In one of the longest US presidential campaigns in history, neither party has addressed one of the most critical issues of the day: How can the US successfully integrate its domestic concerns with an increasingly competitive global marketplace?
At home and abroad, it is impossible to miss the breadth and depth of change sweeping the globe, particularly in Asia. While the US economy is in the final stages of a seismic shift from manufacturing to service-oriented industries, China and India are ascendant, and Muslims throughout Asia are clamoring for a greater role in global affairs.
And yet the Democratic presidential candidates, Senator Hillary Clinton and Senator Barack Obama, and the Republican nominee, Senator John McCain, continue to tiptoe around such issues. Instead, their campaigns' treatment of US foreign policy has been reduced to endless debates about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and about the wisdom of the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
Surely this is unacceptable to every American committed to a safe and prosperous future. The next US president needs to provide a clearer understanding of how he or she will prepare the US for a 21st century in which local issues are tied to global developments, global trends can have local implications, and the US' international authority will confront Asia's newfound clout.
With this in mind, here are five questions that should be posed to the US' presidential candidates:
One, big construction firms and technology companies such as Microsoft, IBM and Cisco Systems already have huge campuses in India. But now we see Asian companies beginning to acquire valuable US-owned economic assets -- witness India's Tata Group's proposed acquisition of Jaguar and Land Rover from Ford. Do you see foreign investment and acquisitions in the US as a positive development or a potential peril?
Two, the US once defined free trade for the new global economy, but many Americans are now using demands for "fair trade" to impose reactionary and protectionist trade policies.
As Democrats suggest renegotiating NAFTA, Asian countries are watching with increasing trepidation. South Korea, in particular, is left to wonder whether or not the US is serious about pursuing similar trade agreements with one of Asia's strongest economies and one of the US' oldest regional allies. Will you back -- or back away from -- free-trade pacts with Asia?
Three, the US invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, regardless of their relative merits, have unquestionably poisoned the US' standing among Asia's 900 million Muslims, from Pakistan to the Philippines and all points in between. A 2006 Pew poll found that support for the US in Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country, has plunged to around 30 percent. How will you engage Muslims in Asia and how will you garner support at home for stronger ties with Muslims around the world?
Four, the Asia Society recently co-presented a new education study that showed US 15-year-olds' science proficiency ranked 25th out of 30 countries tested, and lagged far behind their peers in Japan, South Korea and Hong Kong. Meanwhile, US colleges and universities are struggling to attract the best and brightest minds from abroad, because those students -- and their professors -- are increasingly being denied US visas or subjected to harrowing entry delays when they arrive.
Business leaders, such as Microsoft's Bill Gates, have also complained about shortages of skilled workers and have called for large increases in "H1-B" visas, which allow professionals to work in the US for short periods of time. How will you help US students compete globally, while ensuring a level playing field at home for talented foreign students and workers?
Five, both China and India are demanding concessions from the US before they will even consider caps on greenhouse-gas emissions. Are you willing to sacrifice some economic growth domestically -- or, conversely, are you willing to jeopardize relations with China and India -- for the sake of the environment?
The US' next president must re-engage with Asia not as an afterthought, and not as a corollary to the "war on terror," but as a central component of a roadmap to a safe, secure and prosperous future. He or she should start now by answering Asia's questions.
Vishakha Desai is president of the Asia Society.
Copyright: Project Syndicate
In their recent op-ed “Trump Should Rein In Taiwan” in Foreign Policy magazine, Christopher Chivvis and Stephen Wertheim argued that the US should pressure President William Lai (賴清德) to “tone it down” to de-escalate tensions in the Taiwan Strait — as if Taiwan’s words are more of a threat to peace than Beijing’s actions. It is an old argument dressed up in new concern: that Washington must rein in Taipei to avoid war. However, this narrative gets it backward. Taiwan is not the problem; China is. Calls for a so-called “grand bargain” with Beijing — where the US pressures Taiwan into concessions
The term “assassin’s mace” originates from Chinese folklore, describing a concealed weapon used by a weaker hero to defeat a stronger adversary with an unexpected strike. In more general military parlance, the concept refers to an asymmetric capability that targets a critical vulnerability of an adversary. China has found its modern equivalent of the assassin’s mace with its high-altitude electromagnetic pulse (HEMP) weapons, which are nuclear warheads detonated at a high altitude, emitting intense electromagnetic radiation capable of disabling and destroying electronics. An assassin’s mace weapon possesses two essential characteristics: strategic surprise and the ability to neutralize a core dependency.
Chinese President and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Chairman Xi Jinping (習近平) said in a politburo speech late last month that his party must protect the “bottom line” to prevent systemic threats. The tone of his address was grave, revealing deep anxieties about China’s current state of affairs. Essentially, what he worries most about is systemic threats to China’s normal development as a country. The US-China trade war has turned white hot: China’s export orders have plummeted, Chinese firms and enterprises are shutting up shop, and local debt risks are mounting daily, causing China’s economy to flag externally and hemorrhage internally. China’s
During the “426 rally” organized by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party under the slogan “fight green communism, resist dictatorship,” leaders from the two opposition parties framed it as a battle against an allegedly authoritarian administration led by President William Lai (賴清德). While criticism of the government can be a healthy expression of a vibrant, pluralistic society, and protests are quite common in Taiwan, the discourse of the 426 rally nonetheless betrayed troubling signs of collective amnesia. Specifically, the KMT, which imposed 38 years of martial law in Taiwan from 1949 to 1987, has never fully faced its
RSS