US election: Indo-Pacific holds its breath
American democratic prestige has taken a battering across the region.
American democratic prestige took a battering across the Indo Pacific on Thursday as the region dissected the US’s uncertain post-election landscape and Donald Trump’s premature victory declaration.
Governments largely stayed out of the fray beyond committing to work with the next US administration regardless of the outcome, though government spokesmen in South Korea and Japan hinted at concerns over the effect any prolonged uncertainty over the result could have on global financial markets.
“I’m hearing it may take some time before things are sorted out,” Japanese Finance Minister Taro Aso said when asked about the likely economic consequences of a deferred result. “I have no idea how it may affect us.”
There was less reticence among the commentariat, however, as calls echoed across the region for cool heads to prevail in the US amid deep divisions that many fear will have global repercussions.
On Japan’s NHK national broadcaster, Tokyo University international politics professor Fujiwara Kiichi predicted a “US power vacuum” potentially until January 20 if the Trump camp pushed ahead with its legal challenges to the vote in key battleground states. “This means the US will not be able to take leadership on key issues, and domestic politics will be even more divided than it has been. A sane foreign policy is based on the triumph of the moderates and that is what we do not see at this moment,” Professor Fujiwara said.
The Hindu broadsheet newspaper in India described Mr Trump’s claim to have won the race as millions of votes were still to be counted as a “decidedly authoritarian turn”, while others in the world’s largest democracy urged Washington to learn from the Indian experience.
The Times of India said America’s “tangled web of voting and counting regulations which may yet be litigated in the highest court” was a reminder of what a “wonderful job” the Indian Election Commission did in “smoothly delivering a same-day result despite being responsible for 900 million voters as compared to America’s 240 million”.
In Indonesia, some pundits drew wry comparisons between Mr Trump’s early victory call and that of twice-defeated Indonesian presidential challenger Prabowo Subianto, who in the 2014 and 2019 elections insisted he had won despite exit polls showing clear victories for his opponent Joko Widodo.
Respected Indonesian pollster Djayadi Hanan told The Australian that while many Indonesians would have found the parallels amusing, they would also acknowledge the “impressive show of democracy” in which a record number of Americans turned out to vote.
With Indonesia facing regional elections next month, “many also see there are a lot of ways to cast your vote during the pandemic. Americans showed that you can cast your ballot by mail and it’s OK”, notwithstanding Republican efforts to discredit the process, he added.
But the country’s English-language Jakarta Post newspaper rued the deep political and social divisions that would could keep America from its traditional global leadership role.
“The 2020 election basically resolves nothing and if there is a microcosm of American politics it is Wisconsin,” it noted in an editorial under the headline, The Divided States of America. “While half of US voters want change on a lot of issues, from racial justice and police brutality to economic inequality, the other half prefers to maintain the status quo. Such divisions will not heal, even if Biden finally wins the election.”
Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post urged “calm and cool heads, not populist tricks and power grabs” as it cautioned Americans and the world to wait for all votes to be counted.
But in China the bombastic Global Times could barely contain its glee as it blamed the political uncertainty on a “trend of political fanaticism in the US”.
“In the past, only the election outcome, not the election itself, was uncertain,” it wrote.