• Australia and Canada have
a bilateral relationship; both have similar governments and share similar values as well as having the same titular head of state. In 1895 the Government of Canada sent John Larke to Sydney to establish a trade commission and in 1935 Canada sent Charles Burchell (Australia's first Canadian High Commissioner) to formalise ties between the two countries. Both nations have been wartime allies, and their trade and economic relations are strong. • India and
Nepal have had a bilateral relationship since ancient times even before the birth of the
Buddha in 563 BC. In modern times, this traditional relationship has been confirmed by written treaties. The
India-Nepal treaty of friendship was signed in July 1950. That provided economically and politically important effects for both countries. In 2011, the two countries signed a new Bilateral Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement. These bilateral treaties have played a significant role in the evolution of international investment law. Citizens of both countries can move across the border freely without passport or visa, live and work in either country and own property and business in either country.
Gurkhas form a part of the Indian Army. Millions of Nepalis have been living in India for long periods of time. • The United States has bilateral relationships with several East Asian countries, particularly South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan. The United States formed a bilateral alliance with Japan during the
Security Treaty between the United States and Japan. The U.S. also formed a bilateral alliance with Korea during the 1953
U.S.–South Korea Status of Forces Agreement and one with the Republic of China during the 1954
Sino-American Mutual Defense Treaty. Unlike its relationship with European nations which takes
multilateral alliances centered in
NATO, the U.S. prefers a direct relationship with each of the East Asian countries. Rather than establishing a security alliance or hosting a summit, the U.S. tends to make a direct connection with each nation. From both historical and political perspectives, every country in the East Asian region can be an opponent or a target to any other. Therefore, it is comparatively difficult to construct multilateral alliances, which depend upon mutual reliance. A main U.S. reason for choosing a bilateral treaty was to avoid conflict, as might have been the case with multilateral treaties (e.g. risk of multilateral treaty defects). An example is the "
hub and spokes" reference, where the U.S. is the "hub" and the East Asian countries are the "spokes"; they each have a connection with the U.S. but not with each other. • There are multiple factors that are unique when discussing why the United States has chosen to form bilateral relations particularly with East Asian countries, in comparison to the multilateral relations, such as NATO. Firstly, the United States had existing and longer relations with countries in Europe. Thus it was easier for the United States to build and form this
multilateral bond.
Victor Cha states "Acheson argued that NATO was the product of a long, deliberative process, that West European powers had carefully developed their plan for collective defense before asking for U.S. help, and most revealing, that the United States viewed NATO as a mutual collective defense arrangement." • Victor Cha proposed the
Powerplay theory in his article "Powerplay: Origins of the U.S. Alliance System in Asia", which explains the reasons behind the United States' decision in creating a series of bilateral alliances with East Asian countries. Powerplay is commonly used in any political or social situation when one uses its knowledge or information against others in order to gain benefits using situational advantages the one has. According to the powerplay theory, the alliances were created to both contain and constrain potential rogue allies (
rogue state) from performing aggressive behavior that would trigger larger military conflict and involvement. The rogue allies (rogue states) include Taiwan's Kai Shek Chiang, who was publicly planning and looking forward to take back mainland China, and Korea's Syngman Rhee, who wanted to unify the Korean peninsula. The United States was also worried that Japan would recover its regional power in Asia. Cha concludes that the postwar United States planners had selected such a type of security architecture as an attempt to prevent aggression by the East Asian pro-west dictators and to increase leverage and states' dependency on the U.S. economy. • The U.S.–Japan alliance was a bilateral security order created with the intention of preventing the expansion of Soviet power and communism in the Asia Pacific. The U.S. provided Japan, and the other Asia Pacific countries, with the offer of security protection and access to American markets, technology, and supplies in exchange for providing diplomatic, economic, and logistical support for the U.S., as this, according to
John Ikenberry, would lead to the "wider, American-centered anti-Communist postwar order". • The United States also has a history of
bilateral agreements with Panama, beginning with the
Hay–Bunau-Varilla Treaty (1903) which established the United States' right to build a canal and own it and adjacent property across the otherwise-sovereign nation of Panama. This was replaced by the
Treaty Concerning the Permanent Neutrality and Operation of the Panama Canal and the Panama Canal Treaty (both signed 1977). A
bilateral investment treaty amendment was signed by the two countries in 2000, and several more limited agreements have been signed between various law-enforcement and financial agencies of the two countries. ==History==