basic American approach to East Asia –and it is embraced by other Republic and Democratic administrations.
There is also a liberal orientation that has informed policies that have sought to create
various sorts of integrative, reciprocal, and highly institutionalized relationships. This tradition
has stressed the importance of multilateral organization of economic relationships and it has
placed a premium on the encouragement of democratic reform in defeated or transitional states.
The liberal orientation toward order is also concerned with the management of power, but itbrings a richer set of ideas about how economic interdependence, democratic community,
political socialization, and binding institutions can contribute to stable and mutually agreeable
order. America’s “liberal grand strategy,” grounded in a particular reading of history,
economics, and politics, is built around at least three elements of policy engagement, which seek
to “open up,” “tie down,” and “bind together” countries so as to generate stable order.6
Opening up means directing the forces of trade and investment, cultural exchange, andtransnational society into the closed politics of strong state rule. “These linkages bring with them
powerful forces for change. Computers and the Internet, fax machines and photo-copiers,
modems and satellites all increase the exposure to people, ideas, and the world beyond China’s
border,” as former President Bill Clinton explained in October 1998. Call this idea “strategicinterdependence.” The idea is to create realms of wealth and autonomy within the economy andsociety, which encourages political pluralism and erodes the iron fisted control of the communist
party. Expanding trade and investment also creates new and more vocal “vested interests” inclosed societies who want to maintain continuous and stable relations with the outside world.
Trade and investment in China is meant to bolster the position of civil society and theThis “liberal grand strategy” is discussed in G. John Ikenberry, “America’s Liberal Grand
Strategy: Democracy and National Security in the Post-War Era,” in Michael Cox, G. John
Ikenberry, and Takashi Inoguchi, eds., American Democracy Promotion: Impulses, Strategies,
and Impacts (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 103-126.
6

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non-state sectors, thereby creating more political counterweight to the party and the military. The
other objective of strategic interdependence is to create dependencies and “vested interests”
within the country who favor stable and continuous relations. This is often seen most clearly inthe economic realm: international business leaders grow in number and importance in the target
country and raise their collective voices in favor of political and economic openness and friendly
relations. Again in regard to China, the anticipation is that rising economic dependence on theflow of trade and investment will restrain China’s geopolitical actions. This remains the view of
the Bush administration.
Tying down means inviting other governments to get involved in internationalorganizations such as the WTO and APEC. Here the idea is to create expectations andobligations on governments through membership in regional and global institutions. Politicalconditionality for gaining membership in these organizations can itself create leverage, but the
expectation is also that once inside the institution, government officials will slowly be socialized
into embracing its principles and norms. The variety of multilateral security fora in East Asia –most importantly the ASEAN Regional Forum – are seen as playing a small role in socializing
regional governments, providing mechanisms for conflict resolution, and fostering some small
sense of common identity.
Binding together means establishing formal institutional links between countries that arepotential adversaries, thereby reducing the incentives for each state to balance against the other.
By binding to each other, surprises are reduced and expectations of stable future relations
dampen the security dilemmas that trigger worst-case preparations, arms races, and dangerous
strategic rivalry. Also, by creating institutional connections between potential rivals, channels ofcommunication are established which provide opportunities to actively influence the other’s
evolving security policy. Even today, the United States and its European and Japanese partners
ward off rivalry and balancing among themselves by maintaining their security alliances. It is thebinding logic – more so than the response to external threats – that makes these institutions
attractive today.
Since September 11th, a third set of ideas have emerged in Washington -- so called,
neo-conservative grand strategy. The neo-conservative vision of world order is built on
unrivaled American military might and a belief in American exceptionalism. Beyond this, while
the pundits and policy makers who make up this radical school of thought tend to share fourconvictions. First, the United States should increasingly stand aloof from the rest of the worldand use its unipolar power – most importantly, its military power – to arbitrate right and wrong
and enforce the peace. In a Hobbesian world of anarchy, the United States must step forward as
the order-creating Leviathan. The United States will refuse to play by the same rules as otherstates but this is the price that the world must pay for the American unipolar provision of
security. America’s older, postwar approach to order – organized around alliance partnership,
multilateral cooperation, binding ties, and strategic bargains with other key states – falls away.
This new global aloofness is reflected in Secretary Rumsfeld’s aphorism that “the6

mission determines the alliance” rather than the other way around. The United States will
determine what is a threat and how to respond -- and relevant and willing partners will be invited
to join in. Gone is the notion that the alliance determines the mission. New fundamentalists are
not against security partnerships – but coalitions of the willing will be formed only if othercountries sign on to America’s unilaterally-defined goals. This global aloofness is also reflectedin the October 2002 National Security Strategy report’s new doctrine of preemption where theUnited States claims a new right to use force “to act against emerging threats before they are
fully formed.” Gone are the old justifications of war based on self-defense and imminent threat
enshrined in Article 51 of the United Nations charter. “When it comes to our security,” President
Bush affirmed, “we really don’t need anybody’s permission.”7.
Second, the new fundamentalists argue that military power -- and the willingness to use it
robustly in pursuit of the national interest -- must be put back into the center of American foreign
policy. Early neo-conservative thinking in the 1970s made this a central tenet -- American
foreign policy in the post-Vietnam era had become too liberal, too soft, and too unwilling to
confront Soviet expansionism. Power must be put back in the service of American principles andthe national interest. During the Clinton years, the new fundamentalists argue, the United States
was not taken seriously as a global military power – commander-in-chief Clinton sent a few
cruise missiles to Baghdad on several occasions but never threaten real force -- and whenenemies stop fearing the United States, they are emboldened to strike.
Third, new fundamentalists are frustrated with the entangling rules and institutions ofliberal internationalism – so they advocate pulling back from treaties and international
agreements that jeopardize American sovereignty and constrain the exercise of power. The
neo-conservative pundit, Charles Krauthammer calls it the “new unilateralism” – “After eight
years during which foreign policy success was largely measured by the number of treaties thepresident could sign and the number of summits he could attend, we now have an administration
willing to assert American freedom of action and the primacy of American national interests.
Rather than contain power within a vast web of constraining international agreements, the newunilateralism seeks to strengthen American power and unashamedly deploy it on behalf ofself-defined global ends.”8Some advocates of this view simply appeal to the new realities of terrorism: in an new
era where small groups of determined individuals can unleash massive violence against thecivilized world without warning, the old system of rules and multilateral cooperation must give
way to action – whatever it takes to get them before they get us. Other new fundamentalists offer
more political-philosophical attacks on multilateralism and rule-based order. In one of the most
Quoted in Dan Baltz, “President Puts Onus Back on Iraqi Leader,” The Washington Post, 7
March 2003, p. A1.
7

8Charles Krauthammer, “The New Unilateralism,” The Washington Post, 8 June 2001, p. A29.

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far-fetched versions, Under Secretary of State John Bolton, prior to joining the administration,argued that a great struggle was unfolding between what he calls Americanists and Globalists.9
Globalists are depicted as elite activist groups who seek to strengthen “global governance”
through a widening net of agreements on environment, human rights, labor, health, andpolitical-military affairs and whose not-so-hidden agenda is to enmesh the United States ininternational laws and institutions that rob the country of its sovereignty. Americanists,
according to Bolton, have finally awoke and are now seizing back the country’s control over its
own destiny. This is a cartoon view that evinces not just a healthy skepticism of multilateralism;
it sees American resistance to the encroachment of those rules and agreements as a patriotic
duty.
Fourth, the new fundamentalists also incorporate Wilsonian ideas into their vision in
urging the spread of democracy. This is not just idealism – it is good national security policy. If
democracy and the rule of law are established in troubled countries around the world, they cease
being threats. This argument was given a conservative imprimatur in Ronald Reagan’scelebrated 1982 speech to the British Parliament in which he called for the promotion of
democracy as a fundamental global security imperative. In the hands of new fundamentalists,
this aspiration has become, in Pierre Hassner apt phrase, “Wilsonian in boots.”10 The
promotion of democracy is not left to the indirect, long-term forces of economic development
and political engagement – but, when necessary, it is purveyed through military force.
America’s East Asian Policies in the Post-Cold War Era
Since the end of the Cold War, the United States has pursued a variety of policies in East
Asia, blending mostly realist and liberal ideas. The Clinton administration may not have had afully formed grand strategy in place, but it was informed by liberal ideas nonetheless. Clinton
officials described their policy toward China at one point as “constructive engagement.” At thesame time, this approach to China did not preclude the Clinton administration from sending two
carriers to patrol the waters off Taiwan, and it was willing to debate how to press China on
human rights and trade problems. Obviously, distinctions between “containment” and“engagement” are too simple to capture the mix of policies available to the United States.11 We
John Bolton, “Should We Take Global Governance Seriously?” Chicago Journal ofInternational Law, Vol. 1, No. 2 (2000), pp. 205-22.
9

Pierre Hassner, “The United States: The Empire of Force or the Force of Empire?” Chaillot
Papers, No. 54 (September 2002), p. 43..
10

An American strategy toward Asia was spelled out in a February 1995 Defense
Department report, and it emphasized four overriding goals: maintain a forward presence of
100,000 in the region; put America’s alliances with Japan and Korea on a firm basis; develop
multilateral institutions such as the ASEAN Regional Forum to foster great security dialogue;

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can look at American foreign policy toward East Asia in this light.
The Bush administration is still evolving a strategy toward the region -- it has not yet
issued a major new security strategy report along the lines of the 1995 and 1998 Clinton reports.
The so-called Armitage report of October 2000 is still probably the best summary ofadministration thinking about the region.12 There has been an attempt to reestablish Japan as
America’s core strategic partner in the region and dispense with the notion of a “strategic
partnership” with China. Indeed, the ambition appears to be to make Japan a heavier and more
involved military partner in the region – sharing intelligence and expanding Japanese functional
duties in the region. The initial steps by the Bush team have also been to signal a harder line
position toward North Korea. Missile defense is also an issue that is creating controversy andhow it plays out will do more than any other issue to shape the balance of continuity and change
in American policy toward the region. But the major thrusts of the new administration also
involve liberal ideas: the alliance will remain the core of America’s commitment to the region;
the United States will support soft multilateral dialogues in the region; trans-Pacific regional
economic relations will be championed; and trade and investment flows will be encouraged in
American relations with China.
In the economic area, the United States has had a very consistent policy of fostering
expanded economic ties with China; encourage cross-cutting trade and investment patterns
within the region among the various economic centers; and raise the level of multilateral politicalmanagement of intra-regional economic relations. In many ways, the evolution of the East Asian
region is already being driven by the forces of trade and investment. Japanese foreign investment
exploded in the mid-1980s within Asia, reversing the earlier Western orientation of Japanese
economic relations. At the same time, the overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia have also created acomplex production and trade network in the region. The result is a growing intra-regional
economy, not dominated by either the United States or Japan. The very complexity andcross-cutting character of these relations is driving greater political and security engagement in
the region.13 The American policy appears to be aimed at deepening trade and investment
interdependence, and encouraging institutional groupings, such as APEC, to reinforce the openand “soft” character of Asia-Pacific economic regionalism. The United States has also
and encourage China, for a position of strength, to define its interests in ways that are compatible
with its neighbors and the United States. Department of Defense, United States Strategy for the
East-Asia Pacific Region (Washington, D.C.: Department of Defense, 1995).
“The United States and Japan: Advancing Toward a Mature Partnership,” INSS Special
Report, 11 October 2000.
13
Yoichi Funabashi, Asia Pacific Fusion: Japan’s Role in APEC (Washington, D.C.:
Institute for International Economics, 1995); and T. J. Pempel, “Gulliver in Lilliput: Japan andAsian Economic Regionalism,” World Policy Journal, Vol. 13, No. 4 (Winter 1996/97), pp.
13-26.
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consistently sought to make sure that Asia-Pacific regionalism encompasses the Western
Hemisphere and not just Asia.
In the political area, the United States has supported the expansion of wider and deeper
institutional relations between China, Japan, Korea, the United States, and the ASEAN countries– at least as these contacts are manifest as “track two” exchanges. The United States has
reaffirmed in commitment to bilateral security ties but it has offered some support for
mulitlateral and minilateral dialogues that are consistent with these underlying security ties.
Support for Chinese membership in the WTO and various regional dialogues are meant toprovide ways to foster agreement on regional norms and standards of conduct. One argument
made by American officials during the Clinton administration is that institutions should bearrayed so as to enmesh the regional powers in a series of regional and global institutions serves
to establish explicit standards and expectations of government behavior in the wide realms ofhuman rights, political accountability, property rights and business law. Yard sticks are erected
that, often in subtle and indirect ways, allow governments and private groups to both support andcriticize government policy and politics in neighboring countries. This in turn helps foster
political community. Another argument is that a denser set of regional institutions provides
forums and arenas for governmental and political elites to interact – thereby providing
opportunities for the “socialization” of these elites into common regional norms andexpectations.14 Finally, institutions can also provide functional problem solving mechanismsthat bring together leaders and specialists across the region to find common solutions toproblems. This is the old liberal argument about functional integration and the “spillover” oftechnical problem solving into more widely shared political bonds.15
The final area is regional security relations. The U.S.-Japan alliance (and the
U.S.-Korean pact as well) provides a vehicle for the United States to play an active role in theregion. In this sense, they serve the same function as NATO does for American involvement inEurope. These alliances also stabilize relations between the United States and its Asian partners.
The deepening of the U.S.-Japan alliance does appear to be driven by these multiple logics oftying down and binding together. The United States and Japan agreed to enhance security
cooperation in the U.S.-Japan Joint Declaration on Security in 1996, and Japan enacted the
U.S.-Japan Defense Guidelines in order to make the security treaty effective in 1998. The
Taiwan Straits crisis in 1996 and North Korea’s missile launching in 1998 both served tointensify American and Japanese efforts to reaffirm and update the alliance.
An important development in American thinking about its post-Cold War security
Iain Johnston, “Socialization in International Institutions: The ASEAN Regional
Forum and I.R. Theory,” in G. John Ikenberry and Micahel Mastanduno, eds., The Emerging
International Relations of the Asia-Pacific Region (forthcoming).
14

Philippe C. Schmitter, “Three Neo-Functional Hypotheses About International
Integration,” International Organization, Vol. 23, No. 1 (Winter 1969).
15

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involvement in East Asia came with the 1995 Nye Report, which made an argument that
America’s military umbrella in the region had real and important consequences for the stability
and functioning of regional political and economic relations and on the success of America’s
economic, political and security goals, including issues such as non-proliferation. Its famous
phase that “security is like oxygen” sums up the rationale that was advanced.16 The report madethe case that the U.S.-Japan alliance and the engagement of China remain in the long-run interestof the United States – America’s security presence had direct and indirect impacts on thestability of the region and on the ability of the United States to achieve its interests. Serious
intellectual and policy challenges to this view have not lasted, at least within the American
defense and foreign policy community.
This is a very thorny issue. The goal must be to bring China into an institutional security
order in Asia, thereby binding China to the other major powers in the region. This would be ahuge accomplishment, the most dramatic step possible in insuring that the rise of Chinese poweris accomplished without provoking “security dilemma” reactions that destabilize the region andtip the region into military conflict. But this new strategic partnership with China must be
accomplished without undermining the stable security relations that the United States has withJapan and Korea. These proven alliances – with their multiple functions – should not be
exchanged for a regional security forum. The challenge will be to define objectives, steps, and along-term process that can simultaneously integrate China into a regional security order andmaintain the benefits of the current bilateral treaties.

See Joseph S. Nye, “East Asia: The Case for Deep Engagement,” Foreign Affairs,(July/August 1995). For later reflections, see Nye, “The ‘Nye Report’: Six Years Later,”International Relations of the Asia-Pacific, Vol. 1, No. 1 (2001), pp. 95-103. For background,see Yoichi Funabashi, Alliance Adrift (New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1999).
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