How Foreign Policy can be a catalyst for Peace

Geopolitical Diary: Closing a Chapter in Southeast Asia

July 22, 2009

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived in Thailand on Wednesday for several days of meetings with the Asian “alphabet soup” organizations – namely, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and its security arm, the ASEAN Regional Forum, which includes Russia, India, the European Union and others. The purpose of Clinton’s visit is to trumpet the revival of U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia as part of the Obama administration’s broader push to demonstrate “smart power” — that is, expanding U.S. influence by engaging in a wide range of diplomatic activities in every corner of the globe.

During Clinton’s visit, a bewildering array of multilateral and bilateral talks are slated on topics such as North Korea’s missile and nuclear tests, the July 17 hotel bombings in Jakarta, increasing territorial disputes and naval competitiveness in the South China Sea, and the continued shortage of good news in Myanmar.

One meeting likely to be overlooked will occur on July 23, involving Clinton and ministers from Thailand, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. Clinton wants the United States to play a bigger role in the development of these countries, especially in the Mekong River Basin. Primarily, this means giving new attention to two pariah states — Cambodia and Laos. Thailand is an old American ally and has a relatively strong economy, and Vietnam for years has benefited from U.S. investment and consumption, but Cambodia and Laos have lagged behind. Until June, these states were included on a blacklist that prevents the U.S. Export-Import Bank from financing trade with “Marxist-Leninist” regimes.

In June, however, President Barack Obama struck Laos and Cambodia off the blacklist. With the flick of a wrist, the United States has begun to erase the last vestiges of Vietnam-era grudges from its foreign policy, and to close the Southeast Asian chapter of the Cold War. The move came as a total surprise to those who saw Washington’s influence in the region as a static force. Human rights groups cried hypocrisy, and Thailand complained about new competition on the block. But there is little anyone can do when the United States changes its mind.

The incident provides another example of the apparent nonchalance with which the United States chooses strategically to alter its relationships with a particular region, though the alteration may have enormous consequences for the region itself. The Cambodian and Laotian economies will blossom as a result of the decision, which allows them to be absorbed into the U.S.-led global economic system. These two are small fry, but the United States already exports $68 billion worth in goods to ASEAN states — not much less than its exports to China — and these trade ties will grow quickly. In 1995, Washington formally normalized relations with Vietnam — now the United States exports nearly $3 billion in goods a year to Vietnam, and has become Vietnam’s top export market. This did not require the dismantling of the Communist Party of Vietnam; simply put, after the fall of the Soviet Union, the United States no longer saw a threat to contain.

The states in Indochina are only the latest batch of former U.S. enemies that Washington is attempting to bring into the international economic system. Before that, there were the Warsaw Pact countries, China, South Korea, Germany and Japan. Each time the United States extends its hand to one country or region, a potential hornet’s nest of rival regional powers is broken apart. Should a future China be hostile to U.S. interests, for instance, Washington hopes it will not find a Southeast Asia at odds with American interests and with nothing to lose, but rather one that shares interests with Washington and is reluctant to get on its bad side. China, for its part, will be well aware of Clinton’s meeting with the neighbors to the south.

The United States draws power from this ceaseless redefinition of what constitutes its nature, goals, enemies and friends. Other states must react to these redefinitions. It might be difficult to imagine now, but in the future, the United States — with the same equanimity — might normalize relations with the likes of Syria, Cuba, North Korea, Afghanistan or even Iran.