Trump's policy in Asia

After President Trump's abandonment of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) which excluded China, his Asia policy advisers came up with a very hot new idea to extend US reach even beyond the Pacific. The policy was dubbed as "Indo-Pacific''.  Indo-Pacific looked much harder to sell given that Trump was not even favourably disposed the idea of Asia-Pacific. But it had at least one merit, the net against China would be cast much wider extending from the Pacific to the Indian Ocean. However, shift to the Indo-Pacific goes back to Bush Jr Administration when nuclear technology was transferred to India to draw India into the US-led security orbit. Initially Trump appeared to be favourably disposed to the newly minted idea. To make it more palatable a new strategy to contain China's economic and military rise, a new brew was served up called the QUAD, comprising Australia, India, Japan and the US. But Trump's antagonism to any multilateral, or even a plurilateral trading or any other similar arrangements  made it  basically a no-goer. He is singularly focused on bilateralism.

Now-a-days not much is heard about this QUAD but a Five Eyes intelligence and security cooperation (comprising Australia, Canada, New Zealand, United Kingdom and United States) seems to be the flavour of the day to contain China.  Why Japan and India have been left out of it is a matter for speculation. Both the US and Japan played a leading role to draft India into counterbalancing China.  India under Narendra Modi found  QUAD another avenue to further warm up to Trump or precisely, in a literal sense, to embrace Trump, abandoning India's long-standing policy of maintaining "strategic autonomy''.   India in particular seems to have gone totally silent now despite its initial enthusiasm for QUAD. What caused this about-face by India is not very clear.  But India has its own security concerns closer to home other than China.  India right now seems to be mostly pre-occupied with rising violence in Kashmir under its control.

The QUAD appears to be something that happened in the past, but Trump has moved on despite being politically besieged at home. He seems now singularly focused on China and North Korea. He continues to deal with other countries in the region in bilateral and sporadic fashion. His China policy is marked by strategic competition with the People's Republic - it is not just about trade. But the current US strategy in regard to North Korea is based on the use of diplomacy to reduce "risk'' to US citizens by denuclearising  the country - thereby eliminating Pyongyang's missile threat to US territories. There is no mention of Asian allies in this strategy.  The overall strategy is piecemeal bilateral engagements in the region.

The current trade talks between China and the US have not yet produced any negotiated outcome. The tensions between the two countries have already led to mobilisation of forces in both countries to counter each other. China knows full well that no amount of promise by it to buy US goods will resolve the issue. The challenge is structural and the trade war is a mask used to stunt China's economic and technological advances which are central to regaining its rightful place in the world. US Vice President Mike Pence in his speech at the Hudson Institute last October made that amply clear. His speech set out the Trump administration's doctrine of open competition with China. He made it clear the US would not allow any more strategic space to China to continue to expand, rather the policy would be to roll back China.  He also provided a wide- ranging critique of China's behaviour both in the USA and abroad. His speech was a variant of the Thucydides' Trap doctrine.

A new Washington consensus has now emerged on China that transcends Trump. It is now China which is considered as the existential threat to the US. That has united Republicans and Democrats and all the state security and intelligence apparatus of the USA together. A cold war is afoot as the old superpower in its early declining phase tries to cling to its position in the face a new rising superpower. Even if some sort of a Washington-Beijing trade breakthrough takes place, the tension will continue on the technology war front. Trump recently signed an executive order jump-starting development and regulation of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Meanwhile, it is widely speculated both in Beijing and Washington that, the March 01 deadline may even be extended and a Trump-Xi meeting  at Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida has a strong possibility.

From the US perspective, the nuclear challenge from North Korea is a pressing issue. It has been the policy of successive US administration to eliminate nuclear threat coming from North Korea. To that end a combination of sanctions, threats of military actions, financial incentives and diplomacy were used without any substantive result.  Trump also threatened the "Rocket Man'' with dire consequences. But it appears that the Rocket Man's rocket might have been the catalyst for his readiness to be more conciliatory towards the US. Once he has acquired the nuclear strike capability against the US, he felt confident enough to negotiate from a position of strength.

Since Trump's meeting with Kim Jong Un in June last year in Singapore, he has been quite upbeat about pushing ahead with denuclearising North Korea so much so that he has declared "There is no longer a nuclear threat from North Korea''. But his Special Representative for nuclear negotiation Steve Biegun said that North Korea had not followed through verifiable progress on denuclearisation. And both sides are yet to agree on final fully verifiable denuclearisation. Also Trump's own intelligence agencies disagree with him.  He is now going to have the second meeting with Kim in Vietnam on February 27-28. In fact, Biegun is responsible for working out the summit agenda with the North Koreans.

Countries that are involved in denuclearising North Korea like China, Russia and South Korea are each now coming to grips for their own reasons with the idea of  living with a nuclearised North Korea and the US may have also to  join this club belatedly. Definitely, a US regime-change policy directed at  North Korea can backfire with terrible consequences.

A besieged Trump at home appears to be seriously trying to show some foreign policy success. He is looking for some dramatic success in negotiating a deal with Kim. On negotiating successful deal with North Korea, he is even dreaming a Nobel Prize for Peace (his predecessor got one despite creating mayhem in the Middle East, so why not him). According to the Asahi Shimbun, the Japanese newspaper, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe nominated Trump (rumour has it that Washington asked him to do it) for the Nobel Peace Prize last autumn. Trump himself claimed that Abe nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize for opening talks and easing tensions with North Korea. This may sound rather surreal but it is very real.

Strategic tensions with China have been exacerbated by the US Vice President's public pronouncements. The Trump administration is now more used to make unilateral and unidirectional demands and does so quite publicly.  There is a strong suggestion coming from the US that China must completely capitulate to the demands contained in the list of demands submitted to the Chinese authority in last May to reach a deal. But such an unrealistic demand is unlikely to yield any results. The US has now made its policy choice on China - confrontation over co-operation. Even if a trade deal is reached, strategic tensions to gain technological superiority will continue. There is also no magic wand to persuade North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons if the US does not address the core security concerns of North Korea and heed to its other demands.

Muhammad Mahmood is an independent economic and political analyst.

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