East Asian Relations
In the sphere of East Asian relations, according to Victor Cha, hub-and-spokes refers to the network of bilateral alliances between United States and other individual East Asian countries. United States acts as a "hub" and Asian countries such as Korea, Japan, and China fall under the category "Spokes." Whereas there is a strong alliance between the hub and the spoke, there are no firmly established connections between the spokes themselves. US-Republic of Korea defense treaty of 1953 or US-Republic of China security treaty of 1954 are some of the examples that manifests this relation.
United States chose bilateral relations over multilateral relations because they deemed bilateral alliance as the most effective instrument to control and maximize their leverage in the Asian region. In addition, they considered this measure as an effective way to deter the communist invasion in the Asian region. Their logic in choosing bilateralism over multilateralism was based on the East Asian internal situation at the time. Unlike Europe, the political structure of the Asian region was dynamic ranging from authoritarian regime to democracy. Also each Asian states faced different threats.
Read more about this topic: Spoke-hub Distribution Paradigm
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