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The article examines U.S. President George W. Bush's administration and its policies toward the People's Republic of China, the Korean peninsula, and Japan. According to the Bush Doctrine, U.S. foreign policy is characterized by unilateral action, regime change, and preemptive attack. In Northeast Asia, this doctrine is facing conditions and circumstances which may require its modification or outright abandonment. The doctrine's new face has reportedly made acceptance of the U.S. and its policies difficult in Asia.

The wars in Korea and Vietnam were of a piece, directly related by virtue of U.S. global strategy and China's security concerns. This paper, focusing mainly on the U.S. side in these wars, argues that three characteristics of American policy had enduring meaning for the rest of the Cold War and even beyond: the official mindsets that led to U.S. involvement, the centrality of the China threat in American decision making, and the common legacy of intervention against nationalism and in support of authoritarian regimes. It is part of a continuing Asia-Pacific Journal series on the Korean War on the sixtieth anniversary of its outbreak. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]