Category Archives: Indo-Pacific

The Trump Weakening of America and Multilateralism

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Well, I guess we shouldn’t have been surprised. But  since I’ve never spent time listening to Trump speeches – I thought I would listen to Trump’s Second Inaugural . As David Bernstein et al. at the Substack, “Good Politics/Bad Politics” called it: “An Ugly Speech”. And it was. On reflection, and notwithstanding his early invocation of, ““The golden age of America begins right now,” in fact it was really a version two of “American Carnage”. As David Bernstein and colleagues declared: 

“Normal inaugural addresses are inclusive. Trump? There was little or nothing in this speech for anyone but his strongest supporters. The framing of it was, as is always the case with Trump, outright insulting to everyone else: The nation has been absolutely horrible for the last four years, in his telling, with not even a hint that its leaders have been trying to do their best even if they differ on what to do.” 

 

“This ugly speech will be forgotten rapidly. But if there was anything there to even give him a bit of a honeymoon approval bump, I sure didn’t see it.”

 

“Trump’s inauguration speech was very much directed toward such supporters. Despite claims that unity would be a major theme, the speech was a typical Trump litany of gripes about the left, praises for his unique ability to fix things, and recitation of plans that can at best be called controversial.”

In the NYTimes, “Morning Briefing” Emmett Lidner declared just after the speech: 

“The golden age of America begins right now,” Trump declared in his Inaugural Address delivered at the Capitol, shortly after he took the oath of office. Much as he did eight years ago, Trump painted a grim portrait of a country on its knees that only he could revive.” 

And Paolo Magri of the Italian think tank ISPI put it this way: 

“Eight years after his first inaugural address, the one about “American carnage,” Trump returned with the promise of a new “golden age” for the United States. But much of that vengeful rhetoric was still there, in tones steeped in rancor and an almost messianic inspiration for his extraordinary political comeback. “I was saved by God to make America great again,” the tycoon said in reference to the attempted assassination he was the victim of last summer. In a speech full of imperialistic overtones, Trump then announced that he would restore America’s highest peak, Mount Denali, to its former name, Mount McKinley, in honor of the Republican president assassinated in 1901. He also reiterated his intention to “pursue our manifest destiny to the stars,” promising to plant the American flag on Mars, rename the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America,” and reclaim the Panama Canal.” 

Finally, David French, among a number of other opinion writers, commenting on the Inauguration’s best and worst moments in the NYT said this about the Trump speech: 

 “The title of Trump’s speech should have been “American Carnage 2: Ultimate Carnage.” If possible, Trump’s second inaugural speech was darker than his first. Rather than seek to unite Americans, he painted the darkest possible picture of the state of the nation and the character of his opponents. And he set himself up as a kind of messiah figure, the man saved by God for the sake of national greatness. If you want to lay the groundwork for authoritarianism, that’s exactly how to do it.”

It was disheartening. Now I didn’t expect a wholesale conversion for the returning President but one could have hoped for some greater perspective with Trump 2.0. But no, I don’t think so. So, we are likely to see all his grievances and resentments dominating this President’s domestic and foreign policy. 

Now I was interested in various reactions to Trump’s reactions to American foreign policy both his ongoing remarks through the election campaign and then with his full-throated approach to US foreign policy on Inauguration Day. One person of interest to me was Ben Rhodes and his views. Rhodes is a political commentator, and a former Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications and Speechwriting under President Barack Obama. With Jake Sullivan, he is the co-chair of National Security Action, a political NGO. In FA Rhodes at the end of 2024, in a piece entitled, “Democrats Need a Foreign Policy That Can Work—and Win: How to Harness Populist Energy and Build a Better International Order” displayed a strong critique of Trump :

“While Trump casts himself as a radical disrupter, he is a familiar figure in today’s world: a far-right nationalist at a time when that brand of politics is ascendant, a strongman in a world full of them.” 

 

“Since his ascent in 2016, Trump has successfully tapped into a populist fatigue with American national security policies. He has consistently railed against forever wars, free trade, free-riding allies,an unaccountable “deep state,” and the harm that globalization has done to the working class. The irony is that, for a long time, the policies that produced these outcomes were more popular among Republicans than Democrats.”

 

“By fully embracing the mantle of hawkish defenders of the status quo, Democrats allowed themselves to be held responsible for the failures of the post-9/11 era.”

 

“At the same time, however, many Americans have come to see U.S. national security policy writ large as an instrument of a broader system that has not served their interests and is unresponsive to their concerns.”

I think it is fair to say that Trump has tapped in to that distaste for current US foreign policy and many Americans have glommed on to Trump’s strongman approach.  Now having said that Rhodes sharply critiques Trump policy directions making clear the hollowness of Trump’s strongman approaches: 

To be clear, the remedies that Trump is preparing to impose are not correctives to the grievances he has identified. An overuse of tariffs—combined with more sanctions and further decoupling of supply chains—would only exacerbate inflation while amplifying the geopolitical influence of China. A shift of that kind would also reduce the cost to China of a potential blockade or invasion of Taiwan. Mass deportations will tear at the social cohesion of American communities, drive up prices, and undermine the strength and vitality that the U.S. has traditionally drawn from immigrants. Tax cuts, deregulation, and a federal embrace of cryptocurrencies will fuel inequality and encourage oligarchy. The abandonment of action on climate change could have catastrophic consequences as the planet careens past a tipping point. U.S. alignment with the Israeli far right could lead to the annexation of parts of Gaza and the West Bank, with devastating consequences for Palestinians and perhaps the stability of neighboring states. The abandonment of Ukraine would lead to an end to that war on terms favorable to Russia while eroding U.S. influence in Europe. The dismantling of American national security agencies through unqualified appointments and purges of the civil and foreign service will concentrate power in the White House while undermining the long-term capacity of the government to protect the safety and interests of the American people. And these are just the things Trump has said he will do: if his COVID-19 pandemic response is any indication, there is little reason to trust that he will competently manage the inevitable crises to come. This is a harrowing thought in a world of great-power conflict.

But it is interesting to contemplate the consequences of Trump foreign policy. And of course there is no consensus here, I suppose not surprisingly. For instance, there was the recent FA piece by Richard Fontaine titled: “The Trump-Biden-Trump Foreign Policy: American Strategy’s Strange Continuity”. Fontaine, interestingly, is currently CEO of the Center for a New American Security but earlier in his career, he was a foreign policy adviser to U.S. Senator John McCain. Now interestingly Fontaine suggests a rather muted policy by Trump with continuity between the two administrations – Biden-Trump: 

“The two administrations [Trump, Biden] could hardly have been more different in style and rhetoric. In the underlying substance of their policies, however, there was more continuity than the casual observer might have appreciated.”

 

“Many such areas of constancy will almost certainly remain in the next Trump presidency. The incoming administration’s approach to Israel, for instance, will likely be broadly similar, combining military support with protection both from Iranian missiles and diplomatic attacks at the United Nations and elsewhere. Policy toward Saudi Arabia will be comparable now that Biden has embraced the government in Riyadh and seeks regional normalization. Under Trump, Washington is poised to continue to see China as its foremost global challenger and endeavor to build domestic sources of strength. Even as the new administration rails against U.S. allies on issues such as defense spending and trade, it is likely to seek tighter partnerships abroad, particularly in the Indo-Pacific, to better compete with Beijing.” 

 

“Trump will usher in departures, sometimes dramatic ones, in American foreign policy. But those changes will compose just a fraction of the total. The stability of U.S. interests and values, the role of Congress, and the realities of today’s world will demand a significant measure of constancy. Although it is bent on reversing Biden’s approach, the incoming team may itself be surprised to find out how much the two administrations share.” 

Now you’ll not be surprised that this view of similarity between the two administrations is not universally held. I was intrigued by my colleague Dan Drezner’s piece in WPR, where, apparently, Dan is now providing a monthly opinion piece. I was alerted to it by Dan at his Substack, Drezner’s World, rather chillingly titled, “A Great Power War is Coming: The implicit assumption behind a lot of recent rhetoric.” Dan was particularly sparked by Trump’s territorial threats – to the Panama Canal, Greenland and Canada. He reacted in the article this way:

“I have a very depressing answer: “Fear of a Great Power War Could Be Making One More Likely.” 

As he says the following is his thesis paragraph: 

“What is going on? There are some disturbing parallels between how great powers are behaving today and how they started behaving in the late 1930s. In both eras, the proliferation of economic sanctions and embargoes caused great powers to fear that they would be cut off from critical resources. Their reaction to that threat, in turn, helped to escalate great power conflict. The question today is whether history will repeat itself, or only rhyme.” 

He then provides the following conclusion: 

“For decades, the principal sources of great power peace have been clear: U.S. hegemony, commercial interdependence and nuclear deterrence. But really, there was a fourth pillar as well: whether elites in these countries were seriously contemplating the mechanics of a sustained great power war. For much of the post-Cold War era, that was inconceivable.”

 

“In 2025, U.S. hegemony looks wobbly, and great powers are falling all over themselves to reject interdependence unless it favors them asymmetrically. Increasingly, elites in the U.S. and China seem to be conceiving of how a war between the two countries would play out. Which means we may be about to test whether the last pillar of great power peace—the logic of mutually assured destruction—remains compelling or not.” 

Now I must say my initial reaction was – really! It is possible of course,  but I suspect not all that likely. My reaction to the proposition offered by Dan is in part driven by my caution when being offered historical analogies. They are superficially attractive, and frequently employed but such comparisons should be treated with strong caution. If you’re going to use an historical analogy you examine the similarities, of course, but you need to also look at the dissimilarities before declaring it an appropriate lesson. Few authors ever do; it takes a fair bit of work and rather deep historical knowledge. And I’m afraid it was done in this case, though practically few authors or experts do. Still in the end mark me skeptical. 

So we enter the age of ‘Trump 2.0’. Fasten your safety belts. It is going to be a bumpy ride, for sure.

Image Credit: NY Times

Reshaping the US Global Order Role

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It is not a surprise with a month to go till the US election that ‘folks’ are assessing where the US global order role is, where it should be, or needs or can be, as we look towards a new administration. I have no crystal ball to tell me who is about to win the election and I am not about to contemplate the return of Trump. But I will look, however, at a possible Harris administration and it appears evident that observers and experts are with a month to go reflecting on what’s next for US global leadership.

Let’s start with one who has had responsibility in the near past for US foreign policy. Secretary of State Antony Blinken recently penned an assessment of ‘his’ foreign policy in FA, titled, “America’s Strategy of Renewal: Rebuilding Leadership for a New World”. Now you’ll not be surprised that the piece is a narrative and strong expression of policy gone right:

President Biden and Vice President Harris pursued a strategy of renewal, pairing historic investments in competitiveness at home with an intensive diplomatic campaign to revitalize partnerships abroad.

This twin-pillared strategy, they believed, was the best way to disabuse competitors of their assumptions that the United States was declining and diffident.

Blinken acknowledges that US leadership and action was required to meet the challenge of these revisionist powers that appeared to be determined to reshape leadership and the principles of the current global order:

A fierce competition is underway to define a new age in international affairs. A small number of countries—principally Russia, with the partnership of Iran and North Korea, as well as China—are determined to alter the foundational principles of the international system. While their forms of governance, ideologies, interests, and capabilities differ, these revisionist powers all want to entrench autocratic rule at home and assert spheres of influence abroad.

 

They all wish to resolve territorial disputes by coercion or force and weaponize other countries’ economic and energy dependence. And they all seek to erode the foundations of the United States’ strength: its military and technological superiority, its dominant currency, and its unmatched network of alliances and partnerships. While these countries are not an axis, and the administration has been clear that it does not seek bloc confrontation, choices these revisionist powers are making mean we need to act decisively to prevent that outcome.

Implicitly and explicitly Blinken describes what he believes to be a very successful competitive policy with these revisionist actors and most particularly China. As Blinken describes Biden administration policy efforts:

The Biden administration’s commitment to compete vigorously yet responsibly along these lines took away the revisionists’ pretext that the United States was the obstacle to maintaining international peace and stability. It also earned the United States greater trust from its friends—and, along with it, stronger partnerships.

 

Second, we infused U.S. alliances and partnerships with new purpose.We elevated the Quad—the partnership with Australia, India, and Japan—and took concrete steps to realize a shared vision for a free and open Indo-Pacific, from enhancing maritime security to manufacturing safe, effective vaccines. We launched the U.S.-EU Trade and Technology Council, marshaling the world’s biggest economic partnership to shape global standards for emerging technologies and protect the United States’ and Europe’s most sensitive innovations.

To Blinken the alliances and partnerships that the US renewed or built were the keys to Biden administration success in a highly competitive world:

From day one, President Biden and Vice President Harris made a foundational choice that in a more competitive and combustible world, the United States cannot go it alone. If America wants to protect its security and create opportunities for its people, it must stand with those who have a stake in a free, open, secure, and prosperous world and stand up to those who threaten that world.

Notwithstanding then the revisionist power efforts to alter the global order, the US and its partners have been able to maintain the free and open global order and limit revisionist efforts to undermine the opportunities for the US and its partners:

The choices the United States makes in the second half of this decisive decade will determine whether this moment of testing remains a time of renewal or returns to a time of regression—whether Washington and its allies can continue to outcompete the forces of revisionism or allow their vision to define the twenty-first century.

Clearly Blinken is referencing the possibility of  a return to Trump. Otherwise Blinken seems to show some content with the actions of the Biden administration. That satisfaction is not shared by all. From the outside today but with experience of serving in the Biden administration another distinct point of you is expressed by a colleague, Jessica Chen Weiss. Jessica was from 2021 to 2022 a senior advisor to the policy planning staff at the U.S. Department of State on a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellowship for Tenured IR Scholars (IAF-TIRS). Jessica just recently took up a new academic appointment as the David M. Lampton Professor of China Studies at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C. and a nonresident senior fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute Center for China Analysis. Once again in FA, Jessica examines Biden administration foreign policy in a piece titled, “The Case Against the China Consensus”. Jessica does not fall in line with Blinken’s description and actions of recent US foreign policy – its successful competition with the revisionist powers, most notably China. As Jessica describes recent Biden administration actions:

Washington faces growing criticism for pursuing open-ended competition with China without defining what success would look like. Even as China’s coercive capabilities and threatening behavior have rightly focused U.S. attention on the risks to American interests, the absence of clear metrics for success leaves the door open for partisan aspersions of the Biden administration’s approach.

With that Jessica strikes out toward an improved US-China relationship. As she describes it:

Yet beneath this charged atmosphere, ample space for debate and discernment remains. The apparent hardening of a U.S. consensus on China is shallower and wobblier than it appears. In this fluid environment, there is an opportunity for the next presidential administration to develop a more affirmative, less reactive approach, one that dials down the heat and focuses on reducing the risks while preserving the benefits of the vast web of ties that connect the United States and China.

Now it is clear from Jessica’s analysis the current administration has taken steps to at least maintain a balance with China:

The Biden administration, by contrast, has rightly invoked a sense of shared purpose, underlining the urgency of defending an international order in which might does not make right and working with governments of different persuasions to tackle problems that respect no borders or walls.

Still the emphasis from the current administration to compete successfully with China is dominant and leads to significant persistent competition with China that can, unfortunately lead to conflict:

But in the broader U.S. public and policy conversation, the impulse to thwart China often overwhelms efforts to work toward common objectives and advance U.S. interests. Rhetoric about winning the twenty first century reinforces the idea that competition is zero-sum, accelerating a rush on both sides of the Pacific to prepare for conflict and making it all too easy for critics in both societies to deride ordinary forms of diplomatic, commercial, and scientific interaction as naive at best and appeasement at worst. This emphasis on preparing for worst-case scenarios prevails in both countries.

For Jessica, then, the current policy posture is inadequate and maintains a dangerous locked in competition:

To halt this spiral, Beijing and Washington will need to identify the outcomes they wish to see, avoiding measures of success that are defined by slowing down or one-upping the other. Pursuing resilience and deterrence, not primacy or hegemony, would set them on a more stable course. Post–Cold War U.S. unipolarity in global politics was the exception, not the rule. Today, neither China nor the United States can aspire to dominance across every sector and every technology.

Resilience and deterrence, then is the goal. And here is some of what the US and presumably China must do:

It is therefore imperative that China and the United States maintain a degree of integration in order to detect and learn from new advances. If the technological leaders in a given sector are Chinese, Washington should want U.S. firms to have access to the latest innovation. Right now, Chinese manufacturers are far in front in solar, battery, and electric vehicle production. Licensing Chinese technology to construct an electric vehicle factory in the United States, for example, would build domestic expertise and help U.S. automakers transition more quickly with top-of-the-line technology.

Yet it is not clear that within the current US-China competition, and the efforts by this administration to stabilize the relationship – high level discussions including military-to-military discussions – that the US  is not seeking to maintain the economic integration that Jessica suggests is vital. There seems to be in her analysis a hint at least that what is required is the end of competition:

Diversification is healthy, but the United States needs to establish limits on decoupling and “derisking.” …

 

Right now, much of the U.S. public and policy conversation is consumed by how to counter China and defend American workers, infrastructure, technology, and intellectual property against foreign threats. This focus downplays the domestic harms that measures ostensibly aimed at strengthening U.S. national security can have on the health and vibrancy of the United States’ democracy, society, and innovation ecosystem. Getting China right is critical to the United States’ success, both under the next president and for years beyond.

Now positively Jessica does prompt a close look at the state of US-China competition. A closer look at the state of global economic competition is needed and worth engaging but for the moment it would not seem likely that a Harris administration, if she were to win the presidency, would abandon, or at least dramatically diminish political and economic competition between the US and China. And without greater understanding of the goals each seeks, the US and China that is, there is not a strong logic to acting unilaterally.

A close examination, and strong dialogue might provide insight in constructing an altered foreign policy that is in part driven by competition but with much greater bilateral and multilateral actions better able to contain the US-China competition and engage in policies that stabilize the relationship. Deterrence for sure but stronger two-way assurances that lowers the heat on several fronts including: Taiwan, the Indo-Pacific, the South China Sea, nuclear policies and more. We all would benefit from that.

This blog first appeared on my Substack at Alan’s Newsletter

https://open.substack.com/pub/globalsummitryproject/p/reshaping-the-us-global-order-role?r=bj&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

Image Credit: The Standard

 

The Strategic Aspects of Biden Trade Engagement in the Asia Pacific

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The US foreign policy lexicon has changed. It used to be Asia-Pacific. Now for the Biden Administration it is all about Indo-Pacific. Initially I started this post in the following way: “Please, enough of the Indo-Pacific. Listen to the Biden Administration and it seems that that is all there seems to be in Asia.” Well, that is where the Biden Administration seems to be. Do I think US strategic actions really ‘sucks in India’, one of the world’s most elusive allies, probably not. But I’ll leave the Biden officials to figure that out. So, they will continue to trumpet, ‘Indo-Pacific’. Many of us will continue to use, ‘Asia-Pacific’.

More importantly, however, let’s turn our attention to the substance of Biden strategic policy in this key, if not the key, region in the international system. Our Brookings colleague, Ryan Hass at EAF briefly described Biden foreign policy efforts in the region over the last year – hard to believe that it is only a year and a bit:

America is back’, Joe Biden proclaimed in his first address as president to a global audience. Over the year that followed, the Biden administration delivered a mixed bag in its approach to the Indo-Pacific — several bold strategic strokes, greater than expected continuity with the Trump administration on China policy and timidity on trade policy.

 

A larger challenge for the Biden administration will be its absence of an economic agenda. They have announced plans to release an Indo-Pacific economic framework in 2022. Given that the framework reportedly will be non-binding and will not include trade or investment liberalisation, it may not get a lot of uptake, particularly when the region’s focus is on realising benefits from the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership and expanding the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership.

This is the heart of the dilemma in the Biden approach to the Indo-Pacific. Given the growing influence of China, does the Biden policy focus on the geostrategic, or on the regional and global economic. Opinion is clearly divided. Maybe the most surprising is Alan Beattie, the Financial Times trade specialist and opinion columnist. I would have believed, especially given some of his recent trade reviews that he would have strongly urged a focus on the economic but I was wrong. Here he is on February 2nd in an  FT article, titled: “The US doesn’t need CPTPP to assert itself in the Asia-Pacific”:

As for geopolitical clout, recent experience suggests actual firepower is more important than the economic kind.

Trade deals don’t automatically mean political alignment or influence. …

 

None of the US’s strategic capabilities — military might, security deals like the Australia-UK-US agreement, cyber security expertise, intelligence-sharing, imposing harsh financial sanctions via the dollar payments system— require CPTPP membership. And all are surely more important in projecting American influence.

 

It’s true that US economic diplomacy over the past decade has been comically weak and inconsistent. It has been undermined by the excessive fear of trade deals among the American public, encouraged by lobbies like organised labour and the steel industry. But its ineptitude over the CPTPP should not lead to a counsel of despair. Trade deals are important, but they are neither necessary nor sufficient for American foreign policy to assert itself in the Asia-Pacific.

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A Veteran Chinese Diplomat – Cui Tiankai – speaks to the Media

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Cui Tiankai, China’s former ambassador to the U.S. made a public appearance on December 20, 2021, in Beijing. It was his first public comments since leaving his U.S. ambassadorial post and returning to China. Additionally, this image shows Ambassador Cui more recently sitting down with Ian Goodrum for a moderated interview on January 10, 2022 with the ChinaDaily.

During Cui Tiankai’s earlier December speech* he stressed that:

Since the purpose of the struggle [between the U.S. and China] is to protect the interests of the people and the overall strategy, then during the struggle, [we] should reduce the cost and influence to our interests and grand strategy as much as possible. In principle, [we] don’t fight unprepared wars; don’t fight wars that we are not confident with; don’t fight wars due to anger; don’t fight wars of attrition. The people worked very hard for their prosperity; we absolutely cannot have anyone take that away. Also, we absolutely cannot lose it due to our own carelessness, slack, and incompetence. 

Moreover, Cui Tiankai claimed that:

The status-quo of U.S.-China relations will continue, the U.S. would not accept the rise of another major power of a different political system, ideology, culture, and even race.

 

In terms of America’s China policy, there is a strong factor of racism. Some people mention it, but some people don’t. The U.S. will inevitably do whatever it takes and everything it can to suppress, contain, separate, and surround to overwhelm China even without a bottom line. To this effect, we need to have a clear mind and full preparedness to confront a future unstable, difficult, and even roller-coaster-like future of U.S.-China relations.

These views are sobering to say the least.

Cui Tiankai remains a close ally to Xi Jinping, and his experience in the U.S. makes him perhaps the most competent person among China’s senior officials in understanding the U.S. from China’s perspective. Katsuji Nakazawa in an article for the Nikkei Asia explains that Cui Tiankai’s speech aimed to modestly warn Xi Jinping not to engage in unnecessary conflicts with the U.S. and divert China’s current ‘Wolf Warrior Diplomacy” (WWD) and hardline foreign policy towards the U.S. However, Ambassador Cui’s remark could also have served  as a wake-up call for top leaders to accept that China may not be in an optimal position to engage in further conflicts.

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