Publication

This paper discusses US foreign policy in Northeast Asia, especially in view of President George W Bush's last two years in office. The author argues that many US relationships within the region have changed. China, once held at arms length, is suddenly seen as perhaps the most evident success story in terms of an updated set of cooperative relations. Taiwan, which found great comfort in Bush’s April 2001 pledge to do "whatever it took" to protect it, today finds itself more tolerated than embraced. The principal American allies, Japan and South Korea, while still mainstays of shared US interests and values, are experiencing some tension in ties with Washington. And North Korea, initially shunned as a negotiating partner, has become the object of potentially serious negotiations that are shaping much of US policy throughout the area.