Throughout his campaign, Asian nations were a regular target of US president-elect Donald Trump’s speeches: China is a trade manipulator; Japan and South Korea do not contribute enough for US forces; the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the trade deal forged with 11 Pacific Rim nations, in part to isolate China, should never be ratified.
His anger could be palpable.
“We can’t continue to allow China to rape our country,” Trump said at a campaign rally, talking about Washington’s trade deficit with Beijing.
Photo: AP
However, he could also shift quickly, noting: “I’m not angry with China ... China’s great!”
So across Asia, politicians and analysts are wondering what role the Trump White House will play across the continent. Hard-line trade negotiator? Counterbalance to Beijing? Leader? Isolationist? Few agree on the answers.
“The central question is: Will the US continue to lead and what will be the quality of leadership at this critical juncture of geopolitical and political economic upheaval?” said Eugene Tan at Singapore Management University. “There will certainly be concern whether the US will pivot away from Asia.”
“Based on his campaign rhetoric and promises, he is off to a bad start in terms of engendering trust and confidence of US allies and partners in the region,” Tan said.
KOREAS
North Korea, which raced ahead with its nuclear and long-range missile development during US President Barack Obama’s administration, will certainly be one of the most challenging security issues the Trump White House faces in Asia.
In South Korea, many worry a Trump presidency will bring a major shift in economic and diplomatic ties with Washington. Trump has questioned the value of the security alliance with Seoul, and hinted that he might be willing to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
Trump gave his commitment to defending the South under an existing security alliance during a phone call with South Korean President Park Geun-hye yesterday, Reuters cited her office as saying.
Park said the alliance between the two countries had grown as they faced various challenges over the past six decades, adding she hoped the ties would develop further, the presidential Blue House said.
She asked Trump to join in the effort to help minimize the threat from the North.
Trump agreed with Park and said: “We will be steadfast and strong with respect to working with you to protect against the instability in North Korea,” the Blue House said.
North Korea yesterday warned a Trump administration would have to acknowledge it as a nuclear state, Agence Presse-France (AFP) reported.
“If there is anything the Obama administration has done ... it has put the security of the US mainland in the greatest danger,” an editorial carried by the North’s ruling party newspaper Rodong Sinmun said, according the AFP.
“It has burdened the new administration with the difficulty of facing the Juche nuclear state,” it said, referring to the North’s ideology usually translated as “self-reliance,” the agency said.
GOODBYE, PIVOT
Trump blasted China repeatedly during his campaign, but Beijing sees him as vastly preferable to Democratic US candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton, who China mistrusts over her guiding of the US’ diplomatic and military “pivot” to Asia, and her willingness to confront authoritarian regimes.
Many analysts said Trump’s isolationist foreign policy will give China more maneuvering room to pursue its territorial claims in the East and South China seas.
“With Hillary, [the Chinese] know they will be constrained and confronted, whereas Trump may offer them new strategic opportunities,” said David Zweig, director of the Center on China’s Transnational Relations at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.
While China could take a serious economic blow if Trump follows through on his protectionist threats, few expect him to live up to all his rhetoric.
“There’s no need to take Trump’s trade protectionism too seriously,” Dong Tao (陶冬), Asia chief economist at Credit Suisse First Boston in Hong Kong, wrote on his personal blog.
“He doesn’t understand that the greatest beneficiaries of cheap Chinese products are the very grassroots American voters who lifted him to power,” Dong wrote. “He doesn’t understand that America has long stopped producing low-end consumer goods and suppressing Chinese products will not increase American employment.”
“Chinese products have always been a target for attacks in elections, but once [the politicians] assume power, officials from the US Treasury and State Department will give them economics classes,” he wrote, adding that the Trans-Pacific Partnership has essentially “come to an end.”
Without mentioning Trump directly, the Chinese government on Wednesday said there were long-established methods to deal with trade disputes with the new US administration.
A Xinhua news agency commentary published yesterday said the new US president and China should “jointly build a new model of major power relations.”
The Global Times, a tabloid published by the Chinese Communist Party’s People’s Daily, said Trump’s victory had “dealt a heavy blow to the heart of US politics,” but that he would be unable to make many changes to US foreign policy.
GAUGING INTENTIONS
Trump’s election raised deep concerns in Japan over Tokyo’s relationship with Washington, its top ally, given his opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership and his demands that Japan pay more for US troops or risk having them withdrawn.
However, his actual intentions, analysts stressed, remain unclear.
“The key is how Japan can convince Trump of the benefits of maintaining a bilateral security alliance,” said Asuka Matsumoto, an expert on US diplomacy and security issues at the Japan Institute of International Affairs. “I don’t think Trump’s intention is to eliminate overseas US bases. He is more business-minded, with a very short-term vision.”
While Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government has increased Japan’s military role in recent years, he still believes the US troop presence is key to regional stability, given North Korea’s threats and China’s increasingly assertive maritime activity.
However, Sayo Saruta, an expert on Japan-US relations at the Tokyo-based New Diplomacy Initiative, said Trump’s presidency could allow Tokyo to shift away from the US and toward more engagement with its neighbors.
“It would be a chance for Japan to develop a new proactive diplomacy,” Saruta said.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi told Trump in a Twitter message that Indians “appreciate the friendship you have articulated toward India.”
However, New Delhi also keeps a wary eye on Beijing, which it worries is growing too powerful.
Trump “will not be able to project power that American regimes, both Republicans and Democrats, traditionally have done,” said Sreeram Chaulia of India’s O.P. Jindal Global University. “So for us in India it will lead to complications because we expect Americans to do some of the heavy lifting for us regarding China.”
Additional reporting by Reuters and AFP
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