Another edition of the now-frequent story of how the U.S. has been missing opportunities abroad and allowing China to fill the diplomatic and economic vacuum. Once again, I defer to Ben Landy at China Redux, who starts off with this line in a post about Singapore:

“Sometimes you become so consumed by your enemies, that you forget about your friends.”

Well written, that. I’ve written before about the U.S. relationship with ASEAN, which Ben touches on as well. The shift in South-east Asia towards China could and should have been handled quite differently by the U.S.

There have been many options, including using a reenergized APEC as a platform (I think this was the Bergsten approach), but at the very least, you gotta show up at the ASEAN meetings and play a constructive role. Diplomacy 101, right?

The Bush Administration’s snub of ASEAN, ostensibly on account of Myanmar’s presidency, was a nice little statement signifying nothing and ultimately causing a lot of harm.

Sorry to be so critical this early in the day. Ben is obviously not so cranky - read his analysis.