Region sees challenges ahead

Donald Trump and Joe Biden have both promised tough-on-China policies, playing into existing fears in a region that has traditionally relied on the US for security.

The winner must address the ‘lmost irreparable damage that policies of the past four years have wrought: a fragmented and divided world and region, marked by trust-deficit and, tellingly, of deficit of leadership, says Indonesia’s former foreign minister Marty Natalegawa

Whether the next US administration turns Democrat blue or stays MAGA red, Asia’s predicament as the meat in the sandwich of America’s escalating rivalry with China is not about to ease soon.

Donald Trump and Joe Biden have both promised tough-on-China policies, playing into existing fears in a region that has traditionally relied on the US for security — but increasingly looks to Beijing for prosperity — that Indo-Pacific countries will be forced to choose sides.

The orthodoxy is a Biden presidency will mean a return to multilateral diplomacy and greater engagement with a region that prizes consensus-building.

What a second Trump term will mean for the Indo-Pacific is less clear, though the region can bank on an even more trans­actional US foreign policy as Mr Trump seeks to right the COVID-hit economy and secure a legacy.

Could that mean a deal with Beijing that leaves Quad partners — Australia, India and Japan — out in the cold? More punitive measures for countries seen not to have complied with US trade parity demands, such as Thailand, which had its tariff privileges revoked days before the polls?

Ja-Ian Chong, National University of Singapore political science professor, says: “No matter who wins, there are going to be huge challenges”.

“Trump may call a pause on the China trade war but we could also see a doubling down, with an increase in the pace of (economic) decoupling and more US China friction,” he says.

The logical response from Indo-Pacific nations would be to increase collaboration, but the chances of that aren’t high because the region is “riven by different interests”, he added.

Taiwan, Hong Kong, Vietnam, to a lesser degree India and Japan see huge upside in a White House willing to project US military power in the Indo-Pacific amid rising Chinese aggression in the South and East China seas, the Taiwan Strait and on its border with India. Most ASEAN nations also recognise the importance of a strong US presence to balance Chinese ambition.

Singapore’s former foreign ministry secretary Bilahari Kausikan made a case for Mr Trump’s power projection in the region this week, saying Barack Obama “had little stomach for exercising power” in Asia. By contrast, he wrote in the Nikkei Asian Review, Mr Trump’s sometimes “crude” use of power — promising “fire and fury” against Pyongyang, rejecting China’s claims to the South China Sea and asserting freedom of navigation rights — has maintained America’s role as the region’s security guarantor.

Irrespective of who prevails, Indonesia’s former foreign minister Marty Natalegawa said the winner must address the “almost irreparable damage that policies of the past four years have wrought: a fragmented and divided world and region, marked by trust-deficit and, tellingly, of deficit of leadership”.

“It is unfortunate that precisely when the need for greater spirit of co-operative partnership to deal with issues that defy national solutions alone are sorely needed, one cannot rely on such US leadership and role,” he said.

Philippines security analyst Richard Heydarian said the “best-case scenario of a clear and decisive victory” was no longer possible and predicted “fear and trembling across the region” at the prospect of an even more divided America.

“If Biden wins, he will be a diminished president…in the midst of a massive economic crisis and public health tragedy” with little time for multilateralism, he said.

“If Trump wins, there’s good reason to fear an even more aggressive trade war and migration policies … we may face two rogue superpowers pushing a version of ‘Make their country great again’.”