East Asia

PARIS -- East Asia is a place where America's role has become increasingly equivocal, the result of a poverty of vision concerning the role an outside power should, or indeed can, take in the region's affairs. The United States was in the Far East as a trading power throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, which drew it into a rivalry with Japan that ended in war. What does the United States now want in East Asia? Trade and commercial advantage, obviously. However, many talk as though Washington has some appropriate guiding or supervisory role in the political affairs of the region.

Over the past two years, the Obama administration has focused greater diplomatic attention and military resources on East Asia as part of a policy described as a "pivot" or "rebalancing. " While American leaders are loath to admit it publicly, this is a response to China's growing influence, particularly Beijing's territorial claims around its borders. China now has the world's second-largest economy and a rapidly modernizing military. It is led by a Communist Party that maintains its power by promoting a strong sense of national pride and expectations of China's continued rise to greatness.

Ever since the late economist/futurist Herman Kahn wrote rather daringly in the early 1970s that Japan would overtake the United States by 2000 as the world's leading economy, Americans have kept a wary eye on the Far East.It wasn't that many people really believed Kahn. Yet his astonishing prophecy, as we have all seen, is no longer astonishing. Japan's recent economic setback notwithstanding, there are many who still believe that by the year 2000 it will surpass the United States as the most important economic force in the world.

With Osama bin Laden dead, the war in Iraq over and the war in Afghanistan winding down, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told graduating midshipmen Tuesday to prepare themselves for "one of the key projects" of their generation: building American strength in the Asia-Pacific region. "America's future prosperity and security are tied to our ability to advance peace and security along the arc extending from the Western Pacific and East Asia into the Indian Ocean and South Asia," he told the Class of 2012 during the graduation ceremony at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium in Annapolis.

Just a few months ago, the 21st century still seemed certain to be the Asian Century -- an era in which Western dominance of the global economy would be surpassed by Asia's mighty industrial engine and burgeoning wealth.Today, devastated by collapsed currencies and stock markets, their banking systems weakened and their people's confidence deeply shaken, the eve of the 21st century finds the nations of East Asia facing perhaps their greatest challenge of the post-World War II era.It is a mammoth challenge for the rest of the world as well.

After more than a century, scientists finally are beginning to understand the dog's long journey from wolf to woof. "Everybody has wanted to know about the dog's origins. But there's been very little facts," says evolutionary biologist Peter Savolainen of Sweden's Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. Now, two new genetic studies published today in the journal Science offer a clearer picture of where and when wolves became domesticated and turned into man's best friend. A third study in the journal, meanwhile, suggests this relationship has had at least one unexpected consequence: Dogs have become more adept than any other animal at reading human cues.

Over the past two years, the Obama administration has focused greater diplomatic attention and military resources on East Asia as part of a policy described as a "pivot" or "rebalancing. " While American leaders are loath to admit it publicly, this is a response to China's growing influence, particularly Beijing's territorial claims around its borders. China now has the world's second-largest economy and a rapidly modernizing military. It is led by a Communist Party that maintains its power by promoting a strong sense of national pride and expectations of China's continued rise to greatness.

AMERICAN AND Japanese officials contend that new defense guidelines announced last month will redefine and reinvigorate the alliance between the two countries.The guidelines actually preserve long-standing inequities in the security relationship and create the illusion rather than the reality of meaningful change.Japan will remain America's military welfare dependent.The principal revision authorizes Japanese logistical support for U.S. military operations in ''areas surrounding Japan'' -- a phrase that is never defined -- that are relevant to Japan's own security.

With Osama bin Laden dead, the war in Iraq over and the war in Afghanistan winding down, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told graduating midshipmen Tuesday to prepare themselves for "one of the key projects" of their generation: building American strength in the Asia-Pacific region. "America's future prosperity and security are tied to our ability to advance peace and security along the arc extending from the Western Pacific and East Asia into the Indian Ocean and South Asia," he told the Class of 2012 during the graduation ceremony at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium in Annapolis.

A year ago, when Maestro David Zinman renewed his contract as the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra's music director, one big factor in his decision to remain in Baltimore was a pledge by the orchestra's management to put more emphasis on touring, recording and broadcasts.The BSO had evolved over the previous decade into one of the finest regional ensembles in the country. But because it couldn't tour, relatively few music lovers outside Baltimore knew how good it really was.That's why the orchestra's announcement last month that it will spend three weeks this fall touring East Asia represents an exciting new phase of the orchestra's development.

The case for democracy is "self-evident," as someone once put it. The case for the world's most powerful democracy to take as its mission the spreading of democracy around the world is pretty self-evident, too: What's good for us is good for others. Those others will be grateful. A world full of democracies created or protected with our help ought to be more peaceful and prosperous and favorably disposed toward us. There is no valid case against democracy. You used to hear a lot that democracy is not suitable for some classes of foreigners: simply incompatible with the cultures of East Asia (because deference to authority is too ingrained there)

WASHINGTON -- In a campaign speech Monday before the Veterans of Foreign Wars, President Bush announced his intention to withdraw 70,000 troops from bases in Europe and East Asia out of a permanent overseas force of nearly a quarter of a million. On Wednesday, Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry fired back, saying, "The president's plan does not strengthen our hand in the war against terror." Yet Democrats have for decades looked sympathetically on reducing the number of U.S. troops stationed overseas.

As a preacher's kid growing up in rural Virginia, Rob Moor was fascinated by the foreign missionaries who visited his father's church with their stories of exotic lands and harrowing adventures as they risked their lives spreading the Gospel. Now Moor tells his own tales, of aiding Rwandan refugees within earshot of the gunfire of civil war, of living in the African bush with Masai tribesmen in Tanzania. "I have one of the most exciting jobs in the world," said Moor, 47, who, with his wife, Lisa, has served for the past 13 years as a Baptist missionary.

After more than a century, scientists finally are beginning to understand the dog's long journey from wolf to woof. "Everybody has wanted to know about the dog's origins. But there's been very little facts," says evolutionary biologist Peter Savolainen of Sweden's Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. Now, two new genetic studies published today in the journal Science offer a clearer picture of where and when wolves became domesticated and turned into man's best friend. A third study in the journal, meanwhile, suggests this relationship has had at least one unexpected consequence: Dogs have become more adept than any other animal at reading human cues.

RAMALLAH, West Bank - Like most Palestinians, Basel Ibrahim learned of America's attack on Afghanistan from Al Jazeera television, a 24-hour satellite news station dubbed the CNN of the Arab world. The 19-year-old university student was home flipping channels when the story broke. He was among the first in the world to see the Afghan sky light up with tracer fire as American fighter planes pounded targets in the promised war on terrorism. Ibrahim stayed tuned to Al Jazeera, eager for more news and gratified that it broadcast a videotaped statement by his hero, Osama bin Laden, Sunday.

PARIS -- East Asia is a place where America's role has become increasingly equivocal, the result of a poverty of vision concerning the role an outside power should, or indeed can, take in the region's affairs. The United States was in the Far East as a trading power throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, which drew it into a rivalry with Japan that ended in war. What does the United States now want in East Asia? Trade and commercial advantage, obviously. However, many talk as though Washington has some appropriate guiding or supervisory role in the political affairs of the region.

DEFENSE SECRETARY William Perry's agreement with Japanese counterparts, after a year of negotiation, should provide a steady foundation for U.S.-Japanese security cooperation into the future. It will not end Okinawans' irritation with the U.S. military presence and with the central government's using their poor-relation distant island as a dumping ground for inconvenient realities. But it is well designed to reduce that irritation.The agreement does not scale back the U.S. presence on Okinawa so much as downsize the facilities to match current use. That entails giving back a fifth of the land the U.S. occupies, closing or moving 11 facilities, reducing noise from aircraft, no longer closing a highway for artillery practice and -- most exciting creating the greatest civil engineering marvel since the Channel Tunnel to move a noisy helicopter base offshore.

POLITICAL stability was achieved but the economic crisis ignored when Japan's Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) chose Foreign Minister Keizo Obuchi as its chief. He will be elected prime minister by the lower house of parliament tomorrow.Mr. Obuchi, who has been foreign minister for a year but has no major economic experience, won because he is the boss of the biggest faction of the party.That's how things have always been done by the LDP, which has learned nothing during the current crisis.

POLITICAL stability was achieved but the economic crisis ignored when Japan's Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) chose Foreign Minister Keizo Obuchi as its chief. He will be elected prime minister by the lower house of parliament tomorrow.Mr. Obuchi, who has been foreign minister for a year but has no major economic experience, won because he is the boss of the biggest faction of the party.That's how things have always been done by the LDP, which has learned nothing during the current crisis.

Just a few months ago, the 21st century still seemed certain to be the Asian Century -- an era in which Western dominance of the global economy would be surpassed by Asia's mighty industrial engine and burgeoning wealth.Today, devastated by collapsed currencies and stock markets, their banking systems weakened and their people's confidence deeply shaken, the eve of the 21st century finds the nations of East Asia facing perhaps their greatest challenge of the post-World War II era.It is a mammoth challenge for the rest of the world as well.