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There were some efforts to further assuage Southeast Asian partners. Vice
President Pence visited Indonesia in April and told officials that President
Trump would attend the upcoming US–ASEAN and East Asian summits in
the Philippines, as well as the APEC summit in Vietnam scheduled for No-
vember 2017. The vice president’s stop in Australia was broadly reassuring,
but administration commentary devoted little attention to the troubled US
alliances with the Philippines and Thailand.
At the end of April 2017, President Trump called leaders of Singapore,
the Philippines, and Thailand. Inviting the latter two to visit the White House represented a break from the Obama government’s arms-length treatment of
both governments on human rights grounds. But the president then left town
after the House of Representatives passed its controversial health care bill.
He was at his estate in New Jersey and unavailable to meet with ASEAN
foreign ministers visiting Washington that week.
On the South China Sea disputes, the Trump government followed a
cautious approach. It waited until late May 2017 to allow a freedom-of-
navigation exercise to take place by a US Navy ship targeted against land
features claimed by the Chinese—a claim that had been deemed illegal by an
international tribunal in 2016. In Indonesia, Pence repeated the administra-
tion’s insistence on so-called fair trade with Indonesia, one of many Asian
countries whose trade surplus with the United States placed them under
review by the new administration.
Human rights issues in Southeast Asia—ranging from authoritarian
strong-man rule in Cambodia and Communist dominance in Vietnam to the
newly democratic Myanmar government’s controversial crackdown on the
oppressed Rohingya community—have received much less attention from
the Trump government than from previous administrations. Recent presiden-
tial invitations to Philippine and Thai leaders underlined this new US prag-
matism on human rights issues.
Southeast Asian and other Asia-Pacific officials were correct in com-
plaining that they had few counterparts in the Trump government, particular-
ly in the State and Defense departments, due to the administration’s remark-
able slowness in nominating appointees. Some governments, notably Viet-
nam, made the best of the situation, carrying out agreed-upon visits from
senior leaders in spring 2017. More common among Southeast Asian and
other Asia-Pacific states was a wait-and-see approach, as the Trump govern-
ment slowly filled the ranks with appointees who could formulate US foreign
and security policies relevant to the region.
As they waited, those seeking a coherent and well-integrated US strategy
toward Southeast Asia and the Asia-Pacific seemed likely to be disappointed.
Barring an unanticipated crisis, the preoccupation of the Trump administra-
tion with other priorities was likely to continue for the foreseeable future.
Perhaps lower-ranking officials, once in office, would be able to craft a
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strategy worthy of the name. But they would have to convince their superiors
of the importance of accepting and carrying out this strategy amid a din of
other problems at home and abroad.
As noted in chapter 7, on key issues in Southeast Asia and the broader
Asia-Pacific, there has appeared to be general agreement within the Trump
government—shared by congressional leaders—on the need to strengthen the
American security position in Southeast Asia along with the rest of the Asia-
Pacific. President Trump’s proposed increase in defense spending was pre-
sumably in support of congressional legislation of the period, such as the
Asia-Pacific Stability Initiative and the Asian Reassurance Initiative Act.
How far the initiatives will go in actually expanding US presence in the
region will depend on administration and congressional willingness to mod-
ify or end the ongoing sequestration that has placed limits on defense and
other discretionary government spending.
Though many Republicans are willing to consider deficit financing in
order to increase defense spending, Republican “budget hawks,” who report-
edly include the current director of the Trump government’s Office of Man-
agement and Budget along with many in Congress, oppose it. Increases in
defense spending may therefore be contingent on cuts elsewhere.
Congressional Republicans include strong advocates of human rights, de-
mocracy, and American values in the conduct of US foreign policy. Howev-
er, the early Trump government has largely followed a pattern of pragmatic
treatment of these issues. Consistency in this stance will presumably be
welcomed by more authoritarian Southeast Asian and Asian-Pacific leaders,
as well as leaders in more pluralistic states like the Philippines, Myanmar,
and Malaysia who were targeted for criticism by the Obama government and
continue to be attacked by congressional and US nongovernment advocates.
Achieving a unified and sustained position on US economic and trade
issues—with Southeast Asia, the broader Asia-Pacific, or elsewhere—prom-
ises to be more difficult than garnering consistency on security and foreign
policy values. As explained in chapters 7 and 9, key appointees have records
very much at odds with one another. Some strongly identified with the presi-
dent’s campaign rhetoric pledging to deal harshly with states that “treat the
United States unfairly” and “take jobs” from American workers. Others stick
to conservative Republican orthodoxy in supporting free trade. Reports of
political alliances in the White House have been widespread, often with
President Trump’s adviser and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and Economic
Council Director Gary Cohn on one side and Commerce Secretary Wilbur
Ross and US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer on the other.
Policy is said to move back and forth between these two camps, though
the circumstances behind this dynamic remain unclear. The president chose
these officials and has a long record of welcoming sharply alternative views
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among his staff. Where Trump himself will come down in this debate and
whether he will stick with a position are very unclear.
In sum, US policy is muddled and US attention is episodic and drifting.
THE IMPORTANCE OF POWER SHIFT IN ASIA
As noted in chapter 1 and explained in chapter 7, China’s recent advances
and the mediocre performance of the Trump administration in the Asia-
Pacific have intensified debate in the United States and China over the impli-
cations of a possible power shift in Asia and what it means for future US-
China relations. 5 Assertive Chinese actions challenging the United States in Asia and elsewhere have damaged US-China relations; they were widely
seen as based on Chinese calculation of US decline following the global
economic crisis of 2008–9. They have been influenced by US reluctance to
bear more onerous international burdens seen under the rubric of the so-
called Obama Doctrine and of the Trump a
dministration’s so-called America
First foreign policy orientation. Meanwhile, there has been a widely held
view in the US government, highlighted notably in an unclassified National
Intelligence Estimate released in 2017, that one reason for increased chal-
lenges for the United States posed by Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping was a
perception of decline in the United States and Western-aligned powers. 6
Against this background, a main determinant of greater tensions in US-
China relations centers on China and whether it will continue assertive ad-
vances into disputed nearby territories and other challenges to US leadership
in the Asia-Pacific and elsewhere. Such Chinese actions could be seen even-
tually as a direct Chinese test of US resolve as a regional security guarantor
in the Asia-Pacific. The Chinese advances could make more likely a confron-
tation between a more assertive China and the United States. Thus the will-
ingness and ability of China’s leaders to curb recent assertiveness and deflect public and elite pressures for tougher foreign policy approaches represent an
important indicator in the current period of whether US-China relations are
likely to worsen.
For its part, the Trump government has appeared distracted from the
Asia-Pacific except for the crisis with North Korea. The main danger the US
government seemed to pose for the course of US-China relations centered on
how it might react to challenges from China deemed provocative by the US
government. As noted earlier, the Trump government has been more likely
than the Obama government to take a wide range of actions, possibly includ-
ing use of force, in response to China or other foreign governments seen
provoking the United States.
From this perspective, the longer-term outlook for conflict or cooperation
in Sino-American relations is influenced by the significance of China’s rising
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influence and the perceived decline of the United States. China’s ascendance
as a world power represents the most important change in the still-develop-
ing international dynamics of the twenty-first century. A wide range of ex-
pert commentaries and assessments judges that China in recent decades has
established a clear strategy of developing wealth and power in world affairs.
They see China’s recently assertive posture along its periphery as part of
expanding Chinese economic, military, and political influence that entails a
change in leadership in the Asia-Pacific region and a power shift in world
affairs. The United States and its partners among developed countries are
viewed in decline as China rises, and thus their choices are depicted in
sometimes stark terms. They are advised by some to appease and accommo-
date China, and by others to resist. 7
Whether we have reached such a tipping point in Asian and international
politics has important implications for the course of Sino-American relations
and particularly for American policy toward China. Discussed below are
indicators that can be used by readers to assess just how powerfully China
has advanced vis-à-vis the United States in the important Asia-Pacific region
and elsewhere in world affairs, in order to judge whether we have reached a
point where China is willing and able to confront the United States and
others over contested territories along its rim and other sensitive issues in the period ahead.
There is a large literature assessing China’s rising role in world affairs.
Common in the literature is a tendency to employ a selected set of indicators
focused on the growing size of China’s economy; China’s leading role as an
international manufacturer and trader, consumer of raw materials, and holder
of foreign exchange reserves; and China’s widespread international impact
backed by active diplomacy and steadily increasing military capabilities.
These indicators support assessments of China’s rapid growth globally. They
contrast with indicators of slow growth or stagnation on the part of other
world powers, notably Japan, Europe, and the United States. As a result,
many specialists come to the conclusion that China has risen to the point
where a power transition is underway in China’s surroundings in Asia, with
Beijing emerging as the region’s new leader and with the United States,
heretofore the leading power around Asia’s rim, moving to a secondary
position. Some specialists go further in judging that the power transition
from the US leadership to that of China is more global in scope. 8
Of course, there are specialists—including this writer--who employ other
indicators and evidence to conclude that rising China probably has a long
way to go to be in a position to challenge America’s leading role in Asian
and world affairs. Those indicators are discussed below. They depict China
as growing in influence but still constrained and far from dominant in the
Asia-Pacific, and for this and other reasons unwilling and unable to effective-
ly confront the United States, even with America’s recent problems and
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uncertain prospects. 9 Even if America remains ineffective and preoccupied, they see China as more likely to seek incremental gains at US expense that
do not risk crisis and confrontation with the still substantial American power.
CHINESE LIMITATIONS AND CONSTRAINTS
Constraints on the Chinese challenges to American leadership involve do-
States, and China’s continued weak position relative to the United States in
Asia and the world. 10
Domestic Preoccupations
There is a general consensus among specialists in China and abroad about
some of the key domestic concerns preoccupying the Xi Jinping leadership: 11
• Weak leadership legitimacy highly dependent on how the leaders’ perfor-
mance is seen at any given time
• Pervasive corruption viewed as sapping public support and undermining
administrative efficiency
• Widening income gaps posing challenges to the communist regime osten-
sibly dedicated to advancing the disadvantaged
• Incidents of social turmoil reportedly involving one hundred thousand to
two hundred thousand mass events annually that are usually directed at
state policies, with budget outlays for domestic security greater than Chi-
na’s impressive national defense budget12
• A highly resource-intensive economy (e.g., until recently, China used four
times the amount of oil to advance its economic growth to a certain level
than did the United States, even though the United States is inefficient and
wasteful in how it uses oil), 13 with enormous and rapidly growing environmental damage being done in China as a result of such intensive re-
source use
• The need for major reform of an economic model in use in China for more
than three decades that is widely seen to have reached a point of diminish-
ing returns
That China’s leadership remains uncertain and fractious in how to deal
with these issues was underlined by the resort to state intervention (notably at odds with the announced economi
c reforms) to try to limit the damage from
the 2015 stock market sell-off and the negative consequences for Chinese
trade resulting from the upward valuation of the Chinese currency at that
time. And reports of the results of the leaders’ annual retreat at the seaside
resort Beidaihe in August 2015 said that Xi’s reform efforts were encounter-
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ing extraordinarily “fierce resistance.” 14 How much these domestic priorities preoccupy Chinese leaders and affect their policy toward America is not
known, but on balance they seem to incline Chinese leaders to avoid big
problems with the United States.
Strong Interdependence
The second set of constraints on tough Chinese measures against the United
States involves strong and ever-growing interdependence in US-China rela-
tions. As discussed in chapter 6, beginning at the turn of the century, each
government used engagement to build positive and cooperative ties and to
build interdependence and webs of relationships that had the effect of con-
straining the other power from taking actions that opposed its interests. As
noted in chapter 6, the policies of engagement pursued by the United States
and China toward one another featured respective “Gulliver strategies” that
were designed to tie down the aggressive, assertive, and other negative policy
tendencies of the other power through webs of interdependence in bilateral
and multilateral relationships. 15
The power of interdependence to constrain assertive and disruptive ac-
tions has limits. Nevertheless, China’s uncertain domestic situation seems
unprepared to absorb the shock of an abrupt shutdown of normal economic
interaction that might result from a confrontation with America. And both
sides have become increasingly aware of how their respective interests are
tied to the well-being and success of the other, thereby limiting the tendency
of the past to apply pressure on one another.
China’s Insecure Position and Recent Troubles in the Asia-Pacific
The third set of constraints on tough Chinese measures against the United
States involves China’s insecure position in the Asia-Pacific region. The