Japan’s relations with China entered the last quarter of the year still reeling from the aftershock of Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi Junichiro’s Aug. 13 visit to the Yasukuni Shrine, while the October Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders’ Meeting in Shanghai loomed on the diplomatic calendar.  Further complicating the relationship were Koizumi’s efforts to provide rear-area military support to the United States in its war against terrorism.  The deployment of Japan’s Self-Defense Forces (SDF) to the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf region again risked resurrecting history-related issues in China and across the region.

At the same time, an on-going trade dispute, involving Japanese provisional sanctions on Chinese agricultural products and China’s retaliation against Japanese manufactured goods, threatened to escalate with Tokyo setting a Dec. 21 deadline for resolution or the imposition of formal, long-term sanctions.  A last-day deal allowed both sides to declare victory and to look ahead, in a spirit of cooperation, to 2002 and the 30^th anniversary of the normalization of Japan-China relations.

Given the troubles of history, textbooks, and trade, which marked relations throughout much of the past year, the personal efforts of Prime Minister Koizumi and Chinese President Jiang Zemin during the October-December quarter appear to have stabilized the bilateral relationship and opened the door to a promising new year.  Encouraging the efforts of the two governments are rapidly expanding private sector relationships.  During the final quarter of the year, Japanese investment and industry continued to surge to the mainland.

The big news for the past quarter was the improvements in Seoul-Tokyo ties after months of controversy over history-related issues.  While Japan-ROK relations appear to be back on track, Tokyo-Pyongyang relations veered badly off course following failed attempts to jump-start normalization talks; financial scandals involving the pro-DPRK Chosen Soren organization in Japan; and an altercation at sea. U.S.-Japan-ROK trilateral coordination proceeded apace with American prosecution of the war against terrorism in Southwest Asia as one of the major topics of discussion.

From the war in Afghanistan to the anthrax scares to the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) show to the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM) demise, Russia and China – together with the rest of the world – were barely able to keep up with the thrust and momentum of U.S. foreign policy in the last quarter of 2001. Despite their support for Washington, perhaps more than at any time in the past decade, both were taken back by the persistence of Washington’s “unilateralism.”

In their bilateral relations, Moscow and Beijing actively coordinated their policies for the U.S.-led anti-terrorism war. Toward the quarter’s end, however, they started to diverge over the ABM issue.

India detonated five nuclear devices in May 1998. U.S.-India relations from that time through the end of 2000 were dominated by a nuclear dispute. Despite the upbeat mood following President Bill Clinton’s March 2000 visit to India, U.S. sanctions in response to India’s tests constrained defense and economic cooperation. With the inauguration of the Bush administration in January 2001, prospects for improved relations were promising. The Bush administration took office with misgivings about sanctions, a desire to enhance or develop security-oriented relations with “friends and allies,” concerns about China, and deep skepticism regarding elements of the nuclear nonproliferation regime such as the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). If these predilections were translated into policy, the U.S. and India could likely move beyond existing constraints to good relations and forge enhanced ties (see “Stuck in a Nuclear Narrative,” Comparative Connections, Vol. 3, No. 1).

In 2001, progress in U.S.-India relations, at a pace and of a character “visible to the naked eye,” did occur. The two countries fashioned a less dominant, less contentious nuclear dialogue.  The saga of sanctions came to an unexpectedly sudden, if incomplete, end. The U.S. and India revived defense cooperation. However, the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the U.S., the renewal of U.S.-Pakistani ties in their wake, and subsequent India-Pakistan tensions clouded the horizon of U.S.-India relations.

The quarter did not begin on Sept. 11, but (at least from an American perspective) most events that came before that date appear to have paled in significance or, at a minimum, require reassessment in light of Washington’s new war on terrorism.  The horrific attacks on the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon may help usher in the “post post-Cold War era,” by creating an opportunity for a fundamentally changed relationship between Washington and both Moscow and Beijing.  It may also provide Tokyo with the incentive (and excuse) to take a major step toward becoming a “normal” nation and more equal security partner.  While Washington’s attention is focused largely on the Middle East/Southwest Asia, the implications of the Sept. 11 attacks and subsequent war on terrorism will be felt throughout the Asia-Pacific region.

While the attacks may have helped (at least temporarily) to create a spirit of bipartisanship in the United States, they did little to ease the highly partisan domestic political bickering in two of the region’s young democracies.  On the Korean Peninsula, the resumption of North-South high-level dialogue means that Kim Dae-jung’s ruling party now seemingly enjoys greater cooperation with the North than with its Southern counterparts, including (former) members of the ruling coalition.  Meanwhile, opposition parties in Taiwan seem more willing to cooperate with the government in Beijing than with the one in Taipei.

Prior to Sept. 11, U.S. policy toward East Asia seemed to be evolving smoothly, following Secretary of State Colin Powell’s July swing through Japan, Vietnam, South Korea, China, and Australia.  Powell also attended the annual ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) ministerial meeting in Hanoi, where he signaled a U.S. commitment to support the Asian multilateral security dialogue process.

One major diplomatic casualty of the emerging war on terrorism was President Bush’s long-anticipated first visit to Tokyo and Seoul to underscore his alliance-based Asia strategy.  While Bush is still slated to attend the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders’ Meeting in Shanghai, his planned en route visit to Washington’s two Northeast Asia allies was canceled, as was a follow-up trip to Beijing for a summit meeting with Chinese President Jiang Zemin.  This is unlikely to generate serious charges of “Japan passing,” given the understandable circumstances and Bush’s willingness to hold separate side meetings with Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi Junichiro and ROK President Kim Dae-jung (plus Jiang) in Shanghai.  Nonetheless, it represents a missed opportunity for President Bush finally to lay out his vision for East Asia to a broader Japanese and Korean audience.

This was supposed to be a triumphant quarter for Japan and its alliance with the United States. Prime Minister Koizumi Junichiro was going to retake the initiative in Japanese politics, after leading his party to a resounding win in July’s Upper House elections. Then, he would use that mandate to push through an aggressive and ambitious economic reform program, running over the old guard within his own party who pose the chief obstacle to his efforts. Finally, the quarter would close as the United States and Japan joined together Sept. 8 to celebrate a half century of unprecedented cooperation and friendship and embarked on the next phase of their relationship.

Instead, this quarter has witnessed the emergence of what appears to be a troubling – if not dangerous – pattern in Japanese politics. It is still too early to make a definitive diagnosis, but let’s call it the “Koizumi syndrome”: bold announcements that launch high hopes that are then dashed by a combination of a failure to follow-up and the obstacles and inertia that are built into the Japanese political system. Signs of the “Koizumi syndrome” have been visible since the July Upper House election and in the aftermath to the terrorist blasts that occurred in New York City and Washington, D.C. on Sept. 11.  This diagnosis could prove premature: the prime minister might yet confound his critics. But the terrorist attacks have altered Japan’s domestic political terrain, forcing Koizumi to restructure his priorities. They put new pressure on the Japanese government to take decisive action to help its ally, but they simultaneously undermine the economic agenda that Koizumi had hoped to champion. If it derails attempts to reform the country’s ailing economy and blocks substantive efforts to assist the United States in the fight against terrorism, the bilateral relationship could become a victim of the “Koizumi syndrome.”

The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon provided a new strategic focus for U.S.-China relations.  Chinese President Jiang Zemin immediately condemned the terrorist actions and offered China’s support for the Bush administration’s global counterterrorism effort.  A week following the attacks, Chinese Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan arrived in Washington to prepare for President Bush’s late October summit with President Jiang that was to be held in Beijing following the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders’ Meeting in Shanghai.  After the Tang visit, Beijing sent a delegation of counterterrorism experts to share intelligence with U.S. officials that might aid the Bush administration’s war on terrorism.  An important step aimed at avoiding future mid-air collisions was taken when Chinese and American military delegations met on Guam in a special meeting of the Military Maritime Consultative Agreement (MMCA).  Earlier in the quarter, discord over China’s alleged transfer of missile components to Pakistan that resulted in the imposition of sanctions on a Chinese company.  U.S. Secretary of State Powell traveled to Beijing in July for talks with Chinese leaders and reassured the Chinese people that the United States views China as a friend, not as an adversary.

As this quarter drew to a close, South Korea endured a domestic political crisis and faced high economic uncertainty for the immediate future.  Following a no-confidence vote on Unification Minister Lim Dong-won, President Kim Dae-jung replaced his Cabinet and prepared to govern without his party’s control of the National Assembly.  This political crisis brought to the surface deep misgivings in South Korean public opinion and among politicians about the president’s Sunshine Policy toward North Korea. On top of domestic factors, the terrorist attacks on New York’s World Trade Center and the Pentagon in Washington ignited fears about significant international damage to South Korea’s economy, which was already in the midst of a slow-down and facing a possible recession.  Seoul also fears that Washington’s preoccupation with the war on terrorism will further reduce the prospects of a resumption of U.S.-DPRK talks.

Ironically, the South’s internal political problems likely influenced North Korea’s decision to agree to a new round of inter-Korean talks in mid-September, the first such meeting in five months.  While no major progress was reported at that meeting, it appeared to get the inter-Korean peace process back on track, in stark contrast to still-stalled relations between Washington and Pyongyang.

The events of Sept. 11 put the U.S.-Russia relationship in a whole new perspective. Many are asking whether the leading items on the bilateral agenda of yesterday will take a back seat to the pressing issues of today.  Until the terrorist attacks, discussions of missile defense and the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, which had assumed a position of major importance in defining the bilateral relationship, seemed dead in the water.  The decision to expand NATO to include the Baltic nations in 2002 seemed a foregone conclusion.  Chechnya threatened to become a sore point again in relations, as did the issue of freedom of the press.  But since Sept. 11, things may have changed.  Many analysts are speculating that Russia can use cooperation in the fight against terrorism as a bargaining chip.  The new U.S. ambassador in Moscow, Alexander Vershbow, however, has insisted that the agenda with Russia remains unchanged.  Vershbow declared soon after the attacks that the U.S. will push ahead with national missile defense (NMD), NATO expansion, and will continue opposing Russian actions in Chechnya.  Whatever may be the case, President Vladimir Putin has been unequivocal in his support for the United States, and Washington has much to be thankful for this.  Putin undoubtedly realizes, however, that Russia is walking a tightrope.

For this quarter and far into the future, the benchmark for U.S. relations with countries in Southeast Asia – as elsewhere – will be how they respond to the new level of global terrorism initiated in New York and Washington on Sept. 11, and to Washington’s call for a worldwide coalition to combat terrorism.  Nearly all Southeast Asian governments quickly expressed horror and sympathy.  Practical responses were mixed, ranging from unconditional promises of support for military action to some reluctance to become involved, at least for public consumption. U.S. relations with Indonesia warmed substantially with the inauguration of President Megawati Sukarnoputri and her highly successful visit to Washington barely a week after the attacks.  Megawati’s condemnation of Islamic violence, as spokesperson for the world’s largest Islamic country, was particularly welcome.  A worrisome backlash surfaced in Indonesia, however, from mainstream Islamic groups as well as extremists.

On other fronts, ASEAN’s round of ministerial-level meetings in July produced many words but few concrete results.  They did offer an opportunity for U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell to make clear that the Bush administration was committed to the region.  The sharpest criticism of ASEAN’s current state came from within, with some leaders calling for efforts to move toward faster integration.  In July, Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo announced a shift toward expanded relations, including security relations, with the United States.