Michael Auslin: Trump’s Success or Failure Lies Partly with Asia
Posted: November 28, 2016 Filed under: Asia, China, Diplomacy, Global, Mediasphere, Politics, Think Tank, White House | Tags: Asia, Asia Pacific, Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, Shinzō Abe, Trans-Pacific Partnership, United States Leave a comment 
In order to be successful in Asia, Trump will have to reassure allies, create common ground with potential partners, and not cede any ground to our main challengers. Doing so does not necessarily mean dramatically changing U.S. policy or suddenly forcing a crisis with China. It does, however, require having a clear policy and placing the maintenance of Asian stability at the top of U.S. policy goals.
The following is an expanded version of an essay that first appeared in the Nikkei Asian Review.
Michael Auslin writes: The shock from Donald Trump’s stunning upset victory will eventually wear off, but the world will continue to obsess over his planned policies as he begins to lay out his governing agenda. For the nations of the Asia-Pacific, perhaps the biggest news was Trump’s reiteration of his vow to quit the Trans-Pacific Partnership on his first day in office next January. Given the expectations that TPP would help create a new strategic architecture for America in Asia, fears once again abound that Trump will reduce America’s position in the broader Indo-Pacific region.
“Despite the longevity of these relationships, Trump will inherit an alliance system that is under strain. First, his campaign rhetoric singled out both Japan and South Korea, our two main Asian allies, for not paying enough to support the U.S. forces that are based in their countries.”
Yet how well President-elect Trump deals with Asia will be a major factor in determining whether his presidency is a success or not. If he chooses to try and isolate America from half the world, then he may well find himself dealing with serious and unexpected crises that will shake the global economy and change the balance of power.
“He suggested that he might “walk away” from the alliances, if they do not increase their contributions. Moreover, Trump mused openly about letting both Japan and South Korea develop a nuclear weapons capability, thereby ending the decades-long U.S. policy of extended deterrence that prevented a nuclear arms race.”
Despite the attention paid by the Obama Administration to the Asia-Pacific, the regional geopolitical environment has deteriorated since 2009. China has become bolder, and has changed the balance of power in the South China Sea, at the same time that it is facing growing economic and political risk at home. North Korea continues to develop its nuclear and missile capabilities. America’s allies have become less convinced of the credibility of U.S. commitments, while other Asian nations have sought to avoid being drawn into a competition between America and China.
“Yet surprising some of his critics, just a week after winning the election, Trump met with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, in New York. The meeting came at Abe’s request, and after an equally important phone call with besieged South Korean president Park Geun-hye, seemed to indicate that Trump recognized the importance of close ties with America’s Asian allies. “
[Read the full story here, at AEI]
In order to be successful in Asia, Trump will have to reassure allies, create common ground with potential partners, and not cede any ground to our main challengers. Doing so does not necessarily mean dramatically changing U.S. policy or suddenly forcing a crisis with China. It does, however, require having a clear policy and placing the maintenance of Asian stability at the top of U.S. policy goals.
Trump and US Allies
America’s postwar policy in Asia has had the overriding goal of preventing any one power from dominating the region. It has pursued this goal by maintaining an open, rules-based system that encourages trade and exchange, and creates norms of behavior that lead to greater cooperation. The primary means of ensuring the stability of that system has been the six decade-old U.S. alliance structure, often referred to as the “hub-and-spokes.” Centered on Japan (whose treaty was signed in 1960), along with South Korea (1953), Australia (1951), the Philippines (1951), and Thailand (1954), the alliance system is not merely about U.S. commitments to protect its treaty allies; rather, it has evolved over time into a way to facilitate a permanent, forward-based U.S. presence in Asia. This, in turn, has made the U.S. commitment to maintaining stability more credible than it would be otherwise. Read the rest of this entry »
Barack ‘Lead From Behind’ Obama Says Goodbye to World Stage After 8 Years
Posted: November 21, 2016 Filed under: Asia, Diplomacy, Global, Japan, Mediasphere, White House | Tags: -elect, Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, Barack Obama, China, Donald Trump, John Kerry, Lima, Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, United States Leave a comment
LIMA (AFP-Jiji) — U.S. President Barack Obama bid farewell to the world stage Sunday, pondering his legacy and offering advice to his successor at the end of his final foreign tour.
Spot the difference pic.twitter.com/BOvu2JinQq
— Jack Posobiec (@JackPosobiec) November 18, 2016
His historic presidency and charisma have made Obama a rock star on the international scene, even at times when the daily grind of politics dimmed the glow around his election as the United States’ first black president in 2008.
Obama spoke to both the American people and the world as he gave his final foreign press conference in Lima. Read the rest of this entry »
What U.S. Retreat Looks Like
Posted: October 2, 2015 Filed under: Diplomacy, Russia, Think Tank, War Room, White House | Tags: Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, Barack Obama, Bashar al-Assad, Dmitry Peskov, Moscow, President of Syria, RUSSIA, Syria, Syrian civil war, Vladimir Putin 1 Comment
Syria Reveals the Chaos of a World Without American Leadership.
A friend of ours quipped amid the Iraq debate of 2003 that the only thing Europeans dislike more than U.S. leadership is a world without it. Well, we are now living in such a world, and the result is the disorder and rising tide of war in the Middle East that even the Obama Administration can no longer dismiss. How do you like it?
“The world is watching, aghast, yet we are now told by the same people who told us to stay out of Syria that Mr. Putin has fallen into his own quagmire. We doubt that’s how they see it in Moscow, Tehran or Damascus.”
The epicenter of the chaos is the Syrian civil war now into its fifth year. President Obama justified his decision to steer clear of the conflict by pointing to a parade of horribles if the U.S. assisted the opposition to Bashar Assad. Every one of those horribles—and more—has come to pass in the wake of his retreat.
Syria has become a “geopolitical Chernobyl,” as former General David Petraeus recently put it. It was the breeding ground for Islamic State and is a new sanctuary for terrorism. It has nurtured a growing regional conflict between Shiite and Sunni Muslims, while unleashing the worst refugee crisis on Europe since World War II. And now it has become an arena for potential major power conflict as Vladimir Putin forms an alliance with Iran to make Russia the new Middle East power broker.
“The U.S. has been caught unaware and nonplussed. The White House has been left to stammer in protest and send Secretary of State John Kerry to negotiate the terms of U.S. irrelevance.”
Mr. Putin unveiled his strategy this week with a disdain for a U.S. President unseen in a Russian leader since Nikita Khrushchev “beat the hell out of” John Kennedy, as JFK put it, at the Vienna summit in 1961. Mr. Putin coaxed Mr. Obama to grant him a private meeting, then told the world to rally behind his alternative coalition to fight Islamic State and prop up the Assad regime. It’s as if he set up Mr. Obama for humiliation.
[Read the full text here, at WSJ]
Now Russian planes are bombing in Syria—but not Islamic State targets. They are bombing the anti-Assad forces that the U.S. has haltingly supported. The U.S. has been caught unaware and nonplussed. The White House has been left to stammer in protest and send Secretary of State John Kerry to negotiate the terms of U.S. irrelevance.
The world is watching, aghast, yet we are now told by the same people who told us to stay out of Syria that Mr. Putin has fallen into his own quagmire. We doubt that’s how they see it in Moscow, Tehran or Damascus. Read the rest of this entry »
China’s Aim to Rewrite Rules of Global Internet
Posted: July 28, 2015 Filed under: Asia, Censorship, China, Global | Tags: Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, Barack Obama, Beijing, Communist Party of China, Government of the People's Republic of China, Great Hall of the People, Human rights, Law firm, Media of China, Pakistan, President of the People's Republic of China, Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping Leave a comment
Mission: Control online discourse, reduce U.S. influence
SHANGHAI— James T. Areddy writes: As social media helped topple regimes in the Middle East and northern Africa, a senior colonel in the People’s Liberation Army publicly warned that an Internet dominated by the U.S. threatened to overthrow China’s Communist Party.
Ye Zheng and a Chinese researcher, writing in the state-run China Youth Daily, said the Internet represented a new form of global control, and the U.S. was a “shadow” present during some of those popular uprisings. Beijing had better pay attention.
Four years after they sounded that alarm, China is paying a lot of attention. Its government is pushing to rewrite the rules of the global Internet, aiming to draw the world’s largest group of Internet users away from an interconnected global commons and to increasingly run parts of the Internet on China’s terms.
Flexibility
“Many Western companies are surrendering to Beijing’s rules so they can build a position in China, with an online population nearing 700 million.”
It envisions a future in which governments patrol online discourse like border-control agents, rather than let the U.S., long the world’s digital leader, dictate the rules.
“Ye Zheng and a Chinese researcher, writing in the state-run China Youth Daily, said the Internet represented a new form of global control, and the U.S. was a “shadow” present during some of those popular uprisings.”
President Xi Jinping—with the help of conservatives in government, academia, military and the technology industry—is moving to exert influence over virtually every part of the digital world in China, from semiconductors to social media. In doing so, Mr. Xi is trying to fracture the international system that makes the Internet basically the same everywhere, and is pressuring foreign companies to help.
“Four years after they sounded that alarm, China is paying a lot of attention.”
On July 1, China’s legislature passed a new security law asserting the nation’s sovereignty extends into cyberspace and calling for network technology to be “controllable.” A week later, China released a draft law to tighten controls over the domestic Internet, including codifying the power to cut access during public-security emergencies.
[Read the full story here, at WSJ]
Other draft laws under consideration would encourage Chinese companies to find local replacements for technology equipment purchased abroad and force foreign vendors to give local authorities encryption keys that would let them control the equipment.
Chinese officials referred questions about Internet policy to the Cyberspace Administration of China, a recently formed government body. That agency declined to make an official available to comment for this article. Read the rest of this entry »
Putin and Xi: A New World Order?
Posted: May 9, 2015 Filed under: Asia, Diplomacy, Global, War Room | Tags: Almazbek Atambayev, Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, China, CHINA NATIONAL PETROLEUM CORPORATION, Communist Party of China, Moscow, Nazi Germany, President of the People's Republic of China, Red Square, Rossiya 1, RUSSIA, United States, Victory parade, Vladimir Putin, World War II, Xi Jinping 1 Comment
Echoes of the past as Moscow’s Victory Day parade stirs memories of a previous anti-American alliance
Richard Spencer
reports: At first sight, things look very different now. When President Xi Jinping of China took pride of place next to Vladimir Putin of Russia on Saturday, they looked like any other modern world leaders: pragmatic men-in-suits, full of smiles, temporary possessors of power rather than dictators-for-life.
“Once again, the Russia-China axis is the main threat to the West’s vision of peaceful and prosperous international relations.”
Back in 1949, when Chairman Mao Tse-tung paid his first visit to Moscow to celebrate Comrade Joseph Stalin‘s 70th Birthday, it was a paean of old-school Communism.
Children in Young Pioneer uniforms paraded through the Bolshoi Opera House telling of their ambition to become tractor drivers. Mao wore a “Mao suit” and Stalin military uniform. Both men looked grumpy.
From left: LM Kaganovich, Chairman Mao Tse-tung, NA Bulganin, Joseph Stalin, Walter Ulbricht, J cedenbal, NS Khrushchev and I Koplenig (Getty)
But the two events, six decades apart, have a clear parallel. Once again, the Russia-China axis is the main threat to the West’s vision of peaceful and prosperous international relations.
“China has been railing against a ‘unipolar world’ for a decade. Mr Putin and his allies all have their reasons for disliking the West’s tendency to set a high store on open elections, a free press and ‘cooperative’ foreign policies.”
The line-up of leaders alongside the two men was a walking representation of a new anti-American alliance that has formed bit by bit since the invasion of Iraq demonstrated the frightening ease with which Washington could destroy hostile leaders far away.
[Read the full text here, at the Telegraph]
Alongside Mr Xi were Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, Raúl Castro of Cuba, Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela: standouts against what Mr Putin called a unipolar world, his code phrase for the spread of western-style democracy.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, centre, and Cuban President Raul Castro, centre right, after the parade (EPA)
In itself, there isn’t much new to this. China has been railing against a “unipolar world” for a decade. Mr Putin and his allies all have their reasons for disliking the West’s tendency to set a high store on open elections, a free press and “cooperative” foreign policies.
[Also see – China Parades Closer Ties in Moscow]
What is stark is that Russia and China are now openly stating their intention to stand together to lead such an alliance….(read more)
Chairman Mao Tse-tung, left, welcomes US President Richard Nixon at his house in Beijing (AFP)
Twenty years ago, when both Presidents Bill Clinton and Jiang Zemin of China stood alongside Boris Yeltsin at the 1995 Moscow Victory Day parade, the power relations were self-evident.
China Flaunts Air Power: Flight Tests New J-31 Stealth Jet During Obama Visit
Posted: November 12, 2014 Filed under: Asia, China, Science & Technology, Space & Aviation | Tags: Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, Associated Press, Barack Obama, Beijing, Ben Rhodes (speechwriter), China, Deputy National Security Advisor, List of Chinese leaders, Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II, Xi Jinping 1 Comment
Bill Gertz reports: China’s military upstaged the Asian economic summit in Beijing this week by conducting flights tests of a new stealth jet prototype, as the White House called on Beijing to halt its cyber attacks.
“China is moving along at a very rapid pace in its fighter aircraft development and we should be concerned.”
Demonstration flights by the new J-31 fighter jet—China’s second new radar-evading warplane—were a key feature at a major arms show in Zhuhai, located near Macau, on Monday.
“Neither the J-20 or the J-31 will match the F-22 or F-35 in stealth performance but their successors will and we should be concerned as China is a looming economic and military power. They enjoy flaunting their power in front of American leaders who have exhibited weakness.”
— Retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Tom McInerney
The J-31 flights coincided with President Obama’s visit to Beijing for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit meeting. In a speech and meetings with Chinese leaders, Obama called on China to curtail cyber theft of trade secrets.
China obtained secrets from the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter through cyber attacks against a subcontractor for Lockheed Martin.
“In January 2011, China rolled out the J-20 for the first time during the visit to Beijing by Gates, who wrote in his recent memoir, Duty, that one of his aides called China’s timing for the J-20 disclosure ‘about as big a ‘fuck you’ as you can get.”
The technology has shown up in China’s first stealth jet, the J-20, and in the J-31. Both of the jets’ design features and equipment are similar to those of the F-35.
The Chinese warplanes are part of a major buildup of air power by China that includes the two new stealth fighters, development of a new strategic bomber, purchase of Russian Su-35 jets, and development of advanced air defense missile systems. China also is building up its conventional and nuclear missile forces.
Meanwhile, White House Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes told reporters in Beijing Tuesday that the president would press China’s leader Xi Jinping to curb Chinese cyber espionage. Read the rest of this entry »
Beijing Sees the U.S. President as a Weak Leader in the Autumn of his Presidency
Posted: November 9, 2014 Filed under: Diplomacy, Global, Think Tank, White House | Tags: Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, Barack Obama, Center for Strategic and International Studies, China, Deng Xiaoping, Douglas H. Paal, George W. Bush, Republican Party (United States), United States, Xi Jinping 2 Comments
China is no refuge from Obama’s woes
Edward Luce writes: Second-term US presidents traditionally seek solace on the global stage. Barack Obama is no exception. Following last week’s drubbing in the US midterm elections, he lands in China on Monday for a summit with Xi Jinping. He is unlikely to find Beijing more pliable than Washington DC. As time goes 
on, it becomes ever harder to separate his domestic weakness from his global standing. Even the tone is spreading. “US society has grown tired of [Obama’s] banality,” China’s semi-official Global Times said last week.
“It is a fair guess that China would be more assertive whoever was in the White House. Its aim is to become a global power.”
Mr Xi is too polite to put it like that. Yet there is no mistaking which of the two is on the way up. In his first year in office, Mr Obama offered Beijing a “G2” partnership to tackle the world’s big problems. China spurned him. Mr Obama then unveiled his “pivot to Asia”. China saw it as US containment and reacted accordingly. Its defence spending today is almost double in real terms what it was when Mr Obama first visited China in 2009. Over the same period, the US military budget has barely kept pace with inflation.
Will a weakened Mr Obama have better luck with China? The answer is not necessarily “no”.
“This is where his domestic weakness really bites. Little headway has been made in the Pacific talks because Congress has refused to give Mr Obama fast-track negotiating authority. That was with the Democrats in charge.”
With the exception of North Korea, China’s neighbours are clamouring for a stronger US presence in the region. As the quip goes, Mr Xi talks like Deng Xiaoping – who opened China to the world – but acts like Mao Zedong, the imperial strongman. Countries that were once wary of military ties with the US, such as Vietnam, India and the Philippines, are now openly courting it. Mr Obama’s pivot means 60 per cent of America’s military resources will be deployed in the Pacific – against the old 50:50 split with the Atlantic. Read the rest of this entry »
Beijing Diplomacy: China’s ‘Be Splendid’ Contest Aims to Improve Manners
Posted: November 7, 2014 Filed under: Asia, China, Diplomacy, Global | Tags: Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, Barack Obama, Beijing, Beijing Capital International Airport, Chang'an Avenue, Civil Aviation Administration of China, Huairou District, Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, Xinhua News Agency Leave a comment
BEIJING—Here in China’s capital, riding the city’s sprawling subway can sometimes be a contact sport. Morning rush hours turn into mosh-pit-like scenes in which riders compete to board packed trains. Shouts and curses ring out. Elbows are thrown. Occasionally, passengers who squeeze their way in are flung out again by the crowds.
“‘We must select the good passengers and let them show up with honor in our town!’ says an open letter to riders circulated as part of the event.”
Now, as President Barack Obama and other world leaders descend on Beijing for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit next week, authorities have launched a behavior-modification campaign: A contest to promote grown-up deportment onboard.
Commuters in Beijing crowd onto a subway car during rush hour last month. Getty Images
“Photos of contestants are hung on posters during rush hour across the city’s subway and bus stations. The prize for winners, to be named later this month, includes a subway pass with about $10 of stored value, and a certificate of honor.”
Started this summer, the “Be a Splendid Beijinger and Welcome APEC—Civilized, Polite Passengers” competition aims to identify and honor the top 100 best-behaving bus and subway passengers. It’s a kind of “China’s Next Top Model,” except for public transportation.
“Some 40,000 residents have entered to win. Many did so by filling out forms that asked them to explain their “accomplishments” as riders.”
Others were handpicked by the more than 8,000 yellow-jacketed guides, mostly elderly retirees, Beijing has deployed to encourage more-orderly behavior at bus stops and subways. Read the rest of this entry »
Analysis: A Pacific Vision for Russia and the US
Posted: December 9, 2013 Filed under: Diplomacy, Global, History | Tags: ASEAN Free Trade Area, Asia Pacific, Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, Moscow, Pacific, RUSSIA, Vladimir Putin, Washington 1 Comment
Moscow and Washington have yet to exploit the potential for bilateral cooperation in the Asia-Pacific
Anton Barbashin writes: It’s been a rocky year for U.S.-Russia relations. We have seen espionage accusations, diplomatic slaps in the face, and unpleasant media fallouts in both domestic arenas. Moreover, it seems that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recent success (short-lived though it may be) at keeping Ukraine in the fold will frustrate Washington politicians into abandoning any attempts to seek common ground with Moscow. But the need for a strategic vision calls for an unbiased evaluation of all long term cooperation possibilities. One that is evident and as yet unexplored is U.S.-Russia relations in the Pacific region.
The Asian-Pacific region’s strategic significance is acknowledged both by Washington and Moscow. In a 2011 Foreign Policy article, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton emphasized the importance of the Pacific region for U.S. foreign policy, trade, security and global stability. Recognizing the developments, especially in the economic realm, that have already taken place, she formally announced the U.S. “pivot” to the region that would become a key driver of global politics. On the other side of the Pacific, Putin has also recognized the ongoing developments in the region and its strategic value for Russia’s ambition to diversify and strengthen its economic development and global engagement and security. Truly, the national interests of two major global actors intertwine in this region far more than official Moscow and Washington are willing to admit.
Kerry Dispatched to Far East to Calm Creditors, Wear Purple, Reassure Asian Leaders
Posted: October 9, 2013 Filed under: Asia, Diplomacy, Economics | Tags: Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, Barack Obama, China, China Times, John Kerry, Kerry, United States, Washington 2 Comments
What could possibly go wrong?
The Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit in Bali was graced by the presence of Secretary of State John Kerry, a stand-in for Barack Obama, who decided to stay home so he could refuse to negotiate with the GOP-led House of Representatives.
Obama’s Absence in Asia: A Turning Point?
Posted: October 8, 2013 Filed under: Asia, China, White House | Tags: Asia, Asia Pacific, Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, Bali, Barack Obama, John Kerry, Obama, Xi Jinping 5 Comments
President Obama has cancelled his trip to Southeast Asia in order to deal with the ongoing government shutdown in Washington. Secretary of State John Kerry is attending the APEC summit in Bali, Indonesia in the president’s place. From the New York Times:
Mr. Xi, the keynote speaker, delivered a long, tightly scripted speech that made no reference to Mr. Obama and concentrated on the theme of Chinese economic overhaul at home, and the need for China to have the Asia-Pacific region as a partner abroad.
“China cannot develop in isolation of the Asia-Pacific, and the Asia-Pacific cannot prosper without China,” Mr. Xi said.
The absence of Mr. Obama, who canceled to try to resolve the government shutdown in Washington, was repeatedly noted at the conference, held in this enclave of international resorts on the Indonesian island of Bali. But Mr. Kerry, for his part, made light of his role as the stand-in.
“In 2004, obviously, I worked very, very hard to replace a president,” Mr. Kerry told his audience, referring to his unsuccessful campaign against President George W. Bush. “This is not what I had in mind.” [Source]
Obama’s absence from the APEC and ASEAN meetings, as well as individual diplomatic meetings with world leaders, marks a missed opportunity for the U.S. to assert its agenda in Asia and allows China to dominate the meetings.
pundit from another planet 