Beyond Peace (16 page)

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Eastern European nations should also be integrated into the European Economic Community. As British Prime Minister John Major has observed, “If we fail to bring the democratic nations of Eastern and Central Europe into our community, we risk re-creating divisions between the haves and the have-nots.” A new economic wall would divide Europe between the rich and the poor.

The West Germans have learned that the cost of bringing East Germany up to the economic standards of West Germany is incredibly high. The cost of bringing the rest of Eastern Europe up to the standards of Western Europe will be even higher. Arnaud de Borchgrave reports that the European Reconstruction and Development Bank has estimated that it will take thirty-five years for Eastern European incomes to reach a level one half that of Western incomes. It will be a long, expensive trip, but the price we would pay for not lending a hand would be infinitely higher.

Free trade is essential for the long-term growth of the nations of Eastern Europe. Senator Sam Nunn stressed the essential point: “Today's Iron Curtain of Western European trade barriers is a greater threat to Eastern Europe's democratic and free-market reforms than a distant, weak, and demoralized Russian army.” The United States and our European allies must knock down our trade barriers and provide these countries with access to our markets. During the Cold War, Eastern European trade was almost exclusively with the Soviet Union. That market has drastically declined. Trade with Western Europe should take
up the slack. But only 1.4 percent of Western European trade in 1992 was with Eastern Europe. To give Eastern Europe a chance to stand on its own feet, the United States and our European allies should not just prop up the region with the financial crutch of aid but should open our markets to Eastern European nations so that they can eventually walk on their own.

Eastern Europe needs the antidote of Western investment to overcome the poisonous effects of forty-eight years of communism. There have already been some major success stories. Czechoslovakia had the highest per capita income in Europe before World War II. After the bloody Prague Spring of 1968, it had the most repressive communist government in Eastern Europe. Its free-market economic policies since 1989 have attracted such American companies as Westinghouse and General Electric. Czech exports to Western Europe and the United States rose 20 percent last year. With this year's estimated growth rate at 6 percent, the Czech Republic's GNP will have increased by 60 percent from 1991 to 1994.

Poland also has recovered remarkably well. It has liberalized prices, opened its borders to free trade, privatized state-run industry, cut deficit spending, and encouraged entrepreneurship. Unfortunately, the pain caused by free-market policies created a backlash that led to the victory of former communist forces in parliamentary elections. Poland has gone too far with its free-market reforms to turn back, but if the West does not continue to provide aid and to open up its markets, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and other Eastern European countries may turn away from the path to political and economic freedom.

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History has left a tragic legacy of conflict on the European continent. The scars of centuries of war mark the entire region. The Cold War at least established a cold peace in Europe. Our challenge is to see that the end of the Cold War does not open the door for future hot wars that would inevitably draw not only Eastern Europe but also Western Europe into their flame.

U.S. foreign policy in the past has often been criticized for tilting too much toward Europe at the expense of Asia. Today it is not surprising that the administration tilts toward Asia, in view of the fact that, except for a temporary slowdown in Japan, Asian nations have by far the highest economic growth rates in the world. But we must not allow our fascination with Asia to blind us to the enormous potential economic power of Europe.

Our goal should be a rich united Europe competing equally with a rich America and an Asia rapidly becoming rich. This will serve us all. Economic competition is not a zero-sum game. No rich nation gains in the long run because its competitors are poor. Now that we have succeeded in tearing down the ugly wall that divided free Europe from communist Europe, our goal beyond peace should be a united Europe in a world that is not divided into blocs by economic walls. We seek a world in which economic progress for one serves all.

Our occasional differences with our friends in Europe must never obscure our timeless common interests. We have been allies in war and should remain allies in peace. We are all democracies committed to respect for human rights. Some dabbled in socialism, but we are all now committed to free-market economic policies. Despite our current disputes over details, we are all trading nations committed to the principles of free trade.

We share an uncommon cultural heritage. Sixty years ago, Arnold Toynbee, in his
Study of History,
perceptively predicted Europe's future: “Tomorrow we Europeans must look forward to seeing our little European world encircled by a dozen giants of the American calibre,” he wrote. “Whatever the process may have been, they have all been brought to life by being brought within the ambit of that Western civilization of which Europe has been the fountainhead.”

Many Americans and Europeans will remember President Kennedy's eloquent declaration in Berlin in 1961: “I am a Berliner.”
Americans, with our rich multiracial and multiethnic background, would not now say, “We are Europeans.” But there is no question that, in view of our history, our closest cultural ties are with Europeans. In seeking new friends in Asia, we should not forget our old friends in Europe.

In 1905, a twenty-five-year-old army first lieutenant named Douglas MacArthur embarked with his parents on a nine-month tour of Asia. Reflecting sixty years later upon the wonders he had seen, MacArthur wrote in his memoirs, “It was crystal clear to me that the future and, indeed, the very existence of America, were irrevocably entwined with Asia and its island outposts.”

Today, almost a century after he first visited Japan, China, Singapore, and five other Asian nations, MacArthur would be amazed at how slow his fellow Americans have been to grasp that the United States is destined to be a major Asian-Pacific power—not only in war, where MacArthur himself led so magnificently, but in peace. Some have said that if the twentieth century was the American century, the twenty-first will be the Asian century. The twenty-first can be a second American century—but only if we understand that we must be as intimately involved politically, economically, diplomatically, and culturally in the Asian-Pacific region as we have been in Europe.

The United States has repeatedly been the dominant factor in Western Europe's equation of freedom, by ensuring victory in both world wars and spearheading the NATO alliance. In the era beyond peace, the United States must play a comparable role in Asia.

The debate in the United States between Europe-firsters and Asia-firsters made little sense during the Cold War, and it makes
no sense now. Both must come first. A U.S. role in Europe will remain indispensable. And yet those who doubt the importance of Asia to the United States or the necessity of our commitment to its future are oblivious to history. Over the last fifty years, the United States endured hundreds of thousands of casualties in the Pacific theater in World War II and in the Korean and Vietnam wars. Although the Cold War is over, rising tensions exist throughout the region that, if ignored, could involve the United States in future conflicts.

While the three major East Asian powers—Russia, China, and Japan—are not natural enemies, they are not natural friends. Since our diplomatic opening to China in 1972, the United States has had better relations with these three powers than they have had with one another. While we may be trusted by only some Asian nations, we are respected by all. As the only major Pacific power that is not viewed as a potential aggressor by these three major countries, we can play a unique role, for the benefit of all, in maintaining peace and stability.

Asia is by far the most dynamic economic region of the world. In coming decades, it is where the major action will be. The average growth rate in Asia in 1992 was 6.6 percent, compared with 1 percent in Western Europe and 2.1 percent in the United States. It has been estimated that at the end of the decade East Asia will account for 30 percent of the world's GNP and that a billion Asians, virtually equal to the entire population of North America and Europe, will be living in middle-class households, creating a massive new market for trade with the West. Asia's explosive growth will triple the number of its consumers who have incomes equal to the Western average.

Our trade with Asia is already 50 percent greater than our trade with Europe. Motorola Corporation projects that in four years half of its pocket pagers will be beeping in China, while Carrier believes that in six years half of its air conditioners will be cooling Asian living rooms. These are just two American companies with thousands of workers whose families will have a
stake in a stable, prosperous Asia. Exports to Asia on this scale—compounded by all the industries that produce goods and services Asians will want—will dwarf the trade deficits that move American politicians and pundits to such rhetorical excesses.

The West should welcome Asia's exciting economic growth. As
The Economist
has observed, “Asia's successes have come through hard work, optimism, openness, a passion to learn, a willingness to change and a conviction that there are no free rides. These methods are not a threat to the West. They are what made the West in the first place.”

Unfortunately this astounding economic growth has not been accompanied by political stability. The nations of East Asia trust each other only slightly more than we trusted the Soviet Union during the Cold War. If left unchecked, these animosities could boil over, leading to regional arms races and even war. They make continued U.S. leadership vital. With no formal security alliance like NATO, Russia, China, and Japan will engage in a delicate balancing act that will determine the Pacific Rim's future. The United States is the only great power that possesses sufficient political and economic leverage with all three powers and their many neighbors to channel their relations in constructive directions.

China needs ties with the United States to guarantee that Japan will not return to an assertive foreign policy and to prevent Japanese economic domination of the region. Japan needs a U.S. military presence as a protective shield against Russia, China, and a future united Korea. Russia needs the United States to maintain a military presence adequate to check the growing political and military influence of China and Japan in the region. South Korea needs the United States to prevent North Korean aggression and to help stabilize the process of Korean unification.

Everyone knows that with the end of the Cold War a new Russia has emerged on the world scene. What we must also recognize
is that a new Japan and a new China have also taken the stage.

Japan is our greatest potential friend and greatest potential rival in Asia. In the Cold War we shared a common interest in deterring Soviet advances in East Asia. This alliance laid the foundation for Japan's incredible economic recovery and growth over the past five decades. With the Soviet threat gone, our economic competition and differing political interests will place heavy strains on our alliance.

Both countries still benefit from this relationship. Because of the burden of its atrocities and inhumane occupation policies during World War II, Japan must rely on close ties with the United States to allay the fears of its neighbors, particularly as it adopts a more outward-looking foreign and defense policy. The United States needs access to bases in Japan to maintain the forward presence we require to protect our interests in East Asia and to facilitate Japanese-American security cooperation. A nonnuclear Japan needs a U.S. military commitment not only to defend its home islands but also to promote stability in Asia and thereby keep regional military spending at reasonable levels.

Our economies are profoundly interdependent. Japan's economic prosperity could not survive without the U.S. market. As American exports to Japan increase, the reverse will also be true. In the case of automobiles, the interdependence is so great that half the parts of some Japanese models are made in the United States and half in Japan, with final assembly plants situated in both countries. With respect to many models, it makes no sense to talk about “Japanese” or “American” cars—they are actually “Japanese-American” cars. These close connections
could be severed only at great cost to the United States and Japan.

During my first visit to Japan in 1953, Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida, who, with MacArthur, was the architect of Japan's economic miracle, emphasized that his country, still recovering from the devastation of World War II, should put top priority on the development of a strong free-market economy. Because of its economic weakness then and its defeat in World War II, he believed Japan should have a “low posture” foreign policy, similar to those of medium-size European nations.

During the Cold War, Japan reaped enormous economic benefits by relying on the American security umbrella and keeping its defense spending low. The trauma of World War II eradicated Japan's thirst for political leadership in the world for two generations. Yoshida's carefully groomed successors followed his lead. In the 1970s, Japan emerged as a geostrategically stunted economic superpower. Permitting the United States to provide the bulk of its security needs neatly fitted Japan's psychological profile and did wonders for its economic portfolio as well. Rarely has a nation turned a necessity into such a profitable virtue.

The end of the Cold War changed the Japanese people's outlook on the world. Today, Japan is a nation of new people. Over 68 percent of its population were born since World War II. It is also a nation of new leaders. For the first time in forty years the Liberal Democratic Party is not in power. Only five of the twenty-one members of the Hosokawa cabinet were alive when Japan started its reckless imperial expansion in the early 1930s. And it is a nation of new policies. At home, it is moving toward reforms that will give ordinary Japanese more control over their nation's political system. In foreign policy, it is charting a gradual but steady course toward a more assertive position on the world stage.