I'm just back from Southeast Asia, and a combination of accumulated email, looming deadlines, and jet lag will keep me from offering a lengthy account of the trip. Suffice it to say that I had a terrific time, with the highlight being my first visit to Vietnam. I gave lectures there on "China's Rise and America's Asian Alliances" and "Opportunities and Challenges in 2011" at the VNR500 Forum 2011 (a conference of the "top 500" Vietnamese companies), at the Fulbright Economics Teaching Program in Ho Chi Minh City, and at the Vietnamese Diplomatic Academy in Hanoi. I did an online interview with Vietnam.net, an important online newspaper in Vietnam, and met with a number of Vietnamese officials, mostly from the Foreign Affairs and Information ministries.

My impressions? First, there's clearly a tremendous amount of energy in Vietnam and lots of signs of economic potential. In addition to a wide array of restaurants, shops, and small enterprises, there are a growing number of industrial enterprises and (to me, at least) surprisingly modern "downtown" sections in both Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. Vietnam's growth potential remains limited by underperforming state-owned enterprises, corruption, and significant infrastructure challenges. But assuming those impediments can be overcome, I'd be bullish about its economic future (and it hasn't been doing all that badly in recent years, growing at about 7 percent).

Second, my visit coincided with the Party Congress, and though I'm hardly expert, I gather the results are something of a mixed bag. The new party secretary, Nguyen Phu Trong, represents the old guard, which means that rapid reforms are less likely. On the other hand, I gather that reform elements are more numerous in the Central Committee and other party institutions, and the prime minister, Nguyen Tan Dung, supports closer ties with the United States.

Which was another theme of my visit. The Vietnamese don't appear to have any hard feelings toward the United States (I didn't catch the slightest hint of any lingering resentments from the war), and it's probably noteworthy that virtually all the visitors at the war museum in Ho Chi Minh City were Westerners. This lack of resentment isn't all that surprising; as they see it, they beat us fair and square. Instead, the audiences at my talks (which included a fair number of students and intellectuals) and the officials with whom I met all sounded eager for closer ties with the United States. As I noted earlier, they were mostly concerned that the United States might cut some deal with China that would leave them isolated.

And China is a major long-term concern. That's hardly surprising either; all you have to do is look at a map and know a little bit about Sino-Vietnamese history. They have no desire for an open confrontation with Beijing, and Vietnam has a lot of important economic ties with China that could give the Chinese leverage in the future. But they are also under no illusions about the dangers of Chinese dominance (Vietnam was ruled by China for several hundred years), and I didn't sense much danger that Vietnam will bandwagon with Beijing. In that regard, the people with whom I spoke were clearly reassured and pleased by the tougher line the United States has taken regarding territorial issues in places like the South China Sea. So if Sino-American rivalry intensifies (as I expect it will), Vietnam will be an important U.S. ally.

All in all, it was a fascinating trip, and I'll be digesting my impressions for some time to come. And now it's time to catch up on what's been happening in the rest of the world; but first, I have to dig out the driveway.

I did a short interview with Al Jazeera's station in Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday, focused primarily on Secretary of Defense Gates' visit to China. For those of you who didn't catch it (which I assume is just about everyone), I thought I'd pass along what I said. 

They asked me three questions. Here's what they asked, and more-or-less what I replied.

1. Is there a new Cold War between the United and China?
In my opinion, no. There is growing concern about the relationship in both countries, and I think there is likely to be a rising security competition between the two, especially in Asia. But it's a far cry from the Cold War struggle between the United States and Soviet Union. That was really a battle to the death, where both states actively wanted to bring the other down. Nothing like that is occurring between the United States and China these days. The Cold War was also an intense ideological competition, where each side saw the other's political system as not merely different, but as the embodiment of evil. There are some differences in values between the United States and China, but it's not at nearly the same level as the Cold War. Lastly, the United States and USSR did not interact very much: trade and investment were quite low and there wasn't a lot of personal or cultural exchange between the two states. Again, the situation with China and the United States today is very different: there is a lot of trade and investments, thousands of students going back and forth every year, and and fairly high degree of elite engagement too.  So while there is an emerging rivalry that I expect to become more intense, it isn't what I'd call a "Cold War."

2. Is President Obama's Asia policy a success?
On balance, yes. Despite having allowed itself to get distracted by events elsewhere, I think the administration has done a fairly good job. President Obama's trip to Asia last year was quite successful. The security partnership with India is deepening, and the United States has managed relations with traditional allies such as Japan well. It has backed South Korea effectively in its delicate relationship with North Korea, and restored closer ties with Indonesia. Relations with Singapore are strong, and Secretary of Defense Gates and Secretary of State Clinton have made it clear that the United States intends to remain closely engaged in Asia for many years to come.   Overall, they've done much better in East Asia than they have in Central Asia (Afghanistant/Pakistan) or the Middle East.

3. What are China's aims?
China's objectives are not really that hard to understand. First, they want to continue to  grow economically, because doing so is critical to the welfare of the Chinese people and to the stability and legitimacy of the government. Second, like any other country, China wants to maximize its security. It doesn't want to be vulnerable to events elsewhere, or to pressure from other major powers. This means it wants reliable access to raw materials, to energy, and to the world markets on which its prosperity increasingly depends. Over the long term, that means it would like to reduce the American role in Asia, because its leaders will feel they are safer if there isn't any major military adversary with a strong position in Asia. Americans wouldn't be happy is some world power had an array of alliances in the Western hemisphere; by the same logic, Beijing cannot be delighted by America's close ties with many Asian countries (not to mention Taiwan). This view isn't a sign of innate Chinese expansionism or aggressiveness; for a realist, it's how any great power would view this situation. Whether Beijing will achieve its various aims, of course, is another matter.

Postscript: I'm off to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), so my next post will be from there.

I wouldn't call it a "shellacking," but President Barack Obama's trip to Asia wasn't a stunning triumph either. He got a positive reception in India -- mostly because he was giving Indians things they wanted and not asking for much in return -- and his personal history and still-evident charisma played well in Indonesia. But then he went off to the G-20 summit in Seoul, and got stiffed by a diverse coalition of foreign economic powers. Plus, an anticipated trade deal with South Korea didn't get done, depriving him of any tangible achievements to bring back home.

What lessons should we draw from this? The first and most obvious is that when your own economy is performing poorly, and when you are still saddled by costly burdens like the war in Afghanistan, you aren't going to have as much clout on the world stage. After half a century or more of global dominance, some Americans may still expect the president to waltz into global summits and get others to do what he wants (or at least most of it). But that is harder to do when you've spent the past ten years wasting trillions (yes, trillions) in Iraq and Afghanistan while other states were building their futures, and have dug yourself into a deep economic hole.

Second, the geopolitics of the trip are important, as Robert Kaplan lays out in a good New York Times op-ed this morning. I don't agree with everything he says (in particular, I think getting out of Afghanistan would reduce the need to accommodate Pakistan and simplify efforts to forge a closer relationship with India) but most of his points ring true to me.

Third, the other event this week was yet another flap between the United States and Israel, and it's not as unrelated to the situation in Asia as you might think. At about the same time that Obama was making yet another eloquent speech about the need to improve relations between the United States and the Muslim world, Israel was announcing still more construction in East Jerusalem. Just what Obama needed, right?

When Obama said this step was "counterproductive" (now there's tough language!), Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu retorted that "Jerusalem is not a settlement; it is the capital of Israel." In fact, Israeli construction in East Jerusalem is no different than a settlement in the eyes of the rest of the world, because no other government recognizes Israel's illegal annexation of these lands.

And then what happened? Netanyahu sat down for nearly a full day of talks with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who proceeded to say (for the zillionth time), that the U.S. commitment to Israel's security was "unshakeable." She then declared that the U.S. position on future talks will seek to "reconcile the Palestinian goal of an independent and viable state, based on the 1967 lines, with agreed swaps, and the Israeli goal of a Jewish state with secure and recognized borders that reflect subsequent developments and meet Israeli security requirements" (my emphasis).

Translation: the Obama administration is back in business as "Israel's lawyer," and the man who first coined that phrase -- former U.S. negotiator Aaron Miller -- said as much, referring to Clinton's statement as "the beginning of a common U.S.-Israeli approach to the peace negotiations." Given that Netanyahu has made it clear that East Jerusalem is not negotiable and that his own vision of a two-state solution is a set of disconnected Palestinian statelets under de facto Israel control, this is not an approach that is going to lead anywhere positive. And like his Cairo speech, Obama's remarks in Indonesia will soon be dismissed as more empty phrases.

So where's the connection between this issue and our strategic position in Asia? Indonesia is a potentially crucial partner for the United States (if you want to see why, take a look at the sea lanes in Southeast Asia), and it is also a moderate Muslim country with history of toleration. Yet the Palestinian issue resonates there too, and makes it harder for the Indonesian government to openly embrace the United States. As Kaplan notes in his Times op-ed, "China also plays on the tension between the West and global Islam in order to limit American influence there. That is why President Obama's mission to rebrand America in the eyes of Muslims carries benefits that go far beyond Indonesia and the Middle East."

What Kaplan doesn't say is that the United States' one-sided support for Israel against the Palestinians is an important source of the "tension" that China is exploiting. As the deputy chairman of Indonesia's largest Islamic group, Masdar Mas'udi, put it last week: "The solution of the Palestine problem is key to many problems between the West and the Muslim world… Our hope as Muslims to Obama and the U.S. is not unreasonable: If the Palestine problem could be resolved, it would be more than enough."

So the next time you read about some senator or congressperson denouncing any attempt to use U.S. leverage on both sides to bring about a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, ask yourself why they are trying to undermine the U.S. effort to bolster its strategic position in a region that ultimately matters far more to U.S. security and prosperity. And by making it harder to achieve a workable two-state solution that would preserve its democratic and Jewish character and enhance its international legitimacy, they aren't doing Israel any favors either. Indeed, the remarkable thing about these zealots is that they are managing to undermine the United States' security and Israel's long-term future at the same time.

There are plenty of depressing stories in this week's news-lethal ethnic riots in Kyrgyzstan, gushing oil in the Gulf of Mexico, the usual mishigas in the Middle East, etc . -- so I thought today I'd highlight a small bit of good news. 

A few weeks ago, Singapore and Malaysia reached an important agreement resolving a longstanding dispute over Malayan Railway (KTM) land in Singapore.  The dispute dates back to Singapore's unilateral declaration of independence from the Malay Confederation in 1965, and involved the fate of a railway terminal and other properties owned by KTM.  As Mushahid Ali and Yang Razali Kassim describe in this brief commentary, KTM has agreed to move its terminal from Tanjong Pagar (a prime real estate location in central Singapore) to a spot near the strait that separates the two countries, just across from the Malaysian city of Johor Bahru.  A joint holding company (60 percent Malay ownership, 40 percent Singapore) will then develop the abandoned KTM properties (and presumably make a bundle).

This agreement seems like a small matter, but given the sometimes troubled history of the two countries, it is a significant step forward in their relationship.  According to Ali and Kassim, the agreement also "opened up the possibility of a resolution of other outstanding issues," such as price of water supplied to Singapore by Malaysia.

There are three broader lessons we might draw from this relatively obscure but positive development.   The first lesson is that the United States is not always the "indispensable nation" and not every diplomatic issue requires the United States to get involved.  As near as I can tell, the United States played no direct role in helping resolve this issue.  Instead, Singapore and Malaysia figured out for themselves that remaining at loggerheads wasn't doing anyone any good, and they've worked out a deal that will leave both better off.   This sort of thing happens all the time in world politics, but we Americans tend not to hear about positive developments like this one unless some U.S. politician or diplomat is trying to claim the credit.

The second lesson is that generational change matters.  Singapore's decision to withdraw from the Malay Confederation in the mid-1960s left a legacy of bitterness, and made compromise and cooperation difficult even after more-or-less cordial relations had been established between the two countries.  The obstacles that the first generation of Malay and Singaporean leaders faced in resolving this sort of dispute now appear to be of much less concern to leaders on both sides.  Which raises the interesting possibility that conflicts that seem intractable at present could become much easier to resolve once elites who have an interest in confrontation are gradually replaced by successors who simply don't care as much about scoring points against a former adversary.   (It doesn't always work this way, of course; sometimes conflicts get worse over time and successor generations become more intransigent and extreme than their predecessors were.)

The third lesson has to do with the central role of security.  Cooperation and compromise between Malaysia and Singapore were difficult during the first few decades after independence, because Singapore's long-term future was still uncertain and its relationship with Malaysia was particularly fraught.  Today, by contrast, its independence is well-established and relations with its neighbors (and the United States) are positive. 

Malaysia has done very well in recent years as well, despite some degree of internal political turmoil.  With both sides feeling relatively secure, compromise on issues like the KTM rail properties no longer carried large political consequences and agreement became much easier to reach.  The lesson, if it weren't obvious, is that mutual security is the foundation of far-reaching international cooperation.   Feel free to bear that in mind whenever you think about resolving other seemingly intractable international conflicts.

Corruption now 'dominates and paralyzes the society,' David Halberstam observed. American officials perceived the problems but they could not find solutions. ... The Embassy pressed the government to remove officials known to be corrupt, but with little result. 'You fight like hell to get someone removed and most times you fail and you just make it worse,' a frustrated American explained to Halberstam. 'And then on occasions when you win, why hell, they give you someone just as bad.' The United States found to its chagrin that as its commitment increased its leverage diminished. Concern with corruption and inefficiency was always balanced by fear that tough action might alienate the government or bring about its collapse. Lodge and Westmoreland were inclined to accept the situation and deal with other problems."

Source: George C. Herring, America's Longest War: The United States in Vietnam, 1950-1975., 1st. ed., pp. 162-63. The Halberstam quotations are from his article, "Return to Vietnam," Harpers (December 1967).