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TOKYO -- If Texas Governor George W. Bush wins the Republican
Presidential nomination and then also captures the Presidency,
it is likely that he will name Condoleezza Rice as either
his secretary of state or his national security adviser.
Among other effects, the appointment would bring smiles to the faces
of Asian diplomats in Tokyo, Seoul and Taipei who have felt slighted by the
President Bill Clinton administration's fascination with China.
Not only is Rice brilliant and young (44), she is a black American
woman. It would be the first time in American political history that an
appointee with those particular credentials moved into either one of those
jobs.
It is still early in the campaign to be talking about filling cabinet
posts, but candidate Bush has made no secret that he is a bit concerned
about his image in foreign policy.
His Nov. 20 speech helped to bolster confidence after an earlier
embarrassment when he could not name two of three chiefs of state posed in
a reporter's question.
A bevy of foreign policy advisers, including Rice, prepped Bush for the
latest speech and it showed.
The candidate said the U.S, should be a competitor with China, not a
strategic partner.
The U.S. should show strong support for its Asian friends and allies.
Bush said "This means keeping our pledge to deter aggression against the
Republic of Korea and strengthening security ties with Japan."
"This means expanding theater missile defenses among allies," he said.
Bush also said "Never again should an American President spend nine
days in China and not even bother to stop in Tokyo or Seoul or Manila."
Bush said the World Trade Organization (WTO) should open its doors
to Taiwan as well a China. "We will help Taiwan defend itself," he said in
what is likely to be the most controversial remark of the speech.
Bush's speech at the Simi Valley, California, Ronald Reagan
Presidential Library was no accident.
Bush was introduced there by Reagan's Secretary of State George
Shultz, who is a distinguished fellow at the Hoover Institution. Shultz has
been a key backer of Rice during her administrative career at Stanford,
as a Hoover fellow, and in an earlier stint on former president Bush's
national security staff.
Other current advisers to the son from the father's presidential team
are Paul Wolfowitz, Robert Zoellick and Richard Armitage. Wolfowitz was
ambassador to Indonesia and assistant secretary of defense. Zoellick and
Armitage were senior defense officials and all three arewell known in
Northeast
Asia security circles as is an adviser from the Reagan White House, Dov
Zakheim.
Wolfowitz is tipped to get whichever of the top two security jobs is not
offered to Rice.
Rice says we must be mindful of "the importance of values and moral
content in American foreign policy"--but without talking so loudly about
those values that we produce an international backlash against American
arrogance.
"The real challenge of the future is to build democratic values in
multi-ethnic societies. The value that people who are different can live
together...and prosper, " she believes, "is perhaps the most important
American value."
Rice grew up in middle-class black Birmingham, Alabama, her father a
Presbyterian minister and university administrator, her mother a teacher.
One of her favorite themes is that the U.S. "has got to figure out what
it's going to do with its military dominance. We can too easily become the
world's 911 number. We have immense military power and no clear sense of
how to use it."
Edward Neilan (eneilan@crisscross.com) is a veteran journalist, based in Tokyo, who covers East Asia and writes weekly for World Tribune.com.