\n<\/p>\n
Fifty years ago, my father, an American war reporter, climbed over the wall of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon and scrambled onto a chopper that took off from a roof in the mission.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy last view of Saigon was through the tail door of the helicopter,\u201d he wrote in the Chicago Daily News. \u201cThen the door closed \u2014 closed on the most humiliating chapter in American history.\u201d<\/p>\n
My father believed in the domino theory, how a cascade of Communism might deluge Asia. A veteran of World War II, he wrote a book<\/a> titled, without much irony, \u201cNot Without the Americans.\u201d<\/p>\n The title seems an anachronism, from a time when paternalistic Americans, confident in their own flawed democracy, envisioned a world shaped in their own image. Half a century after the pullout of the last American troops from Vietnam, it\u2019s clear how Asia is learning to live, if not without the Americans, then with a new great power: China.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Beijing\u2019s imprint is everywhere, from the contested waters of the South China Sea, where delicate coral reefs have been churned up to build Chinese military bases<\/a>, to remote villages in Nepal, where Chinese goods are flooding markets via Chinese-built roads.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n President Trump\u2019s back-and-forth on tariffs, the blunting of American diplomacy and the dismantling of the agency for American aid \u2014 and with it hundreds of programs in Asia \u2014 feels like yet another withdrawal<\/a>, and one that was not even compelled by military force.<\/p>\n When an earthquake struck Myanmar in late March, killing more than 3,700 people, the United States was far slower than China in sending assistance. Then it fired American aid workers<\/a> while they were on the ground there.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cAmerica used to stand for hope and democracy, but now they are missing when we needed them most,\u201d said Ko Aung Naing San, a resident of Sagaing, the earthquake\u2019s devastated epicenter. \u201cChina sent help quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n But in his next breath, Mr. Aung Naing San questioned Beijing\u2019s intentions in Myanmar. He worried about China plundering Myanmar\u2019s natural resources and pleaded for the United States to help. When a military junta overthrew the country\u2019s elected leaders four years ago, a pro-democracy resistance begged for America to do something, anything, to repel the dictators.<\/p>\n Washington will not intervene in Myanmar; another Southeast Asian quagmire is the last thing any U.S. administration wants. But American ideals and images, even when its bedrock institutions may be under threat at home, continue to resonate overseas: Hollywood, bluejeans, gauzy notions of freedom.<\/p>\n In March, I interviewed Gen. Chhum Socheat<\/a>, the deputy defense minister of Cambodia. The United States had helped refurbish parts of a military base<\/a> there, but the Cambodian government later turned to China instead for a complete modernization. The American construction was razed, and in early April, the Chinese-built facility was unveiled with Chinese military officers in attendance.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n As we were walking out of the interview, General Chhum Socheat, who had spent an hour defending Cambodia\u2019s authoritarian leaders, patted my arm gently.<\/p>\n \u201cYour American democracy, it is a little difficult now?\u201d he inquired with surprising concern.<\/p>\n I made an ambiguous noise. He pressed on.<\/p>\n Cambodia, he said, was still recovering from the destruction of the Khmer Rouge years, during which radical Communists razed the society and oversaw the deaths of up to one-fifth of the country\u2019s population.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are developing our democracy, like America, but first we need peace and stability,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n I doubt that Cambodia, where a hereditary dictatorship has erased the political opposition and kneecapped free speech, is truly on a democratic trajectory. And one reason that Cambodians embraced the Khmer Rouge in 1975 was a brutal American bombing campaign that spilled over from the Vietnam War.<\/p>\n Still, the deputy defense minister\u2019s reference to American democracy meant something enduring about ideals. General Chhum Socheat said he wished America well, and he urged me to believe, against significant evidence otherwise, that Cambodia wanted to be with the Americans, too.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n