What Did US President Barack Obama accomplish in his week-long tour of Japan, South Korea, Malaysia and Philippines last month? In 2010, the Obama administration launched with eclat a new “pivot to Asia” strategy to counter and contain China’s rising hegemonism in Asia, but its implementation has thus far been halting and incomplete.
In October last year, Obama was scheduled to visit Malaysia and the Philippines and attend the APEC CEO summit in Indonesia and he was also due to attend the East Asia Summit in Brunei.
Much to the disappointment of US allies and friends in the region, he had to stay home due to the US sequestration and government shutdown. His last-minute cancelation of the Asia trip may have undermined the credibility of the pivot strategy and enabled Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to stage a charm offensive toward the member countries of ASEAN.
For some time a joke in diplomatic circles has been that the international community places much emphasis on Obama’s pivot to Asia, with the exception of US allies who profess not to have seen any evidence of it.
Observers point out a serious deficiency — since last year, Obama has conspicuously lacked Asian experts in his national security team. Asia has not been the priority of US Secretary of State John Kerry and US National Security Adviser Susan Rice, as they have been preoccupied with Ukraine, Syria, Egypt and Iran.
True, Obama did pay particular attention to China and hosted a special summit with Xi in June last year, at the Sunnylands estate in Palm Springs. However, the US’ Asian allies interpreted the summit as Obama’s effort to court and appease an increasingly assertive China. They are disturbed by Obama’s embrace of Xi’s “new type of great power relationship” — Beijing’s strategy to elevate China’s status and forge a powerful Sino-US relationship in what would be a G2 world order.
Rice’s speech on US policy toward Asia at Georgetown University in November rankled the Asian diplomats in the audience, as she stated that the US seeks to “operationalize a new model of major power relations” with China.
Will China be a responsible and cooperative partner in Asia and beyond, as some in the US administration have hoped? Three days after Rice’s speech, Beijing gave a direct response by declaring the establishment of its air defense identification zone (ADIZ) in the East China Sea, which overlaps the airspace claimed by Taiwan, South Korea and Japan. By doing so, China further fueled tensions with Japan.
The US denounced Beijing’s provocation, saying it would neither recognize nor accept the claim and dispatched two B-52 bombers to the zone, but fell short of further action to compel China to retract its ADIZ. US Vice President Joe Biden’s trip to Beijing in December may have backfired; his softly-softly approach with Xi over the ADIZ issue gave the misleading impression the US was appeasing China and accepting the ADIZ as a fait accompli.
In addition, as Obama dithered on what to do about Syria and failed to forestall Russian President Vladimir Putin’s annexation of Crimea and his further attempts to dismember Ukraine, these policy failures have had an accumulated negative effect. They contribute to poor perceptions of Obama’s leadership and call into question his ability and determination to stem China’s hegemonism.
Hence, Obama sought to provide strategic reassurance to allies and friends on the trip. His messages: US military power can blunt Chinese aggression and the US would do its utmost to help safeguard security as well as maintain peace and order in the region.
He did well in his state visit to Japan, the first in 18 years by a US president. Much to the relief and delight of many Japanese, especially Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Obama made a vital US commitment to defend the Senkaku Islands [known as the Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台) in Taiwan] under the US-Japan security treaty.
In a joint statement by Abe and Obama, the allies agreed to forge and enhance their alliance to promote stability and prosperity in the Asia-Pacific, also agreeing to strengthen joint efforts and intensify participation in settling disputes in the East and South China seas.
On the eve of Obama’s arrival in Manila, the last stop of his Asian tour, the US and the Philippines signed a 10-year military agreement, allowing for a greater presence of US warships and planes at bases in the Philippines and bolstering the host country’s maritime security. The country has been in a bitter dispute with China over territorial claims in the South China Sea including an increasingly tense standoff over the Scarborough Shoal [Huangyan Island (黃岩島)], a rich fishing ground.
In order not to antagonize China, Obama went out of his way to assert that the military agreement is not to “counter China” or “contain China.” His calibrated message does not fool Beijing, because the US-Philippine war games which began on May 5 speak volumes. In fact, Xinhua news agency warned on April 28 that “the pact is particularly disturbing as it may embolden Manila in dealing with Beijing.”
Inasmuch as the Trans-Pacific Partnership — the 12 negotiating nations of which make up 40 percent of global GNP — is a critical component of Obama’s pivot to Asia strategy, his failure to conclude trade agreements with Japan and Malaysia is a big shortcoming of the trip.
The pivot strategy requires robust military budgets, allies and foes alike — note the shrinking US defense budgets and planned reductions in the US Navy and Air Force. Allies worry about not only a reduced US presence, but also a reduced commitment to their security, notwithstanding Obama’s rhetoric on a strategic structural rebalance.
Most important of all, they doubt if Obama and his national security team are able to distinguish friend from foe. China no longer accepts the Pax Americana and is challenging US political and military supremacy. This year, for the first time China eclipsed the US as the world’s largest trading nation. In Xi’s new model of a great power relationship, China is demanding parity as a superpower with the US for now, but will supersede and replace the US as the dominant global power in the years to come.
Thus, China is by no means a “status quo” power; rather it is a revisionist seeking to change the international order and set new rules, by coercion if necessary. It is imperative that the US should have no illusion about China and see China for what is.
Parris Chang is professor emeritus of political science at Pennsylvania State University and the chief executive of the Taiwan Institute of Political, Economic and Strategic Studies.
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