A propos my post of the other day, here's more along the same lines from Carlyle Thayer writing at East Asia Forum, who frames it as China's soft power vs. U.S. smart power. And once again, U.S. smart power seems to have made a significant comeback. Significantly, as Thayer puts it, "The timing is bad for China as the regional security architecture looks set to gain a new lease on life and expand into new areas of cooperation." Add to that the fact that the soon-to-include-the-U.S. grouping, EAS, is apparently gaining an edge over the sans-U.S. ASEAN+3 grouping favored by China. (For more on that, see our WPR feature issue, Regional Integration in Asia.) As Thayer concludes, "The view that U.S. primacy is in decline seems premature indeed."
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