[asia-apec 1714] Top-notch Asia specialists lined up for Bush team

[Aaron James]

New ambassador for Seoul, according to the article, is former spook Douglas
Paal.  He appeared in a Nike-produced video a few years ago, saying how
happy Indonesian workers were to be making shoes for Nike contractors.


Straits Times [Singapore]
Tuesday, January 23, 2001

Analysis

Top-notch Asia specialists lined up for Bush team 

By Lee Siew Hua
US CORRESPONDENT 

WASHINGTON - The new Bush administration looks likely to have a rich layer of 
Asian specialists in its foreign-policy team, unlike President Bill Clinton 
in his early years.

Many have Pentagon origins and are oriented towards international security.

So far, the names in the mix are more steeped in Japan than China. This 
coincides with the growing sense that a corrective tilt away from Beijing and 
towards Tokyo is due, a position pushed by Republican strategic thinkers.

Even as Washington revels in the inauguration shindig, behind the scenes, 
there is 'shameless' lobbying for vacancies in the administration, a 
government official told The Straits Times.

With the Cabinet members named, the focus has swung to the deputies and their 
teams who will fill influential second- and third-tier posts and steer policy 
on a vital day-to-day basis.

The experts will fan out to the White House, the Pentagon, and the 
departments of State, Treasury and Commerce.

Their principals - President George W. Bush, General Colin Powell and the 
designated National Security Adviser, Dr Condoleeza Rice - lack deep 
experience in Asia. 

So the Asia hands will, in significant ways, apply their skills to the brew 
of Asian issues that need perpetual vigilance.

The powerful deputy posts at the State and Defence departments are expected 
to go to two former Pentagon officials, Mr Richard Armitage and Mr Paul 
Wolfowitz, respectively.

Mr Armitage appears to have finally accepted Gen Powell's offer of the No 2 
job at the State Department.

He is a Powell pal, and, for some time, held out against involving their 
close personal friendship in his professional life. 

The bright perspective, of course, is that the burly, strong-minded Mr 
Armitage will have Mr Powell's ear, particularly on Asian issues.

He has led a team to critique the Clinton policy on North Korea, and this 
triggered the Perry Report, which recommended drawing Pyongyang out of its 
isolationist shell.

For the last two years, he worked on a new approach to Asia policy, with an 
emphasis on Japan and China. During the campaign, he was one of Mr Bush's 
Asia briefers.

Mr Wolfowitz, the dean of the School of Advanced International Studies at the 
Johns Hopkins University, appears ready to take up the deputy post at the 
Pentagon, with the support of Vice-President Dick Cheney.

The former envoy to Jakarta is committed to Indonesia and thinks outside the 
box. But China has concerns about his hawkishness.

Another name in the brew is Mr James Kelly, who is expected to be the chief 
Asia policymaker in the State Department. This will be the role of Assistant 
Secretary of State for East Asian Affairs.

The former Navy captain, Pentagon aide and National Security Council official 
now helms the Pacific Forum think-tank in Honolulu.

South Korean officials took the initiative to meet him this month, in a 
speedy engagement of the Bush administration, and also to start coordinating 
policy on the North.

Mr Torkel Patterson, also a Pacific Forum scholar and retired Navy officer, 
is tipped to be the senior director of Asian affairs at the National Security 
Council.

Both men possess a wealth of expertise in Japan plus military credentials. 
Analysts said they will provide the 'one-two punch' at the working level.

The general pattern of Japan expertise and Pentagon connections in the Bush 
team appears to be reflected in these two men.

But Mr Robert Manning of the Council on Foreign Relations, and a member of 
Team Armitage, which has worked on North Korea and Japan policy, told The 
Straits Times that it is more a case of 'across-the-board experience on Asia' 
rather than Japan expertise per se.

He also said that the assistant secretaries will get more authority and have 
more gravitas, compared to the Clinton officialdom.

'What you'll see is much more day-to-day attention to the strategic 
perspective to Asia, as opposed to something falling into the inbox,' he 
asserted.

Few China experts have been pinpointed so far, and this adds to the concern 
that Mr Bush may be over-emphasising Japan, just as Mr Clinton was perceived 
to lean too much towards China.

But the situation with the Asian appointees could change. A large tract of 
the Washington talk about incoming personnel belongs to the speculative realm.

Still, one prospect for the China portfolio at the National Security Council 
has been Mr Ford Hunt, a China expert and a special assistant to 
Under-Secretary of State Thomas Pickering.

With the power shift to a Republican President after eight Clinton years, 
there will be a massive turnaround of ambassadors. These positions are 
regularly awarded to political loyalists and financiers.

One name for the ambassadorship to Beijing is Mr Jon Huntsman, the former 
envoy to Singapore and a Mandarin speaker.

Mr Douglas Paal, a former National Security Council senior official, is 
tipped for the Seoul ambassadorship. 

This is a heavyweight job, given the burning concerns over North Korea and 
the expectation that the Bush administration will slow down the Clintonian 
embrace of Pyongyang.

For Indonesia, South-east Asian scholar Karl Jackson's name has been 
mentioned, and also Mr Tom Hubbard, recently an envoy to the Philippines and 
a career diplomat with a depth of Japan experience too.

For Japan, one name mentioned was former Vice-President Dan Quayle.

The envoy to India could be Mr James Lilley, a former ambassador to Beijing. 
China is wary of his views that the US must support a positive Asian power 
balance against Beijing. Clearly, India likes this tone, like many in the 
Bush team.

In the State Department, the candidates for the post of Assistant Secretary 
for South Asia Affairs include Georgetown professor and former New Zealand 
diplomat James Clad. He chairs a working group on US-India relations.

Others in the race are Mr Mat Daley, who handles India and Pakistan policy at 
the State Department, and also Pakistan-born scholar Sharin Thahir-Kehli.

At the Cabinet level, there is little direct experience with Asia, except for 
Mr Robert Zoellick, a Jim Baker (former Secretary of State) protege who has 
bagged the post of US Trade Representative. 

He has strong government experience, which includes trade policy, 
particularly with Japan.

During the election campaign, he and Mr Armitage, who appears headed for the 
State Department stratosphere, were involved in the attacks against Mr 
Clinton's Asia policy.

They consolidated the Bush campaign's critique of the Clinton tilt towards 
China, while neglecting Japan plus regional allies and friends.

Many of the Asian names highlighted by Asia analysts to The Straits Times are 
undeniably top-notch.

The Asia hands and ambassadors will have to go through a big wave of 
confirmation hearings in the Senate, with some ready to work in the months 
ahead, and perhaps as late as November.

Even as they start work at their new desks, there may be a slew of crises and 
issues in Asia and the world that the US will have to confront.

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Aaron James
204-339 East 7th Avenue
Vancouver, British Columbia
V5L 1M9
Phone: 
aaronj at interchange.ubc.ca
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