The United States and Asia in 1983: Putting Things into Perspective

Abstract

Although Asia was punctuated in 1983 by spectacular developments, including the assassination in Manila of Benigno Aquino, the downing over Soviet territory of Korean Air Line's Flight 007, and the Rangoon massacre of South Korean cabinet ministers, it was not a crisis year for the U.S. in Asia. In the ranking of American foreign policy concerns, Asia has come to occupy a relatively lower place, and from the perspective of the Asian states, there has been a perceptible movement of the U.S. away from the region's center stage. Those are not altogether bad developments, nor do they suggest a headlong surge toward Asia's being considered irrelevant by Americans. Trade alone will assure an intensive and growing mutuality between the U.S. and the economies of the East Asia-Pacific region, and the large and growing Soviet naval presence in the Pacific will assure a continued high American military posture in Asia. We are, however, witnessing the beginnings of a more mature assessment of America's own needs and limits in Asia, and one consequence is that Americans may shed their notions both of omnipotence and responsibility for everything of significance in the region. It is useful to recall that the United States has not always sought the key role in Asian international politics, and whether by design or otherwise, the Reagan administration made this more clear in 1983. These developments seem inseparable from the role of Secretary of State George P. Shultz. His contest for the ear and confidence of the President is no doubt not yet over, and in the American system of government can perhaps never be fully satisfied. Yet far more than was attained by Alexander