Asia sees changed US relationship, whoever wins

TOKYO/JAKARTA — Win or lose, Donald Trump’s campaign has changed the way countries in Asia view their relationships with Washington. “With or without Trump, this marks the end of US leadership, in particular, moral leadership,” said a former Japanese diplomat, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the topic. “I don’t think it’s a question of Trump as an individual, but a question of the US society that produced this man as the Republican candidate.” Trump upended US democratic traditions during his White House campaign, drawing enthusiastic crowds where people cheered his often provocative and outrageous remarks. Critics labeled him ignorant, uncouth, a racist, hypocrite, demagogue and a sexual predator, all accusations he denied. He described a dark America, knocked to its knees by China, Mexico and Daesh (the so-called IS). Trump’s harnessing of a populist backlash against immigration and global trade has challenged the ideal of benevolent American power that helped shape the global economy — and the forces of globalization — since the fall of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. Now the United States faces a rising China, long an economic force and now becoming more assertive in geopolitics — building its military capability and ignoring an international tribunal’s ruling against its claims to most of the South China Sea. Asia is most worried about trade protectionism — exports make up a quarter of Asia’s GDP and a fifth of them go to the United States. The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal, championed by Barack Obama in part to increase US influence in Asia, was to be an essential feature of Washington’s strategic pivot to Asia — an “economic NATO.” It now looks dead in the water. Both Clinton and Trump oppose the deal, which would set up a free trade zone among 12 countries that excludes China. Former Indonesian Finance Minister Chatib Basri said the TPP “is an important instrument for the US pivot to Asia.” “There is some kind of a rivalry between America and China, and the way America can get into Asia is with TPP,” said Basri, now a visiting professor at Australian National University. With US allies such as Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore among the biggest winners of an open trade regime, a more isolationist and protectionist stance will cost Washington influence in Asia. Ironically, it would be China, the subject of many of Trump’s tirades, that could emerge the big winner as uncertainty over Washington’s future commitment to Asia pushes countries into dealing more closely with Beijing. “If the US pulls out of TPP, that will certainly increase China’s influence in Asia,” said Kanti Bajpai, Professor of Asian Studies at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore. “Already, US criticism of domestic issues in Thailand, the Philippines, and Malaysia has alienated those countries and caused them to lean towards Beijing. Pulling out of the TPP will help China geopolitically.” — Reuters