I executed a personal pivot to Asia this year, with separate trips to South Korea, Japan, Vietnam and China (twice). There was certainly plenty to write about – new leadership in China, Abenomics in Japan, Sino-Japanese confrontation, nuclear tensions on the Korean peninsula. Yet, on more than one occasion, I found myself sitting in a hotel room in East Asia – but writing about the Middle East.
The tendency to be distracted by urgent-seeming news from the Middle East is not just a journalistic vice. It is also a dilemma for US foreign policy. In theory, America is committed to a pivot to Asia that would put Asian affairs at the very centre of US foreign policy. In practice, as one US official explained to me recently: “The White House is about crisis management. And, in foreign policy, 90 per cent of the crises are in the Middle East.” That was certainly true in 2013 with the civil war in Syria, a military coup in Egypt and the beginning of serious nuclear negotiations with Iran.
John Kerry’s first full year as secretary of state has re-enforced America’s pivot back to the Middle East. At an early meeting with his new team, Mr Kerry was told that Hillary Clinton, his predecessor, had chosen to send a message by making her first visit as secretary of state to Asia. It was politely suggested that Mr Kerry do the same thing. But the new man was having none of it. He made clear that he intended to concentrate on that most traditional of US foreign-policy priorities: the Middle East peace process. Following in the tradition of many distinguished predecessors – from Henry Kissinger to Madeleine Albright – Mr Kerry has trod the road to Jerusalem in search of the Holy Grail of peace between Israel and the Palestinians. The US secretary of state has made so many visits to the area that he now jokes about commuting to the Holy Land.