The Domestic Frays in Sino–Malaysian Ties

January 27, 2017 by dinobeano

January 27, 2017

The Domestic Frays in Sino–Malaysian Ties

by Ngeow Chow Bing, University of Malaya

In the very first week of 2017, two People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) vessels visited the port of Kota Kinabalu, headquarters to Malaysia’s Naval Region Command 2, which oversees the disputed South China Sea waters. The two vessels were identified as CNS Chang Cheng and CNS Chang Xing Dao on the Malaysian Navy’s social media account.

But a Chinese source provided more information about the two vessels. They were identified as Chang Cheng 271, a submarine, and Chang Xing Dao 861, a submarine support ship. Both ships belong to the North Sea Fleet of the PLAN and were returning from a mission in the Gulf of Aden. During their stay at Kota Kinabalu, the vessel’s officers met with the commander and officers of the Naval Region Command 2 and political leaders of Sabah, invited Malaysian sailors on board the Chang Cheng 271 and held a ceremony on the dock of Chang Xing Dao 861.

While there has been a history of PLAN port calls in Malaysia, this was the first PLAN submarine to visit a Malaysian port. But this is not the first time Chang Cheng and Chang Xing Dao have appeared together. Back in 2009, both vessels visited Sri Lanka. Chinese submarine visits to foreign ports are rare (or rarely reported openly) because submarines signify stealth warfare and are much more sensitive and secretive in nature. The visit by CNS Chang Cheng is therefore important in a symbolic sense, signalling that Malaysia has earned China’s trust despite the ongoing South China Sea dispute.

CNS Chang Cheng 271

This CNS Chang Cheng visit, according to the same Chinese source, was mooted during the visit to Malaysia by PLAN Commander Admiral Wu Shengli back in November 2015. The then Malaysian navy chief admiral Abdul Aziz Jaafar proposed that PLAN vessels, including submarines, were welcome to dock at Kota Kinabalu for supply and replenishment, an offer that Admiral Wu accepted.

Two months earlier, three PLAN vessels were in the Straits of Malacca conducting a combined exercise with the Malaysian military. And in November 2016, Malaysia announced that its navy would procure four littoral mission ships from China, the first significant military procurement of its kind between the two countries. The submarine visit is the latest episode not only of intensifying Sino–Malaysian naval cooperation, but also of a burgeoning Sino–Malaysia bilateral relationship. Malaysian Prime Minister Najib reportedly said on several occasions that bilateral ties have hit a ‘historical high’ during his visit to China in October–November 2016.

But the growing Sino–Malaysian ties have come under increasing scrutiny in Malaysia. Ever since two Chinese state-owned enterprises (China General Nuclear Power Corp and China Railway Engineering Corp) stepped in to rescue the debt-ridden 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) — a government-owned development company — in late 2015, Chinese investments in Malaysia have been portrayed by Najib’s opponents as facilitating the political survival of Najib and the ruling regime.

Najib Razak to President Xi of China–Lu Tolong Gua, Gua Tolong Lu

Najib’s 2016 visit to China, for example, brought back 14 commercial agreements amounting to more than 144 billion Malaysian ringgit (about US$33 billion). But Najib soon found himself needing to defend his China policy against critics who accused him of selling out the country to China. More recently, two heavyweight leaders of the newest Malay-based opposition party Bersatu — former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad and former deputy prime minister Muhyiddin Yassin — also spoke out against Chinese investment as benefiting only Najib and his government and not the Malaysian people. Their criticisms drew a swift rebuke from the Chinese embassy in Malaysia.

These are signs that Sino–Malaysia relations can no longer be insulated from domestic politics in Malaysia. In past elections, the country’s foreign relations were not a major campaign issue. In fact, when the ‘China card’ has been played previously, it was always a ‘positive China card’, whereby the ruling coalition used a good relationship with China to draw support from ethnic Chinese voters. In the upcoming election there is a good chance that the ‘China card’ may be played negatively for the first time, especially by opposition parties such as Bersatu who seek to arouse dissatisfaction among rural Malay voters.

China also faces a dilemma. When Najib approached China for more investment, China saw this as a good opportunity to cement a relationship with a key Southeast Asian country. But China is also being criticised for investing too much into the relationship with Najib and his allies, to the extent that the Sino–Malaysia relationship now seems to be based on, and driven by, Najib’s personal agenda. Any threat to the prime ministership of Najib could therefore become a threat to Sino–Malaysian ties. There is a real risk that Chinese investment projects could be suspended or delayed if Najib is forced out of power or if the opposition wins.

To avoid this, China cannot simply dismiss concerns pointed out by critics of its investments and must be transparent in its economic dealings with Malaysia.

Ngeow Chow Bing is Deputy Director of the Institute of China Studies at the University of Malaya.

http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2017/01/26/the-domestic-frays-in-sino-malaysian-ties/

Singapore’s George Yeo on Trump, Xi and The Future of US-China Relations

January 26, 2017 by dinobeano

Singapore’s George Yeo on Trump, Xi and The Future of US-China Relations

In a recent speech in Hong Kong, former Singapore foreign minister George Yeo gave an expansive view of US-China relations amid uncertainties about how President-elect Trump would handle the relationship. This is an edited version of his remarks.

The Chinese have no wish to play the US’ role in the world. The Chinese view is that you can be an Islamic theocracy, you can be a Sultan, you can be Salafi, that’s your problem so long as you don’t hurt me. If you hurt me, I may have to hurt you. But I have enough problems looking after my own family. How can I interfere in your family’s matters? I got enough headaches of my own.–George Yeo

Sino-US relations are probably the single most important set of relations in the world today, and they are complex.

We have on January 20, a new United States President. I think Mr Donald Trump has to be taken seriously, despite all the jokes made about him and some of his remarks.

So you get remarkable comments like that made by (Secretary of State nominee) Rex Tillerson that the US should prevent China from accessing what China takes to be her islands in the South China Sea – which must lead to war. I don’t think he’s that ignorant, or that unreasonable.

His remarkable achievement was not in defeating Hillary Clinton. It was in defeating a whole line of Republican candidates, many of whom were pretty credible. But one after another they were toppled, and that’s because he was able to plumb deep and tap upon a deep undertow of dissatisfaction and disaffection.

But that’s American politics. He has assembled an impressive group of people to help him. And right now they speak with divergent voices because they’ve got to clear US Senate approval and everyone has to play to the gallery.

Donald J. TRUMP: Not be disregarded

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The Saber Rattling Trump–Posturing for Global Attention

We do know that Mr Trump has certain deep instincts. He sees a lot of problems in American society. He wants to reinvigorate it. So trade has to be fair, in his mind. I’m not sure it’s going to help just by arm twisting automobile companies to manufacture in the US, because the global economy is much more complicated than that.

But it does win him applause from the gallery, and some things we must expect him to do for political reasons. As he himself has said, he’s from Wharton, so he can’t be stupid. And he’s not. To think that he is would be a serious miscalculation.

He says, ‘Look, we got to deregulate’. He wants to simplify the tax code and reduce the general level of taxation. He wants to revamp infrastructure in America, much of which has gone to disrepair. And that’s the right direction to go. He wants to control the borders better. Again, he may have made outrageous remarks, but the deep intention is, ‘We’ve got to have a handle on illegal immigration, and also to control conduits which may bring in radicals and terrorists’.

But there are two things which are troubling. One, it is easy to spend, it’s easy to reduce taxes, people would cheer you. But how do you cover the deficit?

The other area which is a bit troubling is what appears to be a very deep conflict between Mr Trump and the intelligence agencies. He has become very distrustful of them. And he takes a practical approach towards international security. Must we interfere in Syria? Was it right – Iraq, Libya, and the cornering of Russia? Maybe this is driving them into the arms of China. Does it make sense?

There are many people whose entire careers are formed on certain perspective and he’s challenging them. It’s important to get past the common criticisms against Mr Trump, quoting him against him, laughing at some of his inanities, and ignoring his deep purposes. I think it’s much more important to look at his deep purposes because he’s not a man to be disregarded.

XI Jinping: Restored Leadership Authority

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President Xi Jinping ,China’s Brilliant Internationalist and Global Networker–Do Business, Not Make War

On the Chinese side, President Xi Jinping has been absolutely remarkable. He could not have done what he did without (his predecessor) Hu Jintao refusing to stay on in the Central Military Commission for two years. His enemies already showed their hand before he took over.

So with the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) behind him, he cracked down on the internal security apparatus. Having subdued that quadrant, he turned back to tackle corruption within the PLA itself. And after that, he set about cleaning up the Communist Party Youth League. In less than four years, he has done much to restore the moral authority of China’s leadership.

China is a very unusual country. It has always been governed as an administrative state, one where all lines report to the emperor – for administration, for intelligence, for policing, for military matters, water control and so on. So they have developed a bureaucratic class of people, very smart people, who are rotated around, so that their loyalties are never to the provinces they come from, but to the centre.

When China’s core is healthy, the management, the governance of the country is a matter of administration, almost like a company. It’s logical – what are the problems, what are the needs, you draw a plan, you find the money, you have control measures, and you implement.

Today, it is the only major country which can exercise a national will. They have already built more high-speed rail infrastructure than the rest of the world combined. They want to double it. And 80 per cent of Chinese cities will be linked by fast rail. It’s completely transformed the sense of distance, on a continental scale.

And they’re now using big data for governance. If you read the Economist, it says it’s just a way of controlling the lives of individuals. Yes, it could also do that, for political control. But it is much more than that. What they are in fact doing is to use the revolution in IT to govern human society in a way which has never been done before.

And that is breathtaking. Using big data now, they are monitoring the health, of say, Peking University, or a province in China, or an ethnic group, or a generation of people. There are just too many Chinese for anybody to monitor individually. But they get a shape of what is healthy and what is not.

The Future of US-China Relations

Last July, RAND Corporation published a report called ‘War with China: Thinking through the unthinkable’. It said that if there’s a war today, the US would be bloodied but China would be pulverised.

In a war 10 years from now, however, the US will also be bloodied. There must be strategic thinkers who say, ‘Look, it’s better to fight now, better not to wait’. The Chinese know that, but they are saying: “Must we be in this Thucydides Trap, where big power relations are a zero sum game?” They say no. Prepare for the worst, but let’s work on a new pattern of big power relations.

The US fears that China will behave in the same way when it becomes the biggest economy on Earth. A clash then becomes inevitable, in the way that there was an inevitable clash between the US and the former Soviet Union.

But China is not like that. This is a civilisation which has deep instincts of its own past and of its own nature. And because of that, China will never harmonise with the rest of the world. Whether we’re talking about cyber space, cultural policy or capital markets, China will never harmonise with the rest of the world.

Yes, there will be normal traffic, but there’s always a semi-permeable membrane, which ensures that what is good gets in, and what is considered subversive cannot get in. And because it cannot harmonise with the rest of the world, for that is in the nature of the Chinese civilisation, a large part of the US’ worry about China is not justified.

The Chinese have no wish to play the US’ role in the world. The Chinese view is that you can be an Islamic theocracy, you can be a Sultan, you can be Salafi, that’s your problem so long as you don’t hurt me. If you hurt me, I may have to hurt you. But I have enough problems looking after my own family. How can I interfere in your family’s matters? I got enough headaches of my own.

So they take a very detached approach to the internal policies of other countries. The Western view is, ‘Hey this is amoral’. But does the West really want China to be a proselytising power, a missionary power? Because if it is, it’s going to purvey a different set of values. And this leads to an inevitable clash.

The Chinese are very serious when they talk about a new pattern of big power relations, though this has been pooh-poohed by many commentators. The problem is a lack of understanding about the nature of Chinese civilisation.

Many people say it’s just a matter of time before the renminbi will be internationalised. It’ll never be completely internationalised. Because if it’s completely internationalised, China will lose control of its own economy. I don’t believe anyone governing China would ever allow this loss of control over its own financial system.

Jared Kushner and Henry Kissinger

So does Trump understand any of this? I don’t know. But he consults (former US Secretary of State Henry) Kissinger, and Kissinger understands. And I’ve been told that he has asked Kissinger to tutor Jared Kushner (the son-in-law and confidante of Mr Trump), which cheered me, because I think Kushner would play an important role within the inner circle. And if on the important issues he has regard for Kissinger’s views, then the risks would be managed.

If there’s a miscalculation, if there’s an escalating series of accidents which get out of control, and there’s a major conflict between China and the US, I think all of us here will have a miserable time. The injuries on both sides of the Pacific would be almost beyond imagination.

There is therefore a huge incentive for all of us, in ways small and big, to help build little bridges that promote understanding.

http://www.todayonline.com/commentary/trump-xi-and-shape-us-china-relations-come-george-yeo

Shock End to TPP from Trump

January 25, 2017 by dinobeano

January 25, 2017

Mr. Trump don’t antagonise the rest of us with new unilateral tariffs and thuggish threats

by Philip Bowring

http://www.asiasentinel.com/econ-business/shock-end-tpp-donald-trump/

HE Prime Minister Hun Sen and HE President Xi of China–Partnership for Peace and Development

Buy Korea, buy Japanese, buy Taiwanese, buy Australian, buy Singaporean, buy Thai, buy Vietnamese, even buy Chinese. Forget about Apple, McDonalds, Goldman Sachs, Citibank, Ford, Boeing – there’s always an alternative.

That is the message that President Donald Trump has sent around the world and most of all to America’s supposed allies in Asia. The withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the 12-nation omnibus trade pact under development for the past seven years, was expected but the manner in which it was done in Trump’s first full day in office was salt on the wounds for the countries that had done so much themselves to push the idea of this extension of trans-Pacific cooperation.

It was accompanied by more generalised threats of new unilateral tariffs and thuggish threats against US companies which invest abroad for export to the US, with Mexico first in the firing line. Quite how much of this 180-degree reversal of bipartisan US trade and foreign policies will become reality remains a matter for conjecture.

Meanwhile, conspicuous by its absence is a roar of outrage from the US business community in Asia which for years has been pressing for more open trade and always quick to condemn Asian governments for backsliding on trading and investment commitments.

AMCHAMS: explain your silence. Are your business leaders so dominated by Republican loyalists that you now treat as dispensable the values you have been preaching for decades? For the US to have gripes against specific countries or products is one thing. They can be addressed on a case by case basis. But Trump is waving a sword which cuts indiscriminately.

It may be true that the US originally gave China too easy a ride into its markets and the WTO and got inadequate access in return under the illusion that economic success would make China more liberal and democratic, as well as more open to US products. But that was then. Now crude anti-China measures simply endanger the very global trading system that the US has, mostly to its benefit, wrought over the past 60 years. If the US can treat its TPP friends in that way he has done, one shudders at what he may want to do with China.

Image result for Australia's incumbent Trade Minister on TPP

Retaliation is premature but at least must be considered for the not so distant future. Australia, perhaps surprisingly, has made a good start by urging that TPP go ahead anyway without the US. The key now must be to prevent US protectionism from becoming generic. That does not mean no retaliation but that any retaliation is specific. Meanwhile individuals can have their own trade policies, starting with any business named after Trump or which supplied any of the leading figures in his administration.

The US could start by getting away from the fantasy that its economic problems are the fault of its trade deficit. Once the US-owned brand and intellectual property costs, and returns on its investment in overseas manufacture, are factored into the overall trade picture, the deficit shrinks. The official current account deficit is only about 2% of GDP, very much less than countries such as Australia and the UK have been exceeding for decades. Include all the profits of thousands of US-owned companies, held in offshore tax havens and there may well no current account deficit at all.

The delusions about trade are even more marked in the case of China. The domestic value added in China’s exports to the US averages only about 65 percent compared with 85 percent in exports from Japan. In cases of items such as electronics the Chinese component is significantly less due to high value components from Japan and elsewhere. The US would be crazy to assume that labour-intensive, low value products like toys and sneakers, where the China valued-added percentage is highest, have a place in the US goal of reviving manufacturing employment.

But now that the US electoral system has brought to power someone as detached from reality as Trump, craziness seems set to triumph, at least for a while.

Post Obama Era: Time for Americans to come together

January 25, 2017 by dinobeano

January 25, 2017

Time for Americans to come together and get down to serious business

by Bunn [email protected]

Now that the US presidential inauguration is over, all parties need to reconcile themselves with the Trump Presidency regardless of preferences and inclinations.

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AFTER all the hype and hoopla of Donald J. Trump’s inauguration as the 45th US President, the opportunity now exists to reconcile political differences and begin to rebuild a more unified United States.

The opportunity at least is there, whether or not all parties choose to seize it. From all indications, personal, ideological and partisan ill will still rankles.

According to Gallup, Trump’s public approval rating rose from 34% to 42% following his election win. However, his 40% last Tuesday is the lowest historically going into a presidential inauguration.

It had been a rough and bruising campaign, and an unprecedented degree of bitterness lingers. And much of it comes from the anti-Trump side of the fence, from libellous false news to boycotts of the inauguration to protest rallies on the streets.

Trump’s pugnacious style alienates many, including conservative institutions and liberal interest groups. In the US context, dissent swirls around such issues as racial and gender equality, abortion, conflicts of interest and the future of healthcare provisions.

Trump has no gift of a smooth persona, soothing public relations in self-promotion, or even an appreciation of the need for good PR. His grating bluntness signals an uncompromising, open and direct character.

In taking Establishment sacred cows head-on, he displays no Establishment slyness, deception or double-dealing. How he handles political expediencies as they filter through his aides later remains to be seen.

His is a love-or-hate, take-it-or-leave-it position on issues that offers no room for fence sitters. Appropriately, he finds fence-sitting awkward, feeble and uncomfortable.

The US remains the most powerful and influential country in the world. Naturally, other countries need to understand the Trump Presidency to avoid mistakes and make the best of their bilateral relations.

There is no need to project forward on the basis of a Trump assassination before the inauguration. When independent analysts do this it is rejected as conspiracy theory, but when CNN did it two days before the inauguration it was accepted as healthy media fare.

This was the same CNN embroiled in controversy over reproducing false news from such sources as Buzzfeed to malign Trump in a familiar partisan broadcast. Trump supporters say CNN’s projection only encourages assassination attempts in an already emotionally-heated environment.

The fact remains that no country in the world is able, anxious or inclined to attack or undermine the US. Trump knows this, however much his opponents in the US may try to demonise Russia and implicate Trump to delegitimise his Presidency.

Such attempts at casting guilt by association to already presumed guilty parties have only a limited effect. It saw the departure of Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, who allegedly acted as consultant to Ukraine before President Viktor Yanukovych was toppled in a pro-Western coup.

Beyond US borders, three issues stand out: will Trump actually proceed with a wall on the border with Mexico, will he really restrict Muslims entering the US, and how many undocumented immigrants will he deport?

These issues were controversial when they were first aired during the campaign, but they have since been modulated by Trump himself.

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The US-Mexico border already has a fence as most borders do. Trump has said parts of the border may remain a fence, since the objective is to keep illegals out effectively.

He first said travel restrictions would be placed on Muslims from troubled countries like Iraq and Syria. This was followed by restrictions to be placed on individuals linked to suspect groups.

Would Trump deport as many as two million or so illegal immigrants as he said? Al Jazeera reported that Obama had already deported 2.5 million people, more than the total deported by all previous presidents throughout the 20th century.

The prospect of a meeting between Trump and Putin has already been floated. It will be a first, and the mainstream media are already poised to spin it to vindicate their allegations of Trump’s “allegiance” to Putin.

Clearly both men share certain attributes: a “take charge” personality with a penchant for grandstanding, no patience for time-wasters, and little respect for established practice just because it is established.

But that is not the same as one being beholden to the other. By their very character, neither is given to being beholden to anyone or anything else.

Trump’s earlier comment about possibly lifting sanctions against Russia has now been revised to exchanging it for a cut in Russian missiles. Whatever the practicalities of such a deal, he is suggesting a quid pro quo with Moscow instead of a blank cheque.

For international strategists, Trump’s dismissive comments about NATO remains an issue. However, his Defence Secretary James Mattis holds the opposite view that is set to dilute if not neutralise his own.

The Trump Administration’s approach to China is actually more nuanced and interesting. Ultimately, it may also be more significant for China, East Asia and the larger Asia-Pacific.

At its crudest, it takes the shape of cudgels in China-bashing over Beijing’s alleged financial and economic improprieties. Much of this comes from anti-China hawks among policy advisers like Peter Navarro.

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On another level, it is about reacting to provocations from Beijing. When China scolded Trump for “consorting” with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-Wen over her congratulatory phone call to him, he reciprocated.

China’s weakness remains a dogged misreading of Trump. By continuing to press the wrong buttons, Beijing may well “succeed” in provoking him into a trade war of sorts that both sides say they reject.

So far, the negative exchanges have not dwelt much on China’s contested actions in the South China Sea. If Beijing remains as wooden in mishandling Trump, he will easily adopt the Pentagon’s position on the issue to China’s own detriment.

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Heinz the Survivor and US Foreign Policy Iago

Much of what prevails in US relations with China and Russia over the next four years at least may result in the quiet campaigns of one individual: Henry Kissinger.

The former Secretary of State and pioneer of US-China relations has both been hailed and criticised as a pro-China dove. The reality may be more complex.

Kissinger has lately been active in three areas: renewing ties with China, promoting relations with Russia, and getting close to Trump. Some observers see his efforts as eventually distancing China from Russia.

In recent years, Russia and China have been working more closely over a range of issues outside the ambit of the US. Kissinger may regard this as a strategic challenge to Washington.

If driving a wedge between China and Russia is Kissinger’s current objective, it is not new. The US opening to China in the early 1970s that he led was already an attempt to distance Beijing from Moscow.

Given Trump’s personality and character, he is more likely than not to attend the ASEAN Summit in Manila in November. His host is admirer President Rodrigo Duterte, who has been likened to Trump.

With Duterte’s Philippines chairing ASEAN, it is virtually a foregone conclusion that Trump will be in the region. Only his absence will be in doubt.

Trump and his ASEAN counterparts will have to work out what to say in their diplomatic exchanges by then. But well before that, ASEAN leaders need to understand the implications for the region in “make America great again.”

Bunn Nagara is a Senior Fellow at the Institute of Strategic and International Studies (ISIS) Malaysia.

President Trump and Asia: Lest it’s misunderstood–America First

January 23, 2017 by dinobeano

January 23, 2017

President Trump and getting on the front foot in Asia: Lest it’s misunderstood–America First

by Editors, East Asia Forum

http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2017/01/23/president-trump-and-getting-on-the-front-foot-in-asia/#more-54137

The inauguration of the 45th US President, Donald Trump, is a game-changer and the fallout threatens Asian interests perhaps more than those in any other part of the world.

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The 45th President of the United States of America–Donald John Trump

‘For many decades, we’ve enriched foreign industry at the expense of American industry’, Trump declared in his inaugural speech, ‘[we’ve] subsidised the armies of other countries while allowing for the very sad depletion of our military; we’ve defended other nation’s borders while refusing to defend our own; and spent trillions of dollars overseas while America’s infrastructure has fallen into disrepair and decay’.

‘From this moment on, it’s going to be America First, America First’, Trump hailed. ‘Every decision on trade, on taxes, on immigration, on foreign affairs, will be made to benefit American workers and American families. We must protect our borders from the ravages of other countries making our products, stealing our companies, and destroying our jobs. Protection will lead to great prosperity and strength’.

That the United States under Trump would ‘reinforce old alliances and form new ones — and unite the civilized world against radical Islamic terrorism’ might provide a reassurance to allies in Asia and the Pacific, but one that is deeply qualified by the notion that paying for US deployments abroad is under scrutiny.

What is Donald Trump like and what will his presidency really be about? No one can know for certain: the only predictability about Trump is his unpredictability. But the experts on Trump, those who have studied his life and career and written his biographies, are clear on three things.

‘They see the same person they’ve always seen — the consummate classroom troublemaker; a vain, insecure bully; and an anti-institutional schemer, as adept at ‘gaming the system’ as he is unashamed of that. As they look ahead … to his administration … they feel confident predicting that he will run the country much as he has run his company: for himself’.

Apart from his father, Donald Trump’s chief mentor in life was Roy Cohn, a Joe McCarthy henchman, ‘a guy who stood for cold-eye calculus about how bullying people works’.

The world out there, without its norms or conventions, for which Trump on his record has no respect, is a bigger bully pit than even he has had to deal thus far in his career. On all the evidence we have, there is zero chance that in the fights he picks with world leaders Trump will be capable of separating personal pique from his country’s interests — let alone the interests of the broader public.

Nothing about inauguration day has allayed the two main anxieties for Asia that have been fuelled by the harbingers of radical change under a Trump presidency.

The old certainties that brought prosperity and a significant measure of stability to world affairs for over three-quarters of a century after the Second World War are no longer clear.

The US anchor of the Western security system, on which order in Asia and the Pacific has relied, may be being weighed.

The institutional edifice on which economic certainty and political confidence in the US-led global order has been built — the postwar institutional framework that guaranteed economic openness and the prospect of economic and political security — is under threat as Trump appears bent on trade wars and calls for protectionism. This is not a narrowly economic problem: it affects the global security outlook and especially economic and political security in Asia and the Pacific.

The comfortable view in Tokyo, Canberra and even in Beijing that Trump in election mode was all political rhetoric, and that US global economic and security strategies would largely remain undisturbed, has given way to deeper disquiet.

Reliance on the enduring operational verities of continuing strategic engagement with Washington, around the uncertainties that Trump brings to the game, is an increasingly doubtful refuge for the business-as-usual camp.

So how do we deal with the new Trump reality show in Asia?

Certainly not by sitting back and taking what the bully pit dishes up, argues Hitoshi Tanaka in this week’s lead essay. Trump’s ‘America First’ foreign policy rhetoric is moving the United States away from its traditional role as a global leader at a time when the domestic and international political environments are undergoing significant change, Tanaka points out. Japan, as the United States’ most important ally in Asia, has to get on the front foot in defining the kind of engagement it wants with America. Prime Minister Abe, Tanaka says, has been right to engage Trump early and, he might have added, to swing through Southeast Asia and Australia last week to seek common positions across the region.

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The Giants of East Asia

‘Given that Trump appears keen on having Japan expand its share of the security burden’, says Tanaka, ‘the best option would be intensive US–Japan consultations that aim to forge a common approach to key challenges as an initial step toward a joint US–Japan strategy for the region’. The overarching objective would be to retain and enhance US engagement in Asia while bolstering Japan’s security roles and functions within the alliance framework, and its contributions to peace, without opening a regionally destabilising Pandora’s box’.

An important strategic priority among the four that Tanaka identifies is nurturing a stable and inclusive regional order. ‘On its current trajectory, the Asia-Pacific regional order risks fracturing into a two-tiered structure composed of the US-led liberal international order and an emerging Chinese sphere of influence’. The United States and Japan should prioritise engagement with China and find a new way to coordinate among regional institutions and advance cooperation among Asian powers. This requires rapid and immediate elevation of consultation among the Asian powers.Sitting back and relying on old default settings is unlikely to work in the new bully pit.

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In the new Trump era, Prime Minister Abe, on regional engagement, and Chinese President Xi Jinping, on the importance of economic globalisation at Davos, have both set good examples of getting on the front foot in Asia. One hopes that other Asian leaders, individually and collectively, will quickly follow suit.

The EAF Editorial Group is comprised of Peter Drysdale, Shiro Armstrong, Ben Ascione, Ryan Manuel, Amy King and Jillian Mowbray-Tsutsumi and is located in the Crawford School of Public Policy in the ANU College of Asia and the Pacific.

Japan-US Alliance in the Trumpian Era

by Hitoshi Tanaka, JCIE

Donald Trump’s election to the US presidency came as a major surprise to Japan and the rest of Asia. And Trump’s controversial campaign rhetoric has brought into question the pillars of US foreign policy, including the value of US alliance relationships, its commitment to free trade and its willingness to protect regional stability in the Asia Pacific.

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Yet the region must find a way to work with the Trump presidency. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe signalled Japan’s intention to do so by becoming the first foreign leader to meet with President-elect Trump on 17 November. Looking ahead, the region faces a number of challenges that require intensive consultation and cooperation.

Trump’s ‘America First’ foreign policy rhetoric appears to be moving the United States away from its traditional role as a global leader at a time when the domestic and international political environments are undergoing significant change. Continued US leadership and intensive cooperation with allies and partners will remain critical to the maintenance of regional peace and prosperity.

While the Trump administration contemplates its foreign policy approach, America’s allies must review their regional approaches as well. Given that Japan remains the most important US ally in Asia, the two countries need to move forward and further build up the infrastructure of the alliance.

Japan has responded to the changing security environment with a remarkable suite of defence reforms aimed at expanding its ‘proactive contributions to peace’. Japan will need to continue to expand its contributions, but must do so in a way that is anchored by its identity as a peace-loving nation that does not use military means to pursue its economic or political agenda.

Given that Trump appears keen on having Japan expand its share of the security burden, the best option would be intensive US–Japan consultations that aim to forge a common approach to key challenges as an initial step toward a joint US–Japan strategy for the region. The overarching objective would be to retain and enhance US engagement in Asia while bolstering Japan’s security roles and functions within the alliance framework, and its contributions to peace, without opening a regionally destabilising Pandora’s box.

The Trump and Abe administrations should focus on four key areas. First, a new approach towards North Korea is necessary. ‘Strategic patience’ has failed to change North Korean behaviour. The Kim Jong-un regime is edging closer to producing a miniaturised nuclear warhead that can be mounted on a long-range missile. This poses a serious threat.

Resolving the situation on the Korean Peninsula requires comprehensive and coordinated efforts between the United States, Japan and South Korea to bring China into the fold. Beijing is still hesitant to apply crippling pressure to the extent that it would seriously undermine the Kim Jong-un regime’s political control and run the risk of causing North Korean collapse. The United States, South Korea and Japan must do more to reassure China that a full break with the regime in Pyongyang will not end up being antithetical to its national interests. This requires joint contingency planning among the allies as well as intensive discussions with China to prepare for worst-case scenarios on the peninsula.

Second, greater confidence-building among the United States, China, Russia, Japan and South Korea is sorely needed in order to de-escalate tensions, defuse nationalism and build relations rooted in win–win cooperation. While this may be hard to envision based on Trump’s election rhetoric, operational-level cooperation that is already underway between the United States, Japan and other likeminded countries in the region can gradually be expanded.

The third priority is nurturing a stable and inclusive regional order. On its current trajectory, the Asia-Pacific regional order risks fracturing into a two-tiered structure comprised of the US-led liberal international order and an emerging Chinese sphere of influence. The United States and Japan should prioritise engagement with China. They need to find some way to coordinate among regional institutions and advance functional cooperation among Asian powers.

Though the Trump administration is likely to place lower priority on international institutions, it is in the US interest to find some way to promote smoother coordination between the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the One Belt, One Road initiative on the one hand and the IMF, World Bank and Asian Development Bank on the other.

Finally, the United States will need to find a balance between cooperation with Russia in areas of mutual interest and maintaining a unified front within the international community against unlawful Russian behaviour, such as its unilateral annexation of Crimea in March 2014. There is a strong need for intense consultations between Japan and the United States on this front.

There is a deep sense of uncertainty about the future role of the United States in East Asia. As Trump takes office, it will be crucial that his team makes a concerted effort to understand the positions of US allies and friends. As US domestic politics and the regional balance of power undergo changes, intensive consultations and cooperation with allies and partners will be critical. Forging a joint approach on key regional challenges in a way that opens the door to a shared US–Japan strategy will benefit both countries.

Hitoshi Tanaka is a senior fellow at the Japan Center for International Exchange and chairman of the Institute for International Strategy at the Japan Research Institute, Ltd. He previously served as Japan’s deputy minister for foreign affairs.

This article is an extract from East Asia Insights Vol. 11 No. 3 December 2016, which is available in full here, and is reprinted with the kind permission of JCIE.

Foreign Policy: ASEAN and The Trumpian New World Disorder

January 22, 2017 by dinobeano

January 22, 2017

Foreign Policy: ASEAN and The Trumpian New World Disorder

by Dr. Munir [email protected]

THE buzzword among think tanks on global strategy in the West is “World Disorder”. This follows, particularly, Donald Trump’s victory last November in the United States Presidential election – he will be inaugurated on January 20 – but also the British Brexit vote in June and anxiety over the possible triumph of populist right-wing parties, in France especially, this year.There is a common opposition in these developments to the global and local liberal order, to free trade and movement of peoples, and to the political value system that has characterised the West and, tangentially, the rest of the world.

However the reality for emerging and developing countries is likely to be different, and the stack of concerns over disturbance to the world order is not the same.

For the longest time those not in the West had been buzzing, if we remember, about a new world, particularly economic, order. There has been some little progress, notably establishment of the G-20 in 1999 whose leaders’ summit did not convene until 2008 following the Western financial crisis, but by and large the institutions of the international order set up at the end of the Second World War remained intact.

Developing countries nevertheless benefited immensely from the open system of trade of that international order – China, particularly, since its opening up in 1978 – as they were able to take advantage of their low cost of production to penetrate Western markets.

ASEAN countries have also been beneficiaries of this open trading system. Now ASEAN is on the path of greater economic integration to attract investment and to encourage trade, not just among member states, but also from and with the world. A number of them have moved or are moving up the economic ladder, aiming for greater productivity and higher value-added products and services – all predicated on the existing open global trading and economic system.

Now this system may be changed, or may not be as open. It would however be a mistake for ASEAN – and rising Asia more generally – to succumb to the doom and gloom that seem to have settled on the West. Now is the time for Asia and ASEAN to show their mettle.

Efforts at ASEAN economic integration should be redoubled to extract growth from regional economic activity. Intra-regional trade should be enhanced beyond the present 25% of total trade.

In its first year, the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) did not show any spectacular rise in intra-regional economic activity, or any great push to address barriers to trade and investment.

Thailand, for instance, reported only a 1.8% increase in exports to ASEAN in baht terms for 11 months up to November in 2016. Yet the increase to CLMV (Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam) was 2.8%, with an expected 3% increase in 2017.

Focus of Future Growth in ASEAN–Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam

This shows that where there is greater intensity of economic activity and integration – CLMV+T (Thailand) – there will be potential gains. Many barriers have come down and connectivity is improving. The CLMV+T sub-region is becoming the powerhouse of ASEAN growth, with the inclusion also of China’s Yunnan and Guangxi provinces. CLMV economic growth is actually 6-8% while the ASEAN average is closer to four.

The removal of non-tariff measures and barriers (NTBs) will help generate greater trade, investment and economic activity across ASEAN. Alas, there was no significant NTB action in 2016, despite agreement by ASEAN economic ministers that focused working groups start addressing the problem in four prioritised sectors.

The officials and private sector must step up the pace this year as ASEAN is increasingly challenged by the global post trade liberalisation environment promised by the Trump administration.

The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) is rightly seen as a further extension of the AEC and, with the impending demise of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), as its successor leading right up to the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP).

The question is who will lead the charge as America shies away from free trade? The obvious – and ironic – answer is: China. Indeed, Xi Jinping was up to the challenge, going by his statements at the APEC summit in Peru last November.

However, China itself has many adjustments to make such as opening its markets further and liberalising foreign investment in protected sectors. So there is plenty of negotiation to come. But it cannot take as long as the ten years it took to arrive at the TPP agreement.

The point is, alternative regional growth areas have to be founded. Asia’s rise, especially economic, that has been so much talked about, used to come easy in terms of the ready framework of free trade. Now it gets harder. Asia, including ASEAN countries of course, have to take the lead to fashion for themselves the rules and details of the order upon which they will plot their further progress.

There are some among the 11 TPP Remainers who argue for its resuscitation, even if it is without the US. It is, however, going to be a complex exercise. Dropping the entry into force provisions is easy enough, but would it make economic sense without the US? Would China be invited to join? Would the provisions in the TPP form the basis of the FTAAP or should they be introduced in the RCEP which was supposed to have been concluded at the end of last year but is now going full speed ahead for completion this year? Certainly, increased complexity would push it back.

It might be better, therefore, to work on what is there in RCEP and add to it later. Who knows, America may, after Trump, want to join the regional grouping.

So Asian and ASEAN countries must now take the lead in free trade arrangements, regionally to begin with, but with others as well. This is the main challenge they face from the “world disorder” being widely discussed in the West.

Asia – and ASEAN – are less troubled by the two other components of global liberal order threatened by right-wing populism in the West. First, between individual rights and state control, they are far closer to the latter. Thus the threatened values such as equal justice and tolerance are of less concern to them as they found their legitimacy on economic satisfaction – at least for now.

Second, apart from Japan and Korea, they range from agnostic to hostile on security arrangements and alliances. As the wheels come off Barack Obama’s pivot to Asia-Pacific, they will just wait to see what takes its place. The loose screws were to be tightened by the TPP.

With the TPP as good as gone, what has been lost is meaningful US strategic commitment to the region. But it would be wrong to assume America has gone isolationist.

With the rise of China, belief in the region in manifest American destiny – if ever it existed to any degree – has receded. Some ASEAN countries may have wanted greater US commitment in the region as a balancer – but at no time as Roman Consul.

Think tanks in the West, with their affinity to American leadership and commitment, are greatly concerned with the uncertainty that will be caused by Trump’s transactional approach to security. In Asia, even Japan and Korea have come to learn that their security can be exposed to transactional risk. There is no certainty about their security. It is constantly being tested. They see variable results, in the Middle East, with Russia in the Ukraine and Crimea. With this realism they see less movement towards “world disorder”.

Of course, Trump will be more nakedly transactional. In Asia and ASEAN the gravest danger, as they see it, is to their trade. They see that Trump feels the cost of the series of transactions has been too high for America.

But it should not be concluded Trump will abandon American leadership. In fact he is making it more muscular, in his way, whether short-sighted or not. For ASEAN – and Asia generally – the main concern is its ramifications in trade and economy. Less so grand and emphatic recoiling from the threat of “world disorder.”

Tan Sri Munir Majid, Chairman of Bank Muamalat and Visiting Senior Fellow at LSE Ideas (Centre for International Affairs, Diplomacy and Strategy), is also chairman of CIMB ASEAN Research Institute.

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