I'm not sure that America'f foreign policy is all that off-course in Asia. For one, it still roped Japan into the recent statement on the feuding between China and Taiwan; it's also been teaming up with India,the third big regional player on dealing with China. And as the Economist points out this week (http://economist.com/printedition/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=3696039 registration required), China's perceived influence and actual ability to shape anything has fallen into question since North Korea pulled out of Six Nations negotiations.
This doesn't mean the U.S. shouldn't devote more time to Asia, but that to some extent, China is going to be a player no matter what muscle the U.S. flexes. It's just a question of making sure other powers (Japan, India, even to a lesser extent, Russia) do a good job of checking China.

As for Canada, much of that argument is payback on the Canadian government's part for America's restrictions on its softwood timber and beef imports. Another aspect that others fail to mention: The push by the Liberal's hard-left faction on the policies of the rather centrist (by Canadian standards) Martin and his predecessor, Jean Chretien, who by Canadian standards, was hardly hard-left. Partly because of the string of scandals related to an advertising campaign, Martin has had to keep his factions happy and still govern. That resulted in last year's election losses, which puts him in the position or running a minority government.

Ultimately, there are good reasons for having a binational missile defense: Any attack on Canada ends up hurting the U.S. simply because of our close proximity. Bush realizes it, Martin probably realizes it too, especially since his government has neglected its military (The magazine of the U.S. Army War College, Parameters, did a survey of Canada's military in http://carlisle-www.army.mil/usawc/Parameters/04autumn/nunez.htm).

Canada will eventually come around. It needs America more than America needs it.

ITA covered East Asian affairs in detail yesterday (including that Economist article). The U.S. is going through a good patch at the moment, but allying ourselves with Japan at the expense of public opinion in South Korea and elite opinion in Beijing is not a long-term winning strategy. You're right to note the increasingly warm relations between New Delhi and Washington (begun, to give credit where due, under Clinton), but we should also remember that friendship with India can make warm relations with China more difficult in some circumstances. These are very difficult questions, unresolvable from first principles, and I am not sure the Bush administration is doing their sums right in all the relationships. (To be fair, a) they've got more important short-term problems elsewhere and b) they're doing better than Clinton at this stage in his presidency.)

A good test of leadership, of course, is results, and so far those results are decidedly mixed. A stronger security treaty with Japan, true--but our long-term goal should be to make those treaties unnecessary or at least less important, and the past five years has shown that the reverse is true. And many of our victories have been 'own goals'--I'm cheered that Taiwan's president is no longer on the verge of sparking a war, but getting to that point required years of diplomacy directed at a nominal ally.

The American missile defense shield, as I also noted yesterday, will go ahead no matter what, and more importantly it will function as a joint shield in any event (assuming, a big assumption, that it functions at all). Does anyone really think that an American President would alert Canada before shooting down a missile aimed at Seattle or Vancouver? Finally, it's true Canada needs us more than we need them, but an alliance shouldn't be grounded only on worst-case scenarios: It requires partnership on other issues as well. America hasn't offered that to Ottawa recently, so it's no surpise the Canadian's haven't provided that.

"China's perceived influence and actual ability to shape anything has fallen into question since North Korea pulled out of Six Nations negotiations."

By the way, the problem with this analysis is that it assumes Beijing is trying to pull Pyongyang back into the Six Nations talks. And I'm no longer convinced that's a wholly accurate description of Beijing's motivations.

I would disagree. One would expect China to worry as much about being perceived as a responsible actor on the world stage as it would be about flexing its newfound economic and diplomatic muscle. That means getting its satellites to play ball, including North Korea, on whose behalf China has devoted much of its prestige (as well as budget.) Besides the last thing China would want is South Korea getting a clue and actually invading North Korea, which would likely succeed and would ultimately mean having a satellite of the U.S. at its door.

We know that it worries about that because of its past actions related to Taiwan, which, frankly, it could have invaded and taken over a decade ago. Its efforts on stemming film piracy is another example of that. So I'm not sure you can argue that checking North Korea's aims is something China isn't interested in doing.

As far as your point on results, Paul, you're looking at the short run and not the long view. And the short view is always meaningless because today's events tell you little about how things will actually end up 20 years down the line. Think about it: Few would have ever thought that Richard Nixon's engagement with China in 1972 would have led to China dropping much of its Communist doctrine and becoming an economic powerhouse. Actually, no one would have thought the Soviet Union would be a mere phrase for a bygone era.
So let's face facts: Neither you or I can come up with a good long-term scenario for U.S. relations in Asia. Neither can Peter Brookes or anyone else. We're all just guessing.

As far as Canada is concerned? Partnerships should probably be based on more than worse-case scenarios. But in the case of Canada, it's probably all about worse case. After all, this is a country that in the long run, pretty much dependent on the U.S. economy. As much of their regulatory affairs, including when it comes to media, is preoccupied with stemming the rather more powerful thing that is U.S. influence. So essentially, Martin's move is little more than a temper tantrum by a teenage girl who can't live without poppa's money and shelter. Unless Canada somehow manages to develop a military policy that can actually challenge the U.S. (and the lefty bent of that country actually makes that more difficult than one would think; just read anything out of the Canadian press), this Canadianophile says let them stew.

"Few would have ever thought that Richard Nixon's engagement with China in 1972 would have led to China dropping much of its Communist doctrine and becoming an economic powerhouse."

Bad example: Nixon and Kissinger may not have expected Maoist China to become capitalist (and, indeed, it was Deng's China that traveled the capitalist road), but all parties involved in the summit meeting and the preparatory meetings leading up to it knew what they were doing: Tying China into the global system. Everyone involved was doing it for different reasons: The Chinese were trying to avoid a Soviet-American condominium, the Americans were trying to use the Chinese to balance the Soviets, and the Soviets were trying to scuttle the deal--but people at the table had a good idea of the scope of the stakes.

As for North Korea: You are precisely correct when you wrote China wants to be perceived as being a good neighbor. But perception and substantive policy are different things (as the French, for instance, well know). China still provides 80 percent of North Korea's energy; it's in a stronger bargaining position than it was in 2002, when it cut off shipments to Pyongyang; and yet it hasn't done so, even after the 'red line' has been crossed. This is hardly the behavior we would expect if North Korea is a satellite and the Chinese are the masters. It may be that the Chinese cut off supplies tomorrow, but it is two weeks already since the declaration, and three weeks since the Americans delivered top-level intelligence briefings to Tokyo, Beijing and Seoul relating to the DPRK's nuclear program. The satellite is on a long orbit.

You mistakenly believe that Seoul is an American client state. The situation is far more complicated than that. Many South Koreans (bizarrely) view the North as less threatening than Uncle Sam, and Washington's policy of undercutting rapprochement with the North (evidenced, almost literally, since Day One of the administration) has not endeared it to the younger generations in the RoK.

As for Peter Brookes, he loses points for a) working for a hack organization and b) speaking even less Mandarin than I do.

Bad example: Nixon and Kissinger may not have expected Maoist China to become capitalist (and, indeed, it was Deng's China that traveled the capitalist road)

No, Paul, not a bad example. Fact of the matter is that things could have gone a myriad different ways. Any leader other than Mao's successor, Deng Xaoping, for one, could have decided to foster far closer ties to Moscow, which would have meant a more Communist-oriented country that would have been more of a satellite to Moscow. Without Deng and without the longrunning jostling between Moscow and China for control of the Communist world, which China lost, it's hard to know what really would have happened.

Also don't forget that much of China's path depended on whether the West rejected Taiwan as the "real" China, which was not exactly a given either. Taiwan's corrupt Nationalist government probably sealed the nation's fate by rejecting Nixon's plan to recognize both it and the PRC.

Ultimately, like much of what happens in life, Paul, things came together the right way and that was largely because of events that no one could have truly foreseen and players we didn't really know were there until they appeared. Speaking as someone who has seen quite a few shifting paths in a short lifetime, I can tell you this is the case. Essentially, nobody knows nothing about what's going to happen in the future and can't pretend to do so.

If anyone could, that person would be sitting in Malibu, sipping mai tais right now with Carmen Electra sitting in his (or her) lap and Elisha Cuthbert combing her hands through his hair. Somebody's probably doing that, but more likely because they made money off of underestimating the public's taste for crappy movies.

"Any leader other than Mao's successor, Deng Xaoping, for one, could have decided to foster far closer ties to Moscow, which would have meant a more Communist-oriented country that would have been more of a satellite to Moscow."

This argument is ahistorical in the extreme. The choice facing the leaders of the post-Mao regime was whether to turn toward the outside world (in practice, the United States and Japan) or to continue on an attempt (realized by everyone except the Gang of Four as misguided) to realize socialism in one country in one generation. China and the Soviet Union were shooting at each other along the border, for crying out loud!

"Also don't forget that much of China's path depended on whether the West rejected Taiwan as the "real" China, which was not exactly a given either."

Actually, by Nixon's visit to China in 1972, the Taiwanese government had already lost its UN seat (over U.S. protests).

In any event, you are right on the point that "nobody knows what the future brings," but on the other hand we have to plan for the future, and I'd be shocked beyond belief if the National Security Council wasn't operating on at least some belief of what the general outlines of the future looks like. (Although the Castilians of 2015 are in for a shock--Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition again!)

"This argument is ahistorical in the extreme."

Obviously you missed my line about the "longrunning jostling between Moscow and China" Not to be condescending, but I'd recommend you read more carefully.

And you are right that the NSC is probably guiding itself based on some plans. But as any old man, especially a former Chinese Communist official, can tell you, God and anyone else with a stick of wisdom laughs at plans. They usually don't work because events have a funny way of knocking back plans. More importantly, people and organizations, by nature, have the habit of fighting the last war, not the one that may be upcoming. Which means a perceived mistake today may end up being a successful manuever twenty years from now. And a smart move now is a dumb one later. So I just say watch, listen and keep good track.

But at this point, we're talking past each other. So I'll end it here.

"This argument is ahistorical in the extreme."

Obviously you missed my line about the "longrunning jostling between Moscow and China" Not to be condescending, but I'd recommend you read more carefully.

I was referring specifically to your assertion that Mao's successors could have turned toward Moscow. Given the relatively small set of potential successors (fewer than a score, likely fewer than a dozen), it's possible to evaluate them individually--and I can't see the Gang of Four going back to Moscow. Granted, under this analysis, it becomes very hard to understand, say, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, but then that was very hard to understand at the time (as was the breaking of that pact).

"Which means a perceived mistake today may end up being a successful manuever twenty years from now. And a smart move now is a dumb one later. So I just say watch, listen and keep good track."

Unfortunately, although this is an option for grad students and editorialists, it is not one for policymakers. And the U.S. policymakers are, I believe, making a lot of second-best choices in their relations with Asia, even bearing in mind the enormous constraints of power, time, and personnel.