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WASHINGTON DC: This election will shape America’s role in the world for years to come.
In Asia, this American choice is momentous. Asia’s geopolitics is complex and the currents of change are accelerating.
While the partners could previously count on the United States to try to shape the regional balance of power, Trump has transformed Asia’s strategy into a series of bilateral tactical deals.
The Trans-Pacific Partnership was abandoned early with a real loss of competitive advantage for American industry, particularly agriculture. When the Trump administration turned its attention to an Indo-Pacific strategy, it seemed disconnected and at times dissolute.
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While U.S. military objectives in the region remain, economic and diplomatic tools have been underutilized. Bilaterals, with pro-US influence, have tense enthusiasm for partnerships with the United States.
The withdrawal of support for regional forums sent a profound message of American disinterest in a region where networking and consensus building is based on multilateralism.
The Trump administration’s grievance diplomacy is baffling at best, as China’s diplomats and military blatantly demonstrate their country’s new power.
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A DIFFERENT APPROACH UNDER SUPPLY
It’s clear that Biden’s team is working out a different approach to pursuing American interests in Asia. The team’s membership, led by Antony Blinken, includes a variety of seasoned foreign policy experts who have served in government and who will be recognized by their colleagues in the region.
This is a team that respects and uses multilateral spaces for the benefit of the United States, has a deep appreciation for the Chinese approach to power, and understands that economic levers, as well as diplomatic and military levers, must be part of a holistic approach.
Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden meets with now China’s president Xi Jinping in Los Angeles in 2012 when they were both vice presidents AFP / POOL
There are likely four paths of divergence from the Trump administration’s approach.
First, while the Trump administration views allies as liabilities, a Biden administration would lead Asia policy with an allies-first approach.
Second, the United States would once again find common cause with others in the region in building networks and, where necessary, institutions for collective action.
Third, a Biden administration would integrate cooperation with Asian partners to address the global challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change.
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The biggest challenge will, of course, be China’s politics.
Strategic competition has intensified. The trade war was an early manifestation of this new American approach. The Trump administration adopted an old-fashioned ideological antipathy, and Beijing officials have not hesitated to follow suit.
Biden’s style will be different, but the sense of urgency to mobilize to meet China’s challenge will remain. A recent headline in Axios brought this home: US-China policy under Biden would be to “bring allies.”
Biden’s China adviser, Ely Ratner, is a co-author of a report arguing that the United States “will have to accept and acknowledge that meeting China’s challenge will require difficult trade-offs and trade-offs.”
THE UNITED STATES-CHINA TENSIONS TO PERSIST
Tensions between the United States and China will continue regardless of the election result. Chinese behavior has sparked much of this backlash in Washington, as it has in the region.
FILE PHOTO: FILE PHOTO: A crew member of the Vietnamese coast guard ship 8003 looks out to sea as Chinese coast guard ships pursue Vietnamese ships that approached the Haiyang Shiyou 981, known in Vietnam as HD-981, an oil rig in South China Sea, July 15, 2014.
Greater assertiveness in the East and South Seas of China has made its maritime neighbors nervous. Predatory trade and investment practices have made coercion the new method of economic policy.
Competition in the next generation of technologies has also pitted a new, more authoritarian Beijing model against liberal democracies. And Chinese officials have operated in ways that have drawn resentment from across Asia Pacific and beyond.
What is not clear is how this tension will develop.
Ironically, the unpredictability of the Trump presidency may offer the most predictable preaching. A Trump 2.0 will accelerate the confrontation, but with discussions about trade and burden-sharing, the confidence of allies will likely decrease as well.
Confrontation without a firm United States at the helm can only produce bad results for most Asian states. Allies will be less secure and therefore more likely to seek alternative sources of security and prosperity.
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Another downside of a second Trump administration would likely be the continued degradation of competition within federal agencies charged with formulating and implementing foreign policy.
Already in the first administration, an alarming number of political positions were vacant or temporarily assigned. More recently, the president has tried to remove long-standing protections for career civil servants to replace political professionals with loyal politicians.
Democrats have recently responded by advocating a “bigger and better State Department.” The management of the alliance relies heavily on the experts within this professional body, as does the establishment and implementation of strategic objectives.
People walk in and out of the State Department building in Washington on January 26, 2017 (Photo: REUTERS / Joshua Roberts)
The government’s ability to analyze and strategize will be tested in Asia, and it must successfully implement its objectives.
REAL POTENTIAL FOR ERRORS
Less easy to predict is whether a Biden presidency can successfully navigate this moment of strategic election. Even with a comprehensive strategy for Asia and the restored trust of regional partners, the potential for error in the region’s increasingly stormy geopolitics is real.
If last year is any indication, the United States may have a hard time staying afloat. There is little doubt that strategic competition with China will grow, and with it, a greater confrontation between Washington and Beijing.
There is also no question that the United States can compete intensely if it puts its skills together for the task.
The grudge that has permeated our politics will not be resolved in a single election, and lingering resentments may impede the president’s ability to keep an eye on accelerating shifts in the regional balance of power. A distracted America can be the luck of Asia.
Sheila A Smith is a senior fellow for Japanese studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. This comment first appeared on the East Asia Forum.
