When the Republicans took the United States Congress by storm in November 1994, seizing both chambers of the mighty legislative branch for the first time in forty years, East Asian experts in their respective capitals and in Washington wondered what would change in America's Asia policy and what would not. There was a great deal of speculation as to how the new Republican Congress — the U.S. legislature's 104th session spanning 1995–96 — would deal with issues involving the United States and East Asia.

Two Schools of Thought

Roughly speaking, there were two schools of thought. One group of Asian observers expected that the Republican Congress would be much like recent Republican administrations in its foreign policy stance. Another group stressed, however, that many of the younger Republicans in Congress had nothing to do with the party's realist-internationalists who made foreign policy for Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush, and that the new Republicans were more likely to have populist, possibly even “nativist”, impulses. One factor which intensified the speculation was the powerful Speaker of the House of Representatives, Newt Gingrich, who had led the charge on the Democratic Congress and was about to dominate the 104th Congress. As a radical reformer, Gingrich combined the new with the old in the Republican Party; it was not clear which way he would move on Asian issues.

Sophisticated Asians among the first school were well aware that congressional Republicans, as a majority, might not follow in the footsteps of past Republican administrations in all matters. But it was assumed, reasonably, that the Republican Congress would be at least closer to recent Republican administrations than the long-entrenched Democratic Congress had been. And during the years of “divided government”, in which a Republican President occupied the White House while Democrats dominated Congress, the Democratic Congress had generally appeared tougher on East Asian governments than the Republican executive ranch on issues ranging from trade and security “burden-sharing” to “values”, including human rights and democratic governance.