Now that President Bush has a new term stretching out before him, things that were on hold until the election should be at the top of his list. It’s not that the top challenges in Asia haven’t been getting attention from his officials. They have. But both longstanding problems and an emerging one require a new approach.

The public estimate is that North Korea has enough nuclear material for two bombs. Privately, who knows? Squeezing North Korea to deny it revenue from drug trafficking and proliferation is a good idea. The Bush administration has also rightly resisted bilateral talks and the pressure to make concessions that would certainly follow. But that doesn’t mean that the countries America relies on to keep a united front, China and, increasingly, South Korea for that matter, share Washington’s goals.

Beijing has been uncooperative, resisting the goal of dismantling Pyongyang’s nuclear program. It has also just repatriated several dozen refugees to North Korea, where they face imprisonment and execution even as Mr. Bush signed new legislation offering them asylum. The Bush administration’s reliance on China has given Beijing undue influence, and Beijing has turned around and used it to pressure Washington for concessions on Taiwan. Changing this dynamic isn’t an instant solution to Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions, but it is a part of one.

In Taiwan, the last four years have shown that its people have an increasingly independent identity, though not an overpowering need to declare independence. Meanwhile, the retirement of Jiang Zemin and the consolidation of power by Hu Jintao have had no appreciable effect on China’s attitude toward Taiwan. Quite the opposite. The Pentagon is cautious in its public assessments of China’s threat. But in an effort to convince the European Union not to lift its arms embargo on Beijing, Bush administration officials have been making clear just how precarious the situation has become over the last several years. That makes American clarity about aggression all the more vital in deterring Beijing and persuading our allies not to complicate things. It is hard to do either of those things so long as American policy is based on maintaining a nonexistent “status quo.” Once Taiwan’s parliamentary elections are held in December, it will be harder to blame Chen Shui-bian “pandering” to voter sentiment on independence. The Bush administration has done well to try to lessen Taiwan’s isolation in some ways. But the policy toward Taipei will need to be changed to reflect the reality of the situation in the Taiwan Strait.

Islam in Asia is typically judged to be moderate, but it doesn’t take many radicals to stir things up. Al Jazeera is in the market for an Asian broadcasting base to reach Southeast Asia, where a quarter of the world’s Muslims live. The prime minister of Thailand, Thaksin Shinawatra, has autocratic tendencies that are exacerbating tensions in the mainly Muslim south. It’s not clear how willing Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, the new president of Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim country, is to face up to his country’s terrorist problem. Meanwhile, unrest in China has drawn attention to the ethnically Chinese Hui and the non-Chinese Uighurs of the northwest, against which Beijing has launched an opportunistic crackdown using the war on terrorism as an excuse. Asia’s Muslims are diverse populations with different experiences. Military and law enforcement measures are only one part of a policy. A tough antiterrorism policy requires rather than precludes an emphasis on democratic governance and an explicit commitment to religious freedom.

Four years ago, Mr. Bush set out to deal with Asia by reinvigorating America’s alliances and dealing more realistically with China. September 11 unsettled those priorities, if not the need for acting on them. America’s war in Afghanistan, and its presence in Central Asia initially put Beijing on its back foot. But since then, China has launched an energetic campaign of diplomacy designed to make America marginal throughout the region.

America is still the dominant power in Asia, but it doesn’t always act like one. The president’s lightening trip to the region one year ago contrasts poorly with the sustained efforts by General Secretary Hu Jintao. The problems the U.S. faces in Asia, long-standing ones like North Korea and the threat to Taiwan, as well as the emerging problem of Islamic radicalism, don’t just need attention. They need fresh thinking as well.

Ms. Bork is deputy director of the Project for the New American Century.