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Most Americans know little about Asia


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By Edward Neilan
SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM

May 25, 2000

TOKYO -- To say that Americans generally know very little about Asia may be understating the obvious.

Each day the U.S. media in all its forms exposes a rampant Eurocentrism.

The latest in a series of polls on the subject, but with a twist, shows that while Americans may not know much about Asia, they have strong feelings on who the U.S. friends are there.

A majority does not know that the capital of North Korea--where a historic North-South summit will be held June 12-14--is Pyongyang, not Seoul, or that U.S. naval bases are gone from the Philippines.

However, a majority of Americans see China as the major concern in the region, while Japan and South Korea are seen as allies.

Those are some of the findings of a poll by the Henry Luce Foundation Inc., an organization that has spent a quarter of a century trying to boost awareness of Asia. In a random telephone survey released late in 1999, 1,200 American adults turned up short on details ranging from geography to politics to trade in Asia.

"The importance of Asia to the U.S. can hardly be exaggerated," said the foundation chairman, Henry Luce III. "Yet many Americans are lacking in their general knowledge of the region."

More recently, U.S. relations with Japan have "suddenly" come under close scrutiny in Washington, reports the Far Eastern Economic Review in its "Intelligence" column (Issue dated May 25).

Consultant Richard Armitage, an adviser to presumed Republican Presidential candidate George .Bush, believes the information gap on Japan is as glaring among members of Congress and among politicians as the polls show it is among the general public. Armitage is gathering a panel of experts who will prepare recommendations on the future of Washington's relations with Tokyo before the campaign heats up in September.

Bush in November rebuked the Clinton administration for stressing ina and not paying enough attention to such traditional allies in Asia as Japan, South Korea and The Philippines.

"Our strategic partner is Japan," Armitage told the magazine. "It hosts our military presence and allows us to project our strategy throughout Asia."

The Council on Foreign Relations, a foreign policy think tank, has established two other groups analyzing America's ties with Japan.

The Asia Foundation, headquartered in San Francisco, opened a full office in Tokyo last year.

Ahead of the lot was The Heritage Foundation, a Washington D.C. think tank, which has stepped -up its Japan activities after being known for its studies and experts in Asia on China, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and as publisher of the "US-Asia Statistical Handbook."

Heritage named a Senior Fellow based in Tokyo last year. (In the interest of transparency, that Senior Fellow is the author of this column).

Dr. Larry Wortzel, Director of Heritage's Asian Studies Center, spoke to a full house at a Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan luncheon on "The Armies of Asia" in March. The audience included Ichita Yamamoto, State Secretary for Foreign Affairs from the House of Councilors.

Wortzel's address, plus a seminar at the Tokyo Foundation on "Theater Missile Defense and Japan" comprised Heritage's first public activities in Japan in many years.

There is also hope for more information flow on Asia, from American and international newspapers and agencies.

Interest in Japan's reviving financial scene has pumped up bureaus such as Associated Press, Bridge, Bloomberg and Reuters among others. New internet services spring up almost daily.

Helping Americans to work their way up the learning curve on Japan are 64 American bureaus here employing 333 foreign and local correspondents, by far the largest foreign contingent.

Japanese media are most heavily represented in the U.S. with 177 correspondents.

People-to-people-wise, Japan holds an edge. There are 317,966 Japanese living in the United States (mainly New York, Los Angeles, Washington D.C., Chicago, and San Francisco) while only 42,774 civilian Americans and about 30,000 military live in Japan.

Edward Neilan (eneilan@crisscross.com) is a veteran journalist, based in Tokyo, who covers East Asia and writes weekly for World Tribune.com.

May 25, 2000


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