The United States and Extended Security Commitments: East Asia

In East Asia and the Western Pacific the United States faces an impressive recent Soviet military (especially naval) buildup, continuing and serious tension in Korea, a Japan that to date has not done much to put itself in a viable defensive posture, and potential for further unrest in Southeast Asia. In the last year or two of the Carter administration, accordingly, a trend begun a decade earlier toward American military disengagement from the region was reversed. The Reagan administration is almost certain to maintain this reversal and to cultivate closer relations with South Korea and Taiwan than did its predecessor, while trying at the same time to establish a strategic relationship of some sort with the People's Republic of China. The purpose of the latter move is, or would be, to help cope with rising Soviet assertiveness in the region. Moscow itself claims—prematurely, to say the least—that the United States, Japan, and China are forming an alliance against it and is especially anxious that the United States and everyone else refrain from transferring modern arms to China.