As if struck by a water-borne virus, the nations touching on the Pacific seem to be suffering a striking series of leadership problems. From Indonesia to Peru, the United States to Japan, there have been crises involving corruption and impeachment, and a cynical dissatisfaction marks the political landscape. PNS correspondent Philip Cunningham reports from Beijing.

A leadership vacuum of epic proportions has hit the Pacific Rim. Something's out of whack.

The world's sole superpower has become virtually immobilized by an electoral crisis that follows on the heels of a presidency weakened by impeachment. Mean-spirited litigation is being employed to resolve the impasse of the Gore-Bush election, but in a way it doesn't matter who wins now, for there will be no mandate. An archaic electoral college system and the unconvincing politicking of two deeply flawed, mediocre men have produced two losers instead of one winner in the U.S. presidential election.

President Clinton's willful self-weakening began with little lies and contradictions. It's ironic that a man with such oratorical gifts should end up becoming a poster boy for impeachment rather than an inspirational leader of a free society.

Witness the Americanized Philippines, where Joseph Estrada has just been impeached and faces trial in the Senate for wrongdoings that make Clinton look like a saint. And Taiwan, where the fearless Chen Shui-bian, the David who stood up to the twin Goliaths of the Communist and KMT ruling parties, is now threatened with impeachment for messing with the billion-dollar money politics of a big nuclear reactor.

In countries with a parliamentary system, a vote of no-confidence obviates the need for impeachment, but those democracies have not been immune. It's hard to imagine a leader more weak and ineffective than Japan's Prime Minister Mori, and he is being deserted left and right. But it is unlikely his successor will have much of a mandate -- his party is not only divided but could not form a government without help from opposition parties -- so pro-reform and anti-reform factions would tend to cancel one another out. More impasse and immobility.

Clinton has been a weak president but not without influence. His twin-pronged approach to Asia -- an awkward combination of missionary liberalism and crass money politics -- leaves a wobbly legacy. The ambiguity of playing good cop/bad cop at the same time is just plain confusing.

The endless vacillations of American foreign policy under Clinton/Albright -- castigating Castro while embracing Kim Jong-il, bad-mouthing China while promoting business junkets there, bombing Serbia while arming the KLA -- all these things tend to cancel each other out, cumulatively adding up to nothing. Or worse yet, a negative legacy, less than nothing.

China President Jiang Zemin's mandate to lead was based on being a loyal underling to Deng Xiaoping, a claim which he reasserted recently as he unveiled a Deng memorial in Shenzhen. Despite regal posing and throwing a conspicuously lavish party for himself on October 1, 1999, National Day, Jiang's mandate is still as shaky as an earthquake. To his credit, he does not invoke the fear of his ruthless predecessors. But his attempts to whip up a personality cult and promote his ideology have failed not just because he lacks charisma and original ideas, but popular support as well.

On the other side of the Pacific Ocean, Peru's Fujimori has become a pathetic spectacle.

In Malaysia, Mahathir's ruthless prosecution of Anwar, once his designated successor, has left the proud leader with only half the Malay vote and a weakened mandate. In North Korea, the seemingly all-powerful Kim Jong-il presides over a realm so wracked with poverty and starvation that he has taken to wining and dining the likes of Madeleine Albright to win some cash and concessions for a stalled economy.

In Indonesia, the cynicism provoked by years of high-level corruption and abuse under strongman Suharto has made the idea of a strong leader almost unsavory. Indeed, the apparent weakness of the nearly blind and enfeebled Wahid seems to be a desirable, integral qualification for the job.

It's hard to imagine a prime minister more mild-mannered and self-effacing than Thailand's ascetic Chuan Leekpai, but popular resentment of his smug, self-assured leadership was a factor in calling for new elections last month.

In 1969 youthful revolution swept the Western world, in 1989 anti-communist uprisings swept the Eastern world. In today's integrated world, the currents and riptides of change have the potential to spread rapidly. International investors pulled out of Southeast Asia like lemmings going off a cliff in 1997, causing severe economic dislocation and smoldering contempt for leaders linked to globalization.