ABSTRACT
The collapse of the Soviet Union fundamentally altered the geostrategic realities underpinning post-World War II American foreign policy. This tectonic shift changed in particular the position of Western Europe, which until then was the main confrontation line of the bipolar world political system. Given this new setting, it was only natural that the Europeans reacted with alarm to Secretary of State Warren Christopher's November 1993 statement to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that “[n]o area of the world will be more important for American interests than the Asia-Pacific region.”( 1 ) Christopher's remark moreover came on the eve of the APEC-Seattle summit, at which the seventeen states that participated in this forum, according to President Clinton, were to lay the foundations of a “new Pacific community”, representing the most dynamic part of the world economy and more than half of world trade and world production.
