Obama’s Asia Team Announced

By David Fedman
Jan 09 09

After much speculation, President-elect Barack Obama has at last announced the personnel for his Asia policy team. At first glance, the line-up is ripe with liberal think-tankers and academics, many of whom are unknown beyond the ever-so insular world of Asia policy wonks. To ease this personnel shift, I have done my best in this post to consolidate biographical info. for the major players below, with the hope that readers can familiarize themselves with the long list of names they are soon to read oh so much about.

First, the regional personnel line ups, done by country:

The Japan team, according to Chris Nelson’s eponymous publication, the Nelson Report (quoted liberally below), is to be supervised by Michael Schiffer. This group includes former National Security Council economics adviser Matt Goodman and Derek Mitchell, the head of the International Security Program at CSIS. A cadre of academics have also been tapped to advise the group including Columbia’s Carol Gluck, George Washington’s Amy Searight, Columbia’s Gerry Curtis, and Skipp Orr. Jospeh Nye will take over as Ambassador of Japan.

The much awaited announcement of the Japan team has no doubt relieved a number of policymakers in Tokyo worried about the prospect of a new set of pro-China US Japan hands and a crusty US-Japan alliance. The Japanese media has thus far praised the selection of Nye as Ambassador and seems generally pleased with the familiarity of the Obama roster.

The Korea team’s point man will be Frank Jannuzi, formerly an adviser to Vice President-elect Biden and the top Democrat Asia adviser to the House Foreign Relations Committee. (For a great look at Jannuzi at work see him here at the Asia Policy Debate in September.) Gordon Flake of the Mansfield Center will work with former Ambassador Tom Hubbard and former President of The Korea Society, Tom Gregg.

The China Team will be run directly by Jeffrey Bader, an eminent China specialist, who will take over the helm at the NSC. Bader started his political tenure at the Department of State under Jimmy Carter, helping then Assistant Secretary Holbrooke “navigate Congressional waters.” His long Asia experience includes postings at USTR and the NSC. Major assistance will come from Richard Bush, former President of the American Institute in Taiwan and current head honcho at the Brookings Institution. Other prominent players include “Ken Lieberthal, formerly of the NSC; Mike Lampton, at SAIS; Evan Medeiros, at RAND again; Bob Kapp, former president of the US-China Business Council; Kevin Nealer, The Scowcroft Group; Bob Suettinger, former NSC and CIA now consultant.”

Now to the individual movers and shakers, the so-called “high appointments”:

Harvard professor Kurt Campell was announced to replace Christopher Hill as Assistant Secretary of State for Asia, an unsurprising pick given his connections to Hillary Clinton. This does, however, come as a shock to many of the political players “who had assumed that he would go back to DOD.” Previously at the DOD, Campbell helped “raise the department’s foreign policy profile and was deeply involved in the initial stages of re-defining the US-Japan strategic relationship - in particular the Okinawa/Futenma relocation problem.” Of tremendous importance to Asia is the appointment of Under Secretary of State Economics Advisor, who is coincidentally Lael Brainard, Kurt Campbell’s wife.

Marine General Wallace Gregson, a former Marine general, will take over Asia policy at the pentagon.

Deputy Secretary of State will be Jim Steinberg, long experienced in East Asia issues, especially China policy; Deputy Secretary of the DOD will be Bill Lynn, “a proven adult supervisor of finance and management.”

A few important players have been given free reign to negotiate policy within broad regional frameworks, bearing the title of Special Envoy. Notably, Richard Holbrooke will be in charge of South Asia (India and Pakistan. In addition, former Albright advisor Wendy Sherman will likely take over the helm of the six party talks with N. Korea as a counselor to all American departments involved.

The appointments adumbrated above are not likely to shake things up; rather, it seems that they will continue much of the policy tracks laid out by the Bush administration. Engagement with China, for better or worse, looms large, as many see management of US-China policy as the defining policy challenge for the Obama administration. Other potential areas of policy innovation are (in order of likelihood): increased pressure on the six-party talks to see a major turnaround by Japan and China in calling for transparency; a delayed relocation of America’s troop relocation from Okinawa to Gaum [Guam]; reformed economic policies in Asia may steer regional policy towards further engagement with China. This is, of course, an exercise in conjecture. Who knows what the year of the Ox will hold?

Obama’s mantras of hope and change are about all that the US - and much of the world - clings to in these hard times. Yet, as Tobias Harris at Observing Japan has aptly observed, “change, it seems, is for matters other than Asia policy.”

It seems that hope, for now, will have to suffice - at lease in Asia.