Clinton East
McGurn, William
Hong Kong G ive David Gergen his due. Hired to appease the unforgiving gods of the media, the new chief of communications has offered up a treasure trove of positive imagery from Bill Clinton's...
...But Clinton, a la Jimmy Carter, is making America unpopular among her friends...
...Indeed, although the LDP has historically stressed partnership with the U.S., today a number of party chieftains argue that the LDP is Japan's only bulwark against American bullying...
...In what may be a portent of things to come, even Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa ended up making some anti-American squeaks in an effort to shore up his campaign (he won his seat, by the way...
...But charm has its limits, especially in foreign affairs...
...Hence the cynicism of Japanese coverage, which gave short shrift to Clinton's appeal to a new Japan (old hat for them) and instead zeroed in on the president's remarks about regional security...
...And as polls show, they certainly don't want Bill Clinton telling them what to do...
...In person he charmed their pants off...
...business, but also for ordinary Japanese like themselves...
...business consultant in Japan...
...Koreans were more than gratified to see the president pay a visit to Panmunjom in the demilitarized zone that runs across the border with the North...
...More worrying has been the apparent lack of a coherent strategy—and half-baked concepts such as the recent "win-hold-win" philosophy to emerge from the Pentagon, which boiled down means that the U.S...
...In Taiwan, American badgering over intellectual property rights provoked an outburst in parliament—by an influential member of the Kuomintang, not the opposition...
...The first direct shot across Clinton's bow came in the so-called Bangkok Declaration last spring, when Asian nations thumbed their noses at Western conceptions of human rights and argued that local standards must be taken into account...
...This time Clinton was there to tell them that increased American access to Japanese markets would be good not only for U.S...
...Should the U.S...
...It's no secret that Asia was rooting for George Bush in the last election, notwithstanding all his problems in keeping his lunch down...
...Although pacifism is written into its constitution and Foreign Ministry officials insist they are not looking for nuclear weapons, while Clinton was in Tokyo Japan demurred on what ought to have been a routine proposal to extend the Nuclear Non-Proliferation he days when an TAmerican president could snap his fingers and expect his Asian allies to fall into line are long gone (if ever they existed...
...would not try to fight two wars at once...
...I got the impression that Clinton likes to grandstand," 20-year-old Tsumaki Oku told the Los Angeles Times...
...Nor did the Japanese electorate heed Clinton's call to "make common cause" in the elections that followed his visit, denying the LDP its majority but taking away the most seats from the Socialists...
...While the Japanese want change, they do not want Uncle Sam telling them how go about it...
...Not an uninteresting choice of metaphor...
...China remainswary, and Clinton rightly should keep the pressure on a Peking whose weapons sales are destabilizing U.S...
...Clinton calls "our most important relationship...
...Confirming everyone's worst fears, both the Nihon Keizai Shimbun and the Mainichi Shimbun newspapers quickly interpreted this demurral as a sign that Japan is thinking about developing the bomb...
...The Americans have bullied us enough," declared Hsieh Chi-tah, one of the country's most respected lawmakers...
...If the U.S.–Japan alliance goes soft, today's trade differences are going to look like the good old days...
...E lsewhere, too, there was a great dissonance between Clinton and Clintonism...
...We as a non-nuclear power have to depend on the U.S...
...For the Japanese, it was evidence that Clinton had called them liars...
...The Japanese had already been angered by a private Clinton comment to Boris Yeltsin at their Vancouver meeting in April, warning the Russian leader to be careful in dealing with the Japanese, "because when they say 'yes' they frequently mean 'no.' " Needless to say, the Vancouver story was widely repeated during the G-7 get-together...
...You can bet that Great Leader Kim will also be taking President Clinton's measure by how he handles his brewing showdown with Saddam Hussein...
...a presidential Clinton announcing a dramatic breakthrough on tariff reductions with his fellow Group of Seven members...
...In person...
...The problem again is that Clintonism in practice does not live up to Clinton's promises in person...
...remain strong and the region stable, there would be no problem, he said...
...They were especially heartened by his uncompromising words to the North Koreans, telling them that the attempt to develop a nuclear weapon was "futile" because "it would mean the end of their country" if they ever used it...
...In short, a more confident—not to mention prosperous—Asia is beginning to assert itself...
...In a polite country the students responded politely, and it may have looked good on American TV...
...Similarly, TV commentators noted with glee how the president's walk down a narrow Tokyo street had been staged by Hollywood's Mort Engelberg, producer of the Smokey and the Bandit movies...
...almost three-quarters of the Japanese do not trust Clinton personally...
...a grim leader of the New World Order staring down North Korea on the demilitarized zone with uncompromising talk on Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program...
...It did not help that Clinton happened to be right...
...Japan is also nervous...
...a commander-in-chief playing the sax for the fighting men of the Second Infantry at Camp Casey...
...Others simply said that Clinton's ploy fell flat...
...said a U.S...
...Treaty indefinitely...
...But that doesn't mean they were convinced...
...nuclear capability as an allied country," explained a Foreign Ministry official...
...Hired to appease the unforgiving gods of the media, the new chief of communications has offered up a treasure trove of positive imagery from Bill Clinton's first trip to the Far East...
...Leave aside statements by the State Department's Peter Tarnoff that the administration's domestic problems meant it had to reorder its priorities, which all Asia interpreted as a sign of disengagement...
...Already, Prime Minister Mohammed Mahathir of Malaysia has snubbed Clinton's invitation for a jamboree in Seattle, and others may follow...
...and only 35 percent of the Japanese public describes relations with America as "friendly," according to a survey taken by the Tokyo Broadcasting System along with the New York Times and CBS News...
...However engaging the Asians found Bill Clinton, the verdict on Clintonism is less favorable...
...interests in the Middle East and whose own military buildup (including designs on an aircraft carrier) is causing alarm throughout the region...
...Six months of Clintonism appears to have confirmed their worst fears: On the eve of the Clinton visit, some 85 percent of Japanese said that Uncle Sam is unfairly blaming them for America's economic woes...
...Take the overexposed speech at Wasada University...
...tut they want to leave their options open...
...Like Jimmy, Bill apparently confuses constant carping with standing tall...
...Now Asia has always had a left wing with a pronounced antipathy to America...
...This, mind you, in a country whose alliance with the U.S...
...But the White House might think of a better way to do it than to hold Hong Kong and the most progressive elements in China itself hostage to the annual grandstanding on Most Favored Nation status...
...171...
...There was a relaxed Clinton fielding questions from young Japanese students...
...We are apprehensive that the discussion on possible sequential responses as per the 'win-hold-win' strategy might send the wrong signal to Kim Il-Sung," wrote Kim Byong-kak in the Korea Times...
...Embassy was bound to backfire...
...a friend of democracy jogging with newly elected Korean president Kim Young Sam...
...Another survey, taken by Japan's NHK television along with ABC, reported that negative sentiments among Japanese had shot up since the November election and were the highest they've been since the 1960s...
...In these circumstances, even the president's schmoozing with Japanese opposition members during a reception at the U.S...
...The Japanese are tired of being hectored about their economy, especially in the midst of their own recession...
...Like so many other Clinton moves, this one was a studied imitation of the Kennedysin this case of a visit to Wasada by Bobby in 1962, when the then–attorney general diffused a tense situation by inviting agitators onstage for discussion...
...That was what Pyongyang needs to hear at this sensitive moment in negotiations, and Clinton delivered it well...
Vol. 26 • September 1993 • No. 9
