Asia in Washington: Exploring the Penumbra of Transnational Power

8. South and Southeast Asiain Washington

8 South and Southeast Asia in Washington South and Southeast Asia have forged longer and in many ways deeper historical ties with Washington than have their neighbors in Northeast Asia (see chapter 7). Thailand was the first nation in Asia with which the United States established diplomatic ties (in 1832), while the Philippines was the only Asian nation to have been under U.S. sovereignty (1898 to 1946). As we shall see, India and the Philippines, as early democracies, arguably had the strongest early post–World War II Asian presence in Washington, and Vietnam was a central preoccupation of American foreign policy (as a whole) until the mid-1970s. Following a hiatus after the fall of Saigon in 1975, South and Southeast Asia became major objects of U.S. attention again over the past two decades. India’s 1999 nuclear tests and the intensification of the “war on terror” beginning in 2001 were catalytic factors. The dramatic rebirth of democracy in Burma has increased the region’s visibility as well. Although South and Southeast Asia have periodically inspired American policy attention, and often achieved public visibility in Washington both in the media and on Capitol Hill, the nature of their involvement in D.C. has been very different from that of the Northeast Asians. These countries are smaller economically, further from America, and not— with the partial exception of Singapore—as directly engaged with core American political, economic, and strategic concerns. Their rivalries with one another are also less pointed. The result is a less intense and less insistent interaction with Washington, marked—as we shall see—by 202 08-2538-1 ch8.indd 202 3/12/14 4:16 PM South and Southeast Asia in Washington 203 intriguing exceptions like Singapore that illustrate the broader dynamics that govern Asian influence in Washington. This chapter begins with an assessment of India’s role in Washington —one of the oldest U.S. bilateral ties with Asia, but one that has oscillated sharply in its intensity and productivity over the years. We then consider Burma—much smaller, but lately highly visible, due to the dramatic, if gradual, reemergence of democracy over the past few years. Then the chapter considers Indonesia—the most populous Muslim nation, yet remarkably invisible in Washington for many years. Singapore—a tiny island city-state of less than 6 million people, which nevertheless boasts one of the most effective approaches to contemporary Washington of any nation on earth, concludes the analysis, which shows again the paradoxical influence of small nations in Washington. India Together with China, India looms large on the international scene, with a profile that will almost certainly become more prominent in the coming years. With over 1.2 billion people, India has the second-largest population in the world; it is expected to become the largest within a generation.1 Its military, armed with nuclear weapons, is the thirdlargest on earth, after only China and the United States. Its GDP, in purchasing power terms, exceeds $4.7 trillion, fourth-largest in the world, and is rising nearly 7 percent annually.2 Despite its considerable consequence in global political, economic, and military terms, India for many years cut a much more modest profile in Washington than in world affairs more generally. Lacking a formal alliance with the United States, and lying almost 7,000 miles from American soil—literally on the opposite side of the globe—it was excluded from important political-military dialogues. Having amicable relations with the Soviet Union, and then post–cold war Russia, India was excluded from sensitive foreign military sales. Diplomatically, the United States—particularly in the Kissinger years—gave clear preference to Beijing and Islamabad over New Delhi. And India, which nationalized important U.S. investments, was excluded from the World Trade Organization and from bilateral trade agreements with the United States. 08-2538-1 ch8.indd 203 3/12/14 4:16 PM 204 South and Southeast Asia in Washington Over the past decade, however, there has been a remarkable transformation of India’s role in Washington. India has not concluded a formal alliance with the United States, and no U.S. forces are based on Indian soil. Yet New Delhi has established a much more substantial presence than ever before in the American national capital, and a level of influence there approaching its overall weight in international affairs. Why have Indian visibility and influence in Washington...