It also suggests that the Trump administration’s stance toward China will be carried over into future administrations. This suggests that had Hillary Clinton won the 2016 presidential election instead of Trump, her administration would have pursued a similar hard-nosed policy against China too. It is also a reluctant admission that America’s five-decade old engagement policy with China has not resulted in favorable outcomes: that contrary to expectations, as China grew richer it did not become more liberal nor a “responsible stakeholder,” but more authoritarian at home, aggressive overseas, and a “revisionist power” bent on overturning the rules based international order. In many ways it is a product of growing unease and criticism of Chinese statecraft in the United States from the country’s business leaders, politicians across the political spectrum, the national security establishment, and human rights groups. 7 In a thinly veiled reference to China, at the US-ASEAN summit in Singapore, Pence railed against “empire and aggression,” 8 and at the APEC summit in Papua New Guinea he asserted that America was “seeking collaboration not control,” bilateral free trade agreements based on “fair and reciprocal trade,” and, unlike China, the US did not “drown our partners in a sea of debt” or offer a “constricting belt or a one-way road.” Pence was uncompromising, warning that America “would not change course until China changes its ways.” 9įOIP is not the brainchild of Donald Trump. In contrast to China’s grand Eurasian infrastructure project, the Trump administration argues, FOIP offers business-led investment, freedom of the commons, and transparent and responsive government. In a series of op-eds and speeches-the most noteworthy being Vice President Mike Pence’s speech at the Hudson Institute in October 6-the Trump administration ramped up its criticism of Chinese statecraft, including unfair trade practices and theft of US intellectual property, interference in the domestic politics of other countries (including America), aggression in the South China Sea, and undermining the sovereignty of states participating in President Xi Jinping’s signature Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).įOIP is meant to offer Indo-Pacific states an alternative vision to a nascent Sinocentric order, the foundation of which is BRI. 4 The Trump administration’s FOIP will complicate or undermine these strategies.Īs became clear over the course of 2018, the FOIP’s central organizing principle is full spectrum competition with China. The Obama administration’s “Asia rebalance,” by design, facilitated Southeast Asian states’ long-standing strategies of hedging against individual major powers that includes engaging (entangling) them in ASEAN-led institutions. FOIP favors unilateral actions, and loose mini-lateral cooperation with states that have similar views of China and significant capabilities. It recognizes China as a long-term peer rival of the United States and is focused on not ceding leadership to Beijing in Asia. Two years into office, the Trump administration’s “Free and Open Indo-Pacific” (FOIP) policy has crystalized. The Obama administration’s “Asia rebalance” focused on Southeast Asia and ASEAN-led regional institutions envisioned China more as a potential major power partner than a peer rival addressed regional concerns about America’s “staying power” in Asia and spared regional states from having to choose between the United States and China. 3Įach of these became pillars of the respective administrations’ very different approaches to Asia. One of the first major Asia policy decisions of the Trump administration was the president’s instruction on Augto the US Trade Representative (USTR) to investigate, “China’s laws, policies, practices, or actions that may be unreasonable or discriminatory and that may be harming American intellectual property rights, innovation, or technology development” under Section 301 of the 1974 Trade Act. One of the Obama administration’s first major Asia policy decisions was to sign the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia, a prerequisite for an ASEAN invitation to the East Asia Summit (EAS). Secretary of State Michael Pompeo, 10 December 2018 2 “Over the five, 10, 25-year time horizon, just by simple demographics and wealth, as well as by the internal system in that country, China presents the greatest challenge that the United States will face in the medium to long-term.” Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, 15 November 2018 1 “I think it’s very desirable for us not to have to take sides, but the circumstances may come when ASEAN may have to choose one or the other. Hedging Harder: Southeast Asia and the US-China Rivalry
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