This was shortly after OW was created with AA, BA, CX, QF and Canadian International (I have no recollection of this one). So not surprising there wasn't a big tie in with Japan yet. I don't see a JFK route map, but didn't AA serve HKG from there to build on the partnership with CX?
Scroll over to the right on the top row, the New York City Airports “Connecting Complex” map is over there. No HKG, only Asia flight is a codeshare to Tokyo. Curious about the total number of international destinations, from eyeballing it it seems there are even fewer today or at best the same. Will probably do a further analysis to get the exact number but it seems pretty sad to me that after a merger and 20+ years of “growth” the international footprint hasn’t actually increased.
Edited to add that I just noticed that NY is only a connecting complex from BOS. Not mentioned as one from any of the other hubs.