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FINANCIAL TIMES
Trump gives glimpse of ‘Indo-Pacific’ strategy to counter China
US president’s message muddied by his praise for Beijing
Demetri Sevastopulo
Donald Trump began his visit to Vietnam on Friday saying he was honoured
to be in the “heart of the Indo-Pacific”. Earlier in the week in Tokyo,
he celebrated his “first visit to the Indo-Pacific region” as US
president. Some
in his audience in Da Nang were quick to brush off the formulation as
the mangled words of a jet-lagged president.
But Mr Trump’s repeated use of the phrase during his five-nation Asia
tour was no slip of the tongue. It was a calculated effort to unveil his
nascent strategy for Asia, which entails increased cooperation between
the US, Japan, Australia and India aimed at countering the
ever-expanding clout that China is wielding in Asia.
“I’ve had the honour of sharing our vision for a free and open
Indo-Pacific,” Mr Trump told delegates at the Asia Pacific Economic
Cooperation Forum in Da Nang, Vietnam. The US Congress had approved the
first deployment of an American warship to the Pacific in 1817, he
added. “We have been friends, partners and allies in the Indo-Pacific
for a long, long time, and we will be friends, partners and allies for a
long time.” Yet
while Mr Trump dwelt on US history in the region, he gave scant detail
about how “Indo-Pacific” policy would be implemented, or how it differed
from Barack Obama’s “Asia pivot”. In a speech that was a resurrection
of his hallmark trade themes, he said he would not tolerate the
“chronic trade abuses” by Asian nations and would “always . . . put
America first”. His
speech came as ministers from Japan, Australia, Canada and other nations
were in Da Nang trying to craft a new version of the Trans-Pacific
Partnership trade pact that was signed by 12 nations last year, before
Mr Trump pulled the US out of the deal — which had been the economic
pillar of the “pivot” — on day one in office. Euan
Graham, an Asia expert at the Lowy Institute in Sydney, said the speech
changed the view that the region should not worry as long as Mr Trump
stuck to his script. The US president was sending his country “down a
lonely road”.
“What’s striking is he gave an unambiguous, explicit rejection of
multilateral trade liberalisation and delivered the message in a forum,
Apec, for that very purpose,” said Mr Graham. “Apec has long outgrown
its trade goals, but it helped to define a trans-Pacific region, the
Asia-Pacific, as a viable concept, inclusive of the US.
“Asians and Australians may therefore see this as overturning the altar
in the regional temple of free trade. It speaks of a desire to turn back
the clock, pre-1989. If the TPP minus US goes ahead on the sidelines of
Apec, the US will appear economically isolated even from its allies and
partners.” Evan
Medeiros, a former top Asia adviser to Mr Obama, said the prospects for
the Indo-Pacific strategy were uncertain, particularly after the way Mr
Trump handled his visit to Beijing. “It’s not a US idea, but a Japanese
one. It has no serious economic component, relies conceptually on an
ambivalent India, and looks like China containment to many Asian
leaders,” he said. “And, after Trump’s extreme flattery of China this
week, his Asia strategy is even less clear.”
Before the speech, Amy Searight, a former Pentagon Asia official, said
it would be “terrific” if Mr Trump signalled that the US would “support
the liberal trade order which has underpinned the economic rise of so
many countries in the region, including Vietnam”. But she said he was
“unlikely to disavow the economic nationalism and the focus on
eliminating bilateral trade deficits that has marked the trade agenda of
his administration”. The
Indo-Pacific strategy emerged last month when Rex Tillerson, secretary
of state, gave a speech where he praised India, while accusing China of
“undermining the international rules-based order” and undertaking
“provocative actions” in the South China Sea.
Tanvi Madan, an India expert at the Brookings Institution, said there
were elements of continuity between Mr Obama’s Asia pivot and Mr Trump’s
strategy, but also key differences, “including the term Indo-Pacific,
the explicit concern expressed about China . . . and a greater emphasis
on democratic partners, particularly India”.
While Mr Tillerson was explicit in his criticism, Mr Trump was more
muted about China in Da Nang. For example, when he said the US would
“no longer tolerate the audacious theft of intellectual property” — a
comment clearly aimed at China — he did not mention the country by
name. Some
experts said his strategy was clouded by the way he had praised Xi
Jinping, China’s president, during his visit to Beijing, including
calling him a “very special man” to his face.
“Though he didn’t single out China by name for criticism, the
references to IP theft and state capitalism were unmistakably directed
at Beijing,” said Mr Graham. “Those include fair, overdue criticisms
that should resonate. But the power of that message will be undermined
by the unscripted lionising he lavished on China in Beijing.”
Although Mr Trump signalled to the leaders at Apec that he would take
America down a very different path, the US president continued one
stalwart tradition: he donned the obligatory Apec shirt at the forum
dinner. |