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What will the Trump presidency mean for Asean?

Mr Donald Trump won the White House by tapping into an anti-globalisation mood. He said he will bring jobs back to America, “Make America Great Again” and put “America First”.

United States President Barack Obama with Asean leaders and their spouses, and key dialogue partners at the gala dinner for the 28th and 29th Asean Summits and Other Related Summits in Vientiane, Laos, in September. President Trump will not put the same priority as Mr Obama on attendance at the East Asia Summit, or on the elaboration of a new regional architecture. Photo: AP

United States President Barack Obama with Asean leaders and their spouses, and key dialogue partners at the gala dinner for the 28th and 29th Asean Summits and Other Related Summits in Vientiane, Laos, in September. President Trump will not put the same priority as Mr Obama on attendance at the East Asia Summit, or on the elaboration of a new regional architecture. Photo: AP

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Mr Donald Trump won the White House by tapping into an anti-globalisation mood. He said he will bring jobs back to America, “Make America Great Again” and put “America First”.

He will therefore want to project strength, and his approach is likely to be highly transactional. He will be less interested in broad principles than in specific deals; he will expect action to bring immediate and tangible rewards. This is how he has lived his life and run his businesses.

From these reference points we can draw some tentative conclusions in three areas: Trade, regional diplomacy and geopolitics.

 

WILL HE ACT ON ANTI-GLOBALISATION INSTINCTS?

 

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is dead. Mr Trump thinks that America has not gotten a fair deal from trade agreements. He will be more aggressive on trade through such measures as anti-dumping and Section 301 actions, which provide for retaliatory measures against unfair practices.

The main targets will be China, Japan and South Korea. The Association of South-east Asian Nations (Asean) is secondary because we are relatively small players, but we will not be spared.

He cannot stop American investment. What drove American jobs overseas were changes in the structure of the global economy, driven by technological changes that are irreversible.

Putting America First contradicts his anti-globalisation instincts — if he really has any; what a candidate says is not always what a President does — because American companies have been among the chief beneficiaries of globalisation.

But he may make it more difficult for American companies to shift operations overseas by changing the balance of incentives and costs through taxes. This is an important factor for the next phase of Asean economic integration that aims at making Southeast Asia a common production platform.

But the crucial success factors for economic integration are internal to Asean. The costs of the TPP’s loss are in opportunities forgone and United States credibility since it was not yet in force. China will loom larger, but this is an existing trend, and the US and its allies will remain important economic partners.

The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) is moving at a glacial pace and in any case will be a low-quality agreement if it is ever concluded.

 

NO PATIENCE WITH FORM

 

A transactional approach will be impatient with the most salient characteristics of Asean diplomacy, which stresses form and processes: Discussion as an end in itself and the incremental accumulation of small steps.

President Trump will not put the same priority as President Barack Obama on attendance at the East Asia Summit, or on the elaboration of a new regional architecture.

The emphasis of a Trump administration’s South-east Asia diplomacy will be more bilateral than regional.

Together with the loss of the TPP, a less-engaged Trump administration feeds the Chinese narrative of an unreliable America.

To keep the US engaged and to maintain balance and manoeuvre space, Asean must invest the slogan of its “centrality” with substance, and redefine and restructure regional processes and forums so that they can produce significant and concrete outcomes immediately relevant to the interests of the US and other Dialogue Partners.

Over the past decade, Asean has slipped into a pattern of privileging form over substance. We must shed the mentality of being a recipient of largesse and acquire the capacity to be a genuine, and not just nominal, partner.

 

SPHERES OF PREDOMINANT INFLUENCE

 

Competition in the South China Sea has become a proxy for broader strategic adjustments as the US and China grope towards a new modus vivendi with each other and other countries in the region.

A Trump administration will probably continue the Obama administration’s policies for some time, and the ritualised pattern of patrol and protest will hold — at least for now. But a transactional approach will give less weight to upholding general principles such as freedom of navigation and a rules-based order.

A Trump administration may well calculate that any attempt to impede the 7th Fleet’s operations in and through the South China Sea would be a risk that China will not, in any case, take because it would be a casus belli, or cause for war, that puts the Chinese Communist Party rule in jeopardy.

With this key American interest secure, it may be tempted to tacitly accept the idea of spheres of predominant influence — not exclusive influence: China has neither the capacity nor the interest to entirely exclude the US — that is one interpretation of the “new model of major-power relations” that China has proposed. This will leave Asean exposed.

By his own admission, Mr Trump hates to lose. He will not give up anything for nothing. Although it is difficult at this stage to envisage what inducement the Chinese could offer to persuade the Trump administration to accept such a tacit arrangement — and it has to be very significant — the possibility, nevertheless, cannot be dismissed.

Much would depend on his administration’s sense of strategy and how it defines its interests with China. Economics may be given more weight.

A Trump administration would, however, not want to look weak, as his comments on issues such as terrorism suggest. We are not going to be hearing anything more about the “pivot”. But projecting a strong America means that a Trump administration will not forgo geopolitical engagement in East Asia.

However, the priority that Southeast Asia will have vis-a-vis other regions such as the Middle East is unclear. Even if the worst case does not materialise, it will almost certainly expect Asean to shoulder more of the risks and burdens of maintaining balance, whether through financial contributions or providing capabilities; for example, through joint patrols.

The geopolitical impact of a Trump administration is still largely speculation. Nor will it be an unqualified advantage for China.

Mr Trump’s record suggests that he sees every deal as separate and discrete, and he will be less susceptible to the Chinese trap of posing false dilemmas and forcing false choices. But it is not too early for Asean to think through what individually and collectively it is prepared to do to maintain equilibrium.

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Bilahari Kausikan is Ambassador-At-Large at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This article will appear in the forthcoming issue of ASEANFocus, a publication by the ASEAN Studies Centre in ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, on the implications of a Trump presidency for Southeast Asia.

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