ABSTRACT
Despite having come to power vowing to reverse what it saw as years of neglect of the Asian region in the Clinton years, the administration of President George W. Bush has attracted no shortage of critics arguing that its lack of attention to Asia is seriously damaging US and global interests. Some argue that the administration’s narrow focus on counter-terrorism and counter-proliferation, and the increasingly demanding and uncompromising tone of US foreign policy have allowed China to steal the march on Washington, especially in Southeast Asia where Beijing has made extensive diplomatic gains at the expense of American interests (see, for example, Ryan 2004). Others argue that American inattention and festering anti-American resentment among the countries of the Western Pacific are driving the development of an East Asian regionalism, perhaps leading to a ‘bipolar confrontation’ between an ‘East Asian Economic Community’ and the nascent Free Trade Area of the Americas (Bergsten, quoted in Agence France Presse 2004).
