Obama and China's Rise.

• Author: Camp, Donald
• Position: Book review

Obama and China's Rise: An Insider's Account of America's Asia Strategy by Jeff Bader, Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, ISBN-13: 978-0815722427, 2012. 171 pp., $17.95

Obama and China's Rise is a thorough and well-written description of and rationale for the administration's approach to East Asia from January 2009 to April 2011. Author Jeff Bader deals comprehensively with China, while not neglecting developments in Japan, Korea, and Southeast Asia.

The subtitle says it better than the title. This is An Insider's Account of America's Asia Strategy. Bader clearly had the president's ear on Asia policy. With Obama from the beginning of his campaign, Bader headed the Asia/Pacific transition team and became the senior East Asia policy maker in the White House. Thus, this is the first account of foreign policy making in the Obama administration written by someone who was actually there.

We already know from Bob Woodward ("Obama's Wars") and Ron Suskind ("Confidence Men") that there was no shortage of internecine, bureaucratic warfare in both the National Security Council and National Economic Council in the Obama White House. Bader doesn't go that route. While he discusses interagency differences in approach, he doesn't personalize the policy issues.

Bader begins with the new administration's priorities, one of which was to engage more actively with multilateral organizations. Thus, one of Bader's first initiatives, in cooperation with Secretary Clinton, was to reverse the Bush administration's refusal to adhere to an ASEAN treaty of amity; they argued, to a skeptical bureaucracy, that the treaty would not limit American options in Asia. Treaty accession provided the basis to allow the US, a year later, to join the East Asia Summit--a new mechanism through which to engage the region. Obama also resolved to meet annually with all the leaders of ASEAN, deciding that high- level engagement should not be held hostage to Burma' s presence in the organization.

Dealing with China provided some of Bader's biggest challenges. Obama's campaign rhetoric was restrained, avoiding the problem of past administrations that had to overcome the legacy of harsh partisan language on China (recall Clinton's denunciation of coddling the "butchers of Beijing"). At Bader's suggest ion, Obama chose as ambassador Jon Huntsman who knew and respected China, and had studied Mandarin.

Once in office, the administration found a China that was newly assertive...