Mixed Messages Sent, Mixed Messages Received: Asian Views of the United States and Multilateralism 2004-2005

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The United States' approach to multilateral international relations continues to be at odds with the practices and desires of most of its Asian partners.

The United States emphasizes effectiveness and good outcomes (as defined by the U.S.) rather than process. For most Asian states the processes of multilateralism are as important.

Throughout 2004, Asian governments and private commentators called on the U.S. to renounce its unilateralism, mostly on the grounds that unilateralism is a thinly disguised hegemony and is destroying the multilateral international system as developed in the second half of the twentieth century.

If the United States …