February 20, 2002

MEMORANDUM TO: OPINION LEADERS

FROM: GARY SCHMITT

SUBJECT: Asia and the “Bush Doctrine”

On Tuesday the 19th, President Bush spoke before the Japanese Diet, Japan's legislative assembly. Unfortunately, the perfunctory media coverage of the speech missed the important “Asia Corollary” to the doctrine President Bush set forth in his “state of the Union” address. This corollary has, according to the president, two key elements.

First, in speaking repeatedly of his “vision for the future of the Asia Pacific region as a fellowship of free Pacific nations,” the president emphasized the flip side of the “axis of evil” coin. If the character of states matters in the fight against terrorism, then conversely, it matters whether the world’s powers are liberal democratic states and whether those states work together to ensure the globe’s peace and prosperity. As the president succinctly stated: “Civilization and terrorism cannot coexist.”

Second, the president did not shy away from the implications of this point as they apply to U.S. policy toward China and Taiwan. Bush reaffirmed America’s “commitments to the people on Taiwan,” an echo of his statement last spring of that the United States would do “whatever it took” to defend democratic Taiwan from Chinese aggression. And Bush refused to accept Beijing’s long-standing assertion that Western-style liberties have no relevance in China. According to Bush, “China will find that America speaks for the universal values that gave our nation birth: the rule of law, the freedom of conscience and religion, and the rights and dignity of every life.”

There has been a tendency in elite circles here and abroad to deprecate the president’s “state of the Union” address as simplistic, and perhaps driven by a “dark” vision of the world. As his speech to Japan’s Diet shows, the Bush Doctrine is neither. Rather, it reflects a deepening appreciation of the place of principles and the purpose of power in American statecraft.