We welcome the news that Hillary Clinton's first overseas trip as U.S. secretary of state will be to Japan, Korea, Indonesia and China. While her visit to Beijing will likely garner the lion's share of attention and her visit to Indonesia will generate the most speculation (can a visit by President Barack Obama be far behind?), her visits to Tokyo and Seoul are equally if not more important.
As we discovered during a recent visit, anxieties about the Obama administration's Asia policy are running high among government officials and foreign policy elites in both capitals. A certain amount of anxiety is present every time a new administration takes power, but Obama ran on a platform of "change" and it is not clear what changes, if any, his administration has in store for East Asia.
There is also a great deal of anxiety about current trends, which many in Tokyo and Seoul fear will not be reversed and might even be accelerated.
FULL ARTICLE
12 February 2009
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