By Allen Choate

The new prime minister of Japan, Naoto Kan, who last week replaced Yukio Hatoyama after he abruptly resigned less than nine months into his term, certainly will have his hands full trying to reignite his country’s efforts to craft a coherent and sustained set of foreign policy goals and strategies. Hatoyama’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) predecessor, Taro Aso, spoke about an “arc of freedom and prosperity” in Asia as the core of Japanese foreign policy. Unfortunately, he was unable to articulate, much less implement, how that was to be achieved.

Hatoyama, in his limited tenure, stressed shaping an “East Asian fraternity,” improving relations with China, and putting the bilateral relationship with the U.S. on a more “equal” footing. Re-opening the issue of the U.S. air base on Okinawa turned out to be a tactical error.
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By V. Bruce J. Tolentino

As tantalizing hints of recovery from the global financial crisis pop up in international economic statistics, a curious dichotomy of narratives about the status of various Asian economies has emerged in the international media:

China Dominant

First, there is the big story, related with relish and surprise, of unexpected and robust economic recovery in most countries across Asia, with a dominant, triumphant China leading the way. Meanwhile, more-developed Asian economies – such as Japan, which is commonly portrayed as somewhat stuck in a low-growth, lack-luster rut – are seen as mere supporting players.
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By Scott Snyder

The latest BBC/World Service Poll conducted in January and released earlier this week has some results in Northeast Asia that offer some food for thought—at least for anyone who thinks that public views are a potentially decisive influence on foreign policy. The two most notable results in Northeast Asia are the precipitous rise in negative Chinese (and Russian) views towards North Korea and the strikingly positive feelings that exist between the South Korean and Japanese publics toward each other on the one hundredth anniversary of Japan’s annexation of the Korean peninsula.

Read the full piece on the Council on Foreign Relations blog Asia Unbound.

Scott Snyder directs The Asia Foundation’s Center for U.S.-Korea Policy. He can be reached at ssnyder@asiafound-dc.org.

By John J. Brandon

This week Barack Obama will make his first trip to Asia as President of the United States. In addition to paying state visits to China, Japan, and South Korea, President Obama will meet with 20 national leaders in Singapore to attend the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum. Although member countries vary in economic clout individually, APEC economies collectively represent 55 percent of the world’s gross domestic product, 45 percent of global trade, and 40 percent of the world’s population.
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On Thursday, November 5, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace will host and stream live a discussion on President Obama’s trip to Asia next week. Asia Foundation Trustee Douglas Paal, who is Vice President for Studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, will discuss President Obama’s trip with Michael Pettis, a senior associate in the Beijing-based Carnegie China Program, and Taiya Smith, a senior associate in the Carnegie Energy and Climate Program, and the Carnegie China Program. Expected to be among the most important foreign tours during his first year in office, the president will visit Japan, Singapore, China, and South Korea from November 12 through November 19. During the trip he will attend the annual summit of the Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation in Singapore, where he will be the first U.S. leader to hold formal talks with all 10 heads of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. Watch the discussion live here at 12:15 p.m. EST on November 5.

On October 23, Douglas Bereuter, President and CEO of The Asia Foundation, delivered the keynote address at a conference hosted by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs in Chicago, Illinois. Titled “Implications of the Financial Crisis on American, Chinese, South Korean, and Japanese Soft Power in East Asia,” the October 22-24 conference discussed the effects of the financial crisis on the U.S. and key Asian countries.

The world economy is slowly recovering but the effects of the financial disaster are far-reaching, especially for the U.S. Besides the immediate impact of the crisis on economic growth and employment, there are serious questions about America’s confidence in its global leadership and the future of its relationship with Asia.

On October 23, Douglas Bereuter, President and CEO of The Asia Foundation, will deliver a keynote address at a conference on the effects of the financial crisis on the U.S. and its key Asian allies. Titled “Implications of the Financial Crisis on American, Chinese, South Korean and Japanese Soft Power in East Asia,” the October 22-24 conference will be hosted by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs in Chicago, Illinois.

By Daniel Widome

Daniel Widome is a former Junior Associate at The Asia Foundation.

When Lehman Brothers collapsed one year ago, Japan entered the worst of the global financial crisis with a unique perspective. It had experienced its own asset bubble in the late 1980s, and the slowness and inadequacy of its response led to a decade of stagnation and missed economic opportunity. One result of that experience was an abundance of caution. Japanese banks avoided many of the subprime loans that had laid the groundwork for the financial crisis in the United States, and high household savings rates and a favorable balance of trade placed it in a stronger position than many of its G20 peers.
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By Daniel Widome

Daniel Widome is a Junior Associate at The Asia Foundation. He can be reached at dwidome@asiafound.org.

As Japan nears its August 30 election, a mixture of political weariness and anticipation fills the air. The ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), under the leadership of Prime Minister Taro Aso, is deeply unpopular and trails badly in pre-election polls; its nearly-uninterrupted 54-year reign seems to be in its final days. The opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), led by Yukio Hatoyama, stands poised to win a plurality in the lower house of Japan’s Diet, giving it license to form a new government. A combination of bleak economic conditions and even bleaker political mismanagement has led to this seemingly foregone conclusion. But change doesn’t come easily in Japan. Even if the LDP is ousted on August 30, the political structures and culture that have sustained its lengthy reign will not disappear overnight.
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The economy was at the top of the agenda at the 14th ASEAN summit this past week in Cha-am, Thailand. Just beforehand, on February 26, 2009, Dr. Surin Pitsuwan, Secretary-General of ASEAN and a Trustee of The Asia Foundation, laid out some of the issues at the 2009 ASEAN Business and Investment Summit (ABIS) in Bangkok.

In his remarks, he stated: “Others outside are convinced that ASEAN, in cooperation with the Plus Three countries (China, Japan and Korea), will be another pool of growth and a centre of dynamism post-crisis. A new landscape is being developed with multi-centres; no longer dependent on the United States or Western Europe.”
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