At the 2010 Asean ministerial conference in Hanoi, Vietnam, Yang Jiechi, then China’s foreign minister, rebuffed Hillary Clinton’s calls to prioritise sovereignty as “
virtually an attack on China”, adding later that, “China is a big country and other countries are small countries, and that's just a fact.” Sovereign equality was subdued to imperial primacy.
Clinton, then secretary of state, was probably content with Yang’s emotional burst and the summit’s outcome. China’s assertive behaviour and lack of diplomatic tact would alienate the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. America was ready to be invited back in the region to lead and safeguard the security of its allies or even attract new ones such as Vietnam and Myanmar. The US’ signature foreign policy doctrine – the
pivot to Asia – seemed on solid footing.
How much the region has changed since. As 18 regional heads of state prepare for next week’s East Asia Summit in Thailand, America’s strategic credibility has faltered while China has advanced its regional influence significantly.
As Chinese President Xi Jinping will be occupied at the Shanghai Expo, Premier Li Keqiang will attend this year’s summit while Donald Trump will be absent yet again. Unlike former US president Barack Obama, who attended five out of six East Asia Summits, his successor has attended none.
Just three days into his term, Trump shocked Asian leaders by cancelling the
Trans-Pacific Partnership, a regional trade deal aimed at limiting China’s commercial outreach and encouraging pro-market reform in Beijing.
Since then, the US foreign policy establishment has gone to great lengths to reassure its partners in the Asia-Pacific of America’s commitment to their security. It has enacted the
Build Act to double developmental finance from the US and Trump himself has declared a commitment towards a “
free and open Indo-Pacific”, castigating China’s
militarisation of the South China Sea.
Yet,
for every step forwards, Trump is taking two steps back. The utter betrayal of the Kurds in northern Syria – America’s most devoted ally in the war against Islamic State – has reverberated across Southeast Asia. Why would Vietnam or the Philippines support US regional security architecture and risk Beijing’s rage when a mercurial US president could abandon them at the blink of an eye?Moreover, without a US-led free trade agreement, China’s commercial influence will increase to such a degree that the magnetism of its expanding market would make it extremely costly for regional leaders to risk hurting the feelings of Chinese people and attracting
boycotts.
China attempted to fill the commercial void left by the US with its
Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) and, but for
India’s adamancy, would long have achieved a deal bringing together almost a third of the global economy. Beijing is expected to push hard for the free-trade deal at the summit and a conclusion may be near. Time is running out for Washington.
US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross is expected to join the Indo-Pacific Business forum, organised on the sidelines of the summit, to attempt to connect US private investors with regional development initiatives – while his commander-in-chief continues to threaten with tariffs
Vietnam and
India, two consequential states in the US regional strategy.
What the US foreign policy establishment builds in the day, the White House demolishes overnight.
In mid-November, Trump and Xi were due to meet at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Santiago, where they had been
expected to sign a prolonged trade truce that has also been billed a phase-one trade deal. With unprecedented protest paralysing the country, however, Chile has
announced it will not host the summit.
When a new venue is found for Apec and Trump and Xi do eventually shake hands on the deal, Beijing can claim victory on the first phase of the trade conflict. China is buying a trade truce by agreeing to import American agricultural products from US swing states, and committing to long-term, unverifiable structural reforms.
But Trump would have subordinated long-term US economic interests to boost the economy near the end of an electoral cycle and maximise his odds of being reelected next year. This would send US
strategic credibility into a precipitous decline and China will have prolonged its “strategic window of opportunity”.
To be sure, a first-phase trade deal will calm markets and spur optimistic investor sentiment, but the pause may also offer Trump the opportunity to open a
new front against Europe and impose his long-favoured car tariffs. Transatlantic relations, already at a nadir, could break irreversibly, offering Beijing yet another great strategic boon.
Woody Allen – the Jewish-American movie director – once said that 80 per cent of success in life is just showing up. With Trump’s absence at the East Asia Summit and his strategic credibility in decline, all Chinese leaders have to do is perhaps be there for upcoming summits.
Of course, they may
go further, and speak the language of globalisation , talk of China’s genuine efforts to open up and reform, and lure states across the Pacific into China’s vast market by catalysing RCEP.Unless they make an unexpected blunder along the lines of Yang Jiechi’s, treating China’s neighbours as mere tributaries, the upcoming summits could solidify Beijing’s strategic influence in the Pacific and beyond.
Vasilis Trigkas is an Onassis Scholar and research fellow in the Belt & Road Strategy Centre at Tsinghua University
