American military power underpinned the security structure of the Asia Pacific region during the Cold War. Post-Cold War, its role is still vital to peace and stability in the region. The most overt manifestations of American military might are the Japan–America Security Alliance (JASA) and the Korea–America Security Alliance (KASA). These bilateral alliances, together with a modified Australia–New Zealand–United States (ANZUS) treaty relationship, point to the diversity of security interests and perspectives in the region. Even during the height of the Cold War, the region never quite presented the kind of coherence that would have facilitated the creation of a truly multilateral defense framework of the sort exemplified by NATO. In Southeast Asia, the lack of strategic coherence resulted in a patchwork of defense arrangements between local and extraregional states. Dominated by the United States, the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) was only nominally regional.

During the Cold War, the United States entered into region-wide alliances to “contain” communism. In the post-Cold War period, uncertainties, rather than clearly definable threats, have marked the Asia Pacific’s strategic landscape. While not disen- gaging from the region, the United States is encouraging greater burden-sharing by its friends and allies located there. In consequence, JASA and KASA are undergoing change even as regional states accept their utility and reassurance value. At the same time, region-wide multilateral confidence-building and cooperative security processes, which involve practically all the states on opposite sides of the old Cold War divide, have emerged. China — the object of Cold War containment policies — is being constructively engaged through these multilateral processes. How the existing alliances, which still have their deterrent functions, can be related to these nascent multilateral processes is the focus of this paper. Because the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is the driving force behind the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), the only region-wide process seeking a balanced relationship among the external powers in the post-Cold War setting, we explore first the evolving ASEAN perspectives toward KASA and JASA. The paper will then relate the ASEAN-driven frame- work to the security concerns of Northeast Asia.

Published as part of the "America's Alliances with Japan and Korea in a Changing Northeast Asia" Research Project.

At the height of the Cold War, the dominant Western theories of alliance building in interstate relations argued that alliances tend to be motivated more by an external need to confront a clearly defined common adversary than by the domestic attributes of alliance partners. The newly reinvigorated U.S.-Japan alliance, however, together with the newly expanded NATO, seems to depart from the conventional pattern by emphasizing shared democratic values and by maintaining a high degree of ambiguity regarding the goals and targets of the alliance. Although these new features of American-led military alliances provide an anchor in an other- wise highly fluid situation in the post–Cold War world, many Chinese foreign- and defense- policy analysts believe that U.S. alliances with Asian countries, particularly with Japan, pose a serious, long-term challenge, if not a threat, to China’s national security, national unification, and modernization. The ambiguity of the revised U.S.-Japan security alliance means that it is at best searching for targets and at worst aiming at China.

China’s concerns about the intention, scope, and capability of the alliances are set against a backdrop of several major changes in the region: the end of the Cold War, the simultaneous rise of China and Japan, the post-revolution reforms of Asian communist regimes, and the United States as the sole superpower. China’s uneasiness about the U.S.-led alliances goes far beyond the systemic change in the post–Cold War world, however. Its roots lie in China’s inherent weakness in the games of major powers in East Asia and in relations with other major powers in the first half of the twentieth century.

This paper begins with an overview of the interactions between China and the U.S.-led alliances in East Asia during the Cold War. This is followed by an examination of the post– Cold War period and China’s policies toward the alliances. Finally, policy options are discussed.

The study will review select policy-relevant scholarly publications of the 1990s, when the U.S.-led alliances were perceived to have made significant adaptations to the post–Cold War environment and when China’s perceptions of and policies toward these alliances also changed significantly. The survey also includes some interviews with Chinese analysts.

Published as part of the "America's Alliances with Japan and Korea in a Changing Northeast Asia" Research Project.

By almost any criterion of success—be it cost-effectiveness, risk-reward ratio, multiplier
effects, or sheer longevity, the Japan America Security Alliance (JASA) stands out as one of
the most successful alliances in twentieth century history. For the United States, chief
architect of a global network of military relationships, JASA is arguably the most important
of its many bilateral alliances. In terms of historic impact, JASA is comparable to the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a multilateral alliance that restructured the European
security landscape in 1949. For nearly a half-century, JASA and NATO have functioned
as the bedrock on which the Cold War security systems of Asia and Europe have been
constructed.

Published as part of the "America's Alliances with Japan and Korea in a Changing Northeast Asia" Research Project.