Asian Regionalism?

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US and Southeast Asia
From SEATO to ASEAN
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Outline

• US strategies of containment
• original formulation
• SEATO
• Indochina and the Philippines
• ASEAN
• Post-Cold War changes
• U.S. and ASEAN
• Economy and security

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Containment 1950s-1980s

• US foreign policy treated Southeast Asia as an
  arena for competition with the Soviet Union
• Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger
  Our objective was to purge our foreign policy
  of all sentimentality

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Appeal of Communism

• It seemed to be the wave of the future
• dramatic economic and technological advances of
  the Soviet Union
• anti-colonialism
• importance by association psychology
• opportunity for greater personal power
• public disappointment and resentment at the
  poverty and violence after independence

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Architect of Containment

• George Kennans original formulation called for
  the coordinated use of political, economic, and
  military influence to prevent the expansion of
  Soviet control in vital regions

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Original Formulation

• Traditional Russian sense of insecurity
• Stalins need for a hostile world
• S.U. was not primarily a military threat
• A long-term containment of Russian expansive
  tendencies will lead to
• "either the break-up or the gradual mellowing of
  Soviet power."

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Truman Doctrine (1947)

• It must be the policy of the United States to
  support free peoples who are resisting attempted
  subjugation by armed minorities or outside
  pressures
• Implies that substantial US support could be
  counted on anywhere, not just in those vital
  regions

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Economic Strategies

• In late 1940s, economic assistance was the
  central pillar of anti-communist policy
• Marshall Plan to rebuild Western Europe
• The arsenal of democracy
• technological and economic resources

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Early Aid to Southeast Asia

• US pressured the Netherlands to give independence
  to Dutch East Indies colony
• US-Indonesia economic and technical assistance
  agreement in 1950
• US aid programs to Thailand and Burma in 1950

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Militarization in Policy

• US strategic shift of containment toward reliance
  on military strength in 1950s
• Obligated US to bear any cost against
  communist incursions anywhere in the world

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SEATO (1954 - 1977)

• Southeast Asia Treaty Organization
• Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty
• Australia, France, Great Britain, New Zealand,
  Pakistan, the Philippines, Thailand, and the
  United States
• oppose further Communist gains in Southeast Asia

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SEATO (1954 - 1977)

• Headquarters in Bangkok, Thailand
• SEATO's principal role was to sanction the U.S.
  presence in Vietnam, although France and Pakistan
  withheld support
• Unable to intervene in Laos or Vietnam in 60s
  and 70s due to its rule of unanimity
• SEATO was ultimately disbanded in 1977

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Arc of Containment
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Falling Domino" Principle

• President Eisenhower (1954-04-07)
• beginning of a disintegration that would have
  the most profound influences
• the possible sequence of events, the loss of
  Indochina, of Burma, of Thailand, of the
  Peninsula, and Indonesia
• the possible consequences of the loss are just
  incalculable to the free world

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Falling Domino" Principle

• Simplistic perception of a monolithic Communist
  bloc
• Simplistic assumption that societies and politics
  in the vast, diverse Asia-Pacific region were
  essentially all alike

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A Source of Misperception

• The communist-hunt of 1947-1953 in US
• Federal Employee Loyalty Program
• House Un-American Activities Committee
• Internal Security Act
• Senator Joseph McCarthy claimed communists had
  infiltrated S.D. and US Army
• purged the Administration of its best senior Asia
  expertise

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US in the Philippines

• Philippines became a cornerstone of US
  containment in Southeast Asia
• US shored up the Philippine government with
  advisors and assistance
• US upgraded its two bases in the Philippines
• Clark Air Force Base and the Subic Naval Base

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Clark Air Force Base

• Damaged by a volcanic eruption in 1991

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Subic Naval Base

• The air and naval bases became the most
  consistent, visible, and emotional of the issues
  that troubled US-Philippine post-war relations
• Natural disaster and the end of Cold War made
  these bases less desirable to US

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Subic Bay

• Closed in 1992
• Philippine government converted it into a special
  economic zone to attract investment
• Subic Bay Freeport Zone
• Commerce and tourism
• 1996 APEC Summit

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ASEAN overview

• Association of Southeast Asian Nations
• 10 member states
• Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia,
  Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand,
  Vietnam
• home to over 650 million people
• combined GDP of US2.8 trillion

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ASEAN founding (1967)

• 5 founding members
• Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia,
  Philippines
• Bangkok Declaration of 1967
• accelerate economic growth
• promote regional peace and stability
• contain the spread of communism

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End of Cold War

• ASEAN Free Trade Area
• initiated at ASEAN summit in 1992
• comprehensive program of regional tariff
  reduction
• program later broadened and accelerated
• reaffirmed during Asian Financial Crisis of
  1997-1998
• ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) 2015

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End of Cold War

• Expansion of ASEAN
• 1995 Vietnam
• 1997 Laos
• 1997 Myanmar
• 1999 Cambodia

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ASEAN external links

• A joint forum with Japan was established in 1977
• A cooperation agreement with the European
  Community was signed in 1980
• ASEAN 3 regular series of meetings at the
  cabinet and head-of-government levels with Japan,
  China, and South Korea since 1997

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U.S. and ASEAN

• U.S.-Singapore Free Trade Agreement is Americas
  first FTA in Asia (2007)
• U.S. was the first non-ASEAN country to name an
  ambassador to ASEAN (2008)
• U.S. signed ASEAN Treaty of Amity and Cooperation
  (TAC) in 2009.
• U.S. was the first country to establish a
  permanent mission to ASEAN (2010)

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U.S. and ASEAN

• The US-ASEAN Trade and Investment Framework
  Agreement (TIFA) was signed in 2006.
• Four ASEAN countries Brunei, Malaysia,
  Singapore, and Vietnam, are participants in the
  Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement
  negotiations with the United States.

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U.S.-ASEAN Trade

• ASEAN ranks 4th after Canada, Mexico, and China
  as a goods export market for the United States
• 75 billion in goods
• 31 billion in services
• 59 increase over a decade
• The US is the 4th largest trading partner for
  ASEAN

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