Crouching tigers await the president re-elect

---

See the Sol Sanders Archive By Sol Sanders SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM

ItÕs hard to exaggerate problems in Asia awaiting a new presidency.

The issues east of Iraq will give the Oval Office no decent interval for contemplation. Most are old issues. But many have taken dramatic turns in months of Washington preoccupation with Iraq. Nor will a new team have startling alternates. Options have long been explored and no new remedies will spring from the head of Zeus.

North Korea ø Pyongyang has been purposely waiting out the American election to negotiate. But there is no reason to believe the regime ø which has used WMD to inflate its world role despite its economic and political bankruptcy ø will be less obstreperous. Candidate KerryÕs proposal for bilateral talks is not a dealmaker: in effect, Washington has been talking directly to North Korea. The threat: PyongyangÕs history of selling pariah states missiles and nuclear technology suggests it would deal with international terrorists.

Iran ø Unlike SadamÕs Iraq, a disorganized internal opposition holds promise of overturning the regime even though WMD are probably a nonnegotiable demand of any Tehran regime. But so far European efforts to encourage dissidence by offering extended negotiations has failed. An Israeli military preemption might temporarily inhibit IranÕs weaponÕs progress but would further inflame the region. As Tehran moves rapidly toward nuclear weapons, Washington nears a critical decision with the worldÕs No. 1 state terrorist regime.

China ø There is more than a hint of instability in Beijing despite phenomenal economic success ø or, in fact, because of it. The economy is so perforated with anomalies it could enter crisis at any moment.

There is growing dissidence in rural areas. The financial structure is precarious ø despite huge foreign exchange reserves [largely in U.S. promissories]. A virtual total export dependence has created a growing import bill øparticularly in energy ø and made China a prop for its Asian neighbors and world commodities. A new and untried lackluster leadership is wrestling with horrendous issues without courage and, probably, originality. Demagogic Beijing leadership continues to create a self-fulfilling prophecy for disaster concerning Taiwan. In Taiwan, President Chen ø perhaps too clever by half ø has to prove his valor with an $18 billion arms program as the only way to limit U.S. involvement.

Pakistan and India ø President General Musharraf is balancing between a small but violent Islamicist opposition, corrupt feudals from PakistanÕs past, his remade alliance with the U.S., and an equally strong dependence on China as a hedge against India. Islamicist infiltration in his army is an unknown. In India, a fragile coalition ø dependent on Communist allies for a majority and still largely attached to a neutralist, pro-Soviet mindset ø has stalled liberalization. It also faces mounting internal security problems. Nepal on its Himalayan frontier appears falling willy-nilly into the hands of so-called Maoist nihilists. MusharrafÕs efforts to get an overall breakthrough on Kashmir [to stem opposition which breeds on the 50-year-old impasse] collides with New DelhiÕs determination to inch toward an unknown settlement. Over all this hangs the nuclear threatø particularly by Pakistan with a conventional deficit in the confrontation ø and the history of 3.5 wars. The Bush Administration has made the U.S. an arbiter [even against Indian fears of international intervention], but a role requiring Solomonic virtues Washington hasnÕt evidenced in Israel-Palestine.

Southeast Asia ø Al QaidaÕs regional subsidiaries are still growing, whether in southern Thailand where BangkokÕs Prime Minister Thaksin has demonstrated bull in china shop tactics responding to ethnic Malay Muslim separatism, or in the Philippines. Thaksin not only feeds the dissidence but weakens the new moderate Malaysia regime, trying to present a paradigm for moderate Islam. In Indonesia, a new president with similar intentions, is faced with a huge backlog ø not the least a 35-year-old bitter insurgency in Atjeh which could turn into a Islamicist radical sanctuary.

South Korea ø The Roh presidency, a work-in-progress, its origins on the radical left, threatens the U.S. alliance and undermines a multilateral approach to North Korea. Roh, apparently, is learning anti-Americanism imperils foreign investment [with its technological transfers] at a time his economy stagnates. But his ideologically fixated baseÕs learning curve may not be sharp enough to prevent disintegration of what had been a model economic ø and more recently, political -- development model.

Japan ø Prime Minister Koizumi has moved to expand the alliance with the U.S. More than ever, with calls for Japanese contributions to American military ÒtransformationÓ, Japan has become the keystone of U.S. strategy in East Asia. But the Japanese move reluctantly, only because they are now literally under the guns of the North Koreans -- and potentially threatened by a Chinese regime with growing military and economic aggressiveness and uncertain objectives. The Japanese public, quite rightly, worries about its emergence into a new world where hiding behind the American nuclear shield is no longer enough.