Why Asia is off Romney’s radar

Sometimes you have to wonder what the Asian half of the world means to Americans. How could a serious candidate for president make a whole “foreign policy” address and leave out America’s allies from Northeast to Southeast Asia? Is there any chance that Mitt Romney will cast a wayward eye in this direction before Americans go to the polls in November?

Sorry to say, but maybe Romney knows exactly what he’s doing when it comes to getting through to the American electorate. If you divided the world into basic foreign policy categories, nowadays the Middle East would rank at the top since that’s where the wars are going on, where U.S. troops are fighting. And that’s also where Iran poses a threat by supporting regimes such as the one in Syria and rebel movements along Israel’s border with arms and money ― and by going on with a nuclear program leading no one knows where.

Number two, if the stories one reads and sees are any guide, comes Europe, the region from which the ancestors of the vast majority of Americans emigrated over the centuries. Europe counts for all the more these days since the “Eurozone,” as it’s come to be called, is suffering from economic difficulties marked most dramatically by high unemployment and sky-high debts in three Mediterranean countries, Spain, Italy and, of course, Greece. Stock markets rise and fall worldwide depending on how these countries cope with crisis. A mass protest in Athens, a concession to demands to go easy on the austerity ― and stocks fall like dominoes from Frankfurt to London to New York and on to Asian markets.

Number three is Latin America. Americans, that is citizens of the U.S., don’t know where most Latin American countries really are south of Mexico, but we’ve all read enough stories about drug cartels and smuggling and illegal immigration and high crime rates among “Hispanic” Americans to be aware that Latin America is a tough place. Mexico tops the list of Latin-American troublemakers in view of both its size and common border with the U.S.

Reading all those stories of murders, massacres and wars among rival gangs, you have to wonder if the whole country isn’t at war. Then, of course, there’s Cuba, holding out all these years against severe U.S. pressure, and the Dominican Republic, source of some of baseball’s superstars. Americans can’t stand “illegal immigration” from Latin America, but we do love those ballplayers.

And then, number four, there’s Asia. He’s been known to call for toughness in trade imbroglios with China, but if he’s aware of Chinese expansionism from the Yellow Sea to the East China Sea to the South China Sea, he hasn’t been letting on. As for the U.S. military relationship with South Korea and Japan, he’d need a research assistant to tell him nearly 80,000 U.S. troops are in Northeast Asia ready to “fight tonight” if all hell breaks loose. He clearly would rather have no policy at all on North Korea.

That’s not to say, of course, that Romney, if elected, wouldn’t dream up an Asia policy in a hurry. That actually wouldn’t be too hard. All he would have to do is carry on as President Obama has been doing for nearly four years. Obama has been supporting South Korea quite firmly vis-a-vis North Korea, and he’s tried, without a lot of success, to get China to stop supporting its currency at unrealistically low levels and open up its markets.

Would Romney be much tougher? You can bet, if Romney were to come to Korea and make the usual quick trip up to Dorasan or Panmunjom, he would talk with seeming firmness about the need to stand up against the North, but there’s no telling how he would respond if something were really to “happen” out here.

Then there’s Japan. While going after China for its huge trade surplus with the U.S., could Romney do a thing about Japan’s surplus? And how would he deal on questions about Japan’s hold on the Senkakus and its claim to Dokdo, aka Takeshima, and the “northern islands” under Russian control since Red Army troops took them over in the last days of World War II, aka the Pacific War?

He might have to decide in a hurry to support Japan on the Senkakus if the Chinese escalated the confrontation to the point of threatening Japan militarily. The whole U.S.-Japan alliance could be at stake. The U.S. bases on Okinawa – for years the target of protest ― would be in jeopardy if Japanese authorities asked, “Why have them if the U.S. is reluctant to fight for the Senkakus?”

In this tangle of conflicting interests, we may be sure Romney would prefer to say nothing about Dokdo. He would doubtless hew to the “neutrality” that’s characterized U.S. policy and hope no one tried to push him into taking a stand. On the other hand, wouldn’t it be nice if he were to advise the Japanese, “We’ll be much more enthusiastic about the Senkakus if only you’ll drop your claim to Dokdo?”

That’s not going to happen, though. Such matters rank at the bottom of U.S. concerns. Romney’s best hope for Asia is that nothing happens out here between now and election day.

Columnist Donald Kirk, www.donaldkirk.com, has covered wars from the Middle East to Asia. He’s reachable at kirkdon@yahoo.com. <The Korea Times/Donald Kirk>

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