China, Japan Diplomacy Uneven for Obama

In relatively slow but steady fashion, the Obama administration has been filling diplomatic posts. John Roos, head of the powerful Silicon Valley law firm of Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich and Rosati, reportedly is about to be named Ambassador to Japan. He is close to President Obama and a major campaign fund raiser. Moderate Republican Gov. Jon Huntsman of Utah has been nominated as Ambassador to China.
Despite current preoccupations in the Middle East and the Persian Gulf, including the now long-term war in Iraq, Asia overall is of growing importance to United States foreign policy. Since 1985, total trade with that region has been greater than with Europe, and the disparity steadily expands. The Spanish-American War, World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War were fought wholly or to a significant degree in Asia.
China and Japan represent respectively the second and third largest economies in the world, after the United States, and all three are enormously interconnected in terms of trade and investment, including holding substantial amounts of American public debt. Huntsman knows China well, served as a Mormon missionary in Taiwan and Ambassador to Singapore, and speaks Mandarin. He was also Deputy U.S. Trade Representative.
The Tokyo post has evolved in a much more complicated manner. For some weeks the name of Professor Joseph S. Nye Jr. of Harvard circulated in the media on both sides of the Pacific as the likely choice.
Nye in various respects is an ideal candidate. He has senior experience in the State and Defense Departments during the Carter and Clinton administrations. A scholar and teacher, he was long-term dean of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.
He originated the term “soft power” to describe important dimensions of international relations beyond military means, including cultural as well as economic resources. While these tools are not new, Nye has given them a contemporary currency helpful to public education as well as policy definition. Enormous rapid economic redevelopment after defeat in war makes Japan a primary example of soft power potential.
The White House would have been wise to give Nye the position, especially after so much public anticipation. The current global economic financial turmoil and recession, combined with the rise of China, whose relations with Japan are very complex, places a premium on diplomatic skill and insight.
Throughout our history, there has been tension between diplomacy and domestic politics. The State Department traditionally has been relatively weak, lacking the support of powerful economic interests which gravitate to Commerce, Labor, the Pentagon, the Treasury and other large federal departments.
During the intensely anti-communist McCarthy era, the State Department became a primary political target. President Harry Truman responded by appointing strong Secretaries of State, Dean Acheson and Gen. George C. Marshall. Both were highly intelligent and politically adept; Marshall was widely revered for his crucial strategic leadership during World War II.
John F. Kennedy was especially sensitive to serious professional credentials for diplomatic posts. His father had been a disastrous U.S. Ambassador to Great Britain early in World War II. Another Harvard professor, Edwin Reischauer, became ambassador to Japan and served with notable effectiveness.
The Obama administration has given priority to naming special emissaries to deal with Afghanistan and Pakistan, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Iran and other matters. Professor Nye would be an ideal candidate for such a role, in East Asia or elsewhere.
Arthur I. Cyr is Clausen Distinguished Professor at Carthage College in Wisconsin and author of ‘After the Cold War’ (NYU Press and Macmillan). He can be reached at acyr@carthage.edu