From:Toshiya Tsugami dated July 8th
Bernard Gordon writes in his posting dated 5th:
> Toshiya Tsugami responded (on 27 June) to Bill
> Overholt by arguing that "it was a huge mistake for the U.S. to have
> once strongly opposed Premier Mahathir's EAEC idea in '90?H"
> Few, hoever, would agree that former Secretary of State Baker's
> opposition to the EAEC was a mistake.The reason was that it
> clearly sought to create a dividing line in the Pacific, from
> which not
> only the US, but also Canada, Australia, and New Zealand would
> have been excluded.That's why Mahathir's "caucus" proposal was
> quickly labeled "A caucus without Caucasians."
In the above, I was not saying that US opposition to the EAEC was a mistake. If one reads the original sentence in one breath, one could construe that I intended to say that since the U.S. opposed "creating the dividing line in the Pacific" in 1990, then the U.S. should not have created a dividing line in the Pacific in 97-98 when wondering whether, how, and to rescue the balance of payments crisis on either side of the Pacific.In short, the above two U.S. reactions, through their combination, resulted in a double standard.
> Tsugami is however correct that the US has "given Asians an
> inerasable impression of its lack of understanding of Asia" and its
> lack of "sympathy in the course of the Asian economic crisis?H
> But the catalyst was not its position on the EAEC, but the US
> posture toward the 1997-98 economic crisis.The key issue was
> Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers' quashing of the idea of
> an "Asian Monetary Fund," a proposal strongly backed by Eisuke
> Sakakibara (aka "Mr. Yen").Those steps indeed left a troubling
> legacy with which the US will need to come to grips.
Again, I was not saying that "the catalyst was its position on the EAEC," but argue that the catalyst was a double standard that is felt by the East Asians.
Let me add several points on the issue of double standard.
East Asians still do not understand why Americans are concerned about East Asian FTA moves. If they more or less lead to "creating the dividing line in the Pacific," why did not the establishment of the NAFTA constitute the same thing?
To be fair, I need to touch upon the sentiment in East Asia that William Overholt showed in his thought-provoking posting dated 5th. This sentiment might distinguish EAEC or other East Asian FTAs "without Caucasians" from the NAFTA or other Western FTAs. True, there is certainly a somewhat narrow, Pan-Asian driven sentiment, which I think is not a good idea even for East Asia.
But if I speak for those East Asians, one of the driving forces of this sentiment is certainly the sense of a US double standard. In my view, quite ironically, they want to go "without Caucasians" because the U.S. is often inclined to oppose it, or to overly intervene in it from which they cannot help but feel the double standard.
Several American participants argue in this mail list that WTO based multilateral trade regime should be preferred rather than an FTA. WTO is surely something that the world needs to continue to cherish. However, there are numerous FTAs elsewhere in the world including the U.S.'s as Ed Lincoln wrote before. The world has been accepting FTAs in the past. The rationale must have been the recognition that competitive FTAs may help accelerate further liberalization in broader regions, if they are correctly run.
In this regard, I would ask US friends to remember that sounding the alarm of the danger of FTA moves today in 2003 may risk sounding like another double standard to East Asians. For holders of such views in the U.S., why don't you talk about the danger to your people rather than to people in the East Asia, where that move is not still "active" or "exciting?"
The key issue today should also be how best to corporate those East Asian FTA moves into more regionally broad, multilateral, one.
Best regards,
