The age of the United States
dominating in Asia is drawing to a close, and the president is leading the way
By JONATHAN MANTHORPE
Donald Trump’s shambolic and
divisive visit to Japan last weekend was yet another highlight in the growing
picture of America’s decline as a nation of power and influence in Asia.
For Washington’s competitors
and potential enemies, especially China, Trump’s four days in Japan were a huge
encouragement.
For the United States’ allies,
the visit was an even more intense wake-up call than past demonstrations that
Trump is an ignorant and untrustworthy partner.
More than that, the context of
the visit shows that the idea is now firmly rooted in Asia that Trump is only a
symptom of America’s relative decline. Even when the Trump nightmare has
passed, the growing internal social and conflicts fostering isolationism in the
US will continue.
On the road in Japan, Trump
gave an Oscar-worthy performance of a self-obsessed, but fundamentally insecure
fantasist whose only concern is to be seen as a winner.
Abe ahead of the game
Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo
Abe was well ahead of other world leaders in understanding that flattery could
get him everywhere with Trump. In the hours after Trump’s election in 2016, Abe
rushed to Trump Tower in New York to be the first to congratulate the incoming
president.
Abe continued the fawning in
this latest visit to Japan by Trump. The US leader was the first foreign head
of state to meet the new Japanese emperor as “guest of honor.” And Abe pandered
to Trump’s passion for having his name on things by facilitating the creation
of a new sumo wrestling prize called “The President’s Cup.”
But there has always been a
hint of contempt behind Abe’s courting of Trump. One can almost hear Japanese
officials telling Abe: “We know he’s a fool, but we need his support both in
trade and national security. So it is necessary to be nice to him, however
distasteful that may be.”
Trump has been a con artist
since boyhood. So he probably knows, even if only instinctively, he’s being
played by Abe.
Perhaps that is why Trump went
out of his way to be thoroughly rude to his host during the Japanese visit,
although one cannot ignore the view that Trump always acts as a bore without
any social graces.
Missiles ‘standard
stuff’
The American president
dismissed Abe’s concerns when North Korea conducted short-range missile tests
during the visit. Trump said the tests were “standard stuff” that did nothing
to undermine his “friendship” with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, or erode
his confidence that Pyongyang will give up its nuclear weapons.
But many credible analysts say
the enhanced capabilities of these weapons can penetrate even top-of-the-line
missile defense systems and are a real threat to Japan and South Korea.
In siding with Kim on this,
Trump not only dismissed his supposed ally Abe, but also his national security
advisor John Bolton, who publicly railed against the North Korean tests.
But the young North Korean
leader seems to have a better fix on how to manipulate Trump than do either Abe
or Bolton.
Ahead of Trump’s Japan visit,
North Korea’s state-controlled media attacked former Democrat Vice-President
Joe Biden as a “fool of low IQ.”
Biden is a leading contender
to be the Democrats’ candidate for the presidency against Trump in 2020. So in
one of his Twitter storms while in Japan, Trump embraced this apparent
endorsement by the Kim regime.
In a tweet last Sunday, Trump
said he had “smiled when he (Kim) called Swampman Joe Biden a low IQ
individual, & worse.”
Winning at all costs
Kim clearly understands that
ultimately Trump is only concerned about being seen as a winner at home in the
US. All the pomp and ceremony laid on by Abe over the emperor and the sumo
trophy are fine and dandy, but what really counts with Trump is being hailed as
a winner in New York.
Abe has done all he can to
butter up Trump, but the Japanese leader has understood, since well before the
arrival of the Trump regime, that the age of American dominance in Asia is
drawing to a close.
China overtook Japan as the
world’s second largest economy in 2010, and is set to take the top spot from
the US within a few years. More than that, Beijing has invested in a modernized
military that appears to be capable of projecting power across the Pacific and
Indian ocean regions to defend China’s economic and political interests.
In a hugely significant
gesture, Abe’s finale for the Trump tour was a visit to a major Japanese naval
base at Yokosuka. Here Trump was shown the Japanese warship Kaga, which
has hitherto been called a “destroyer.” It is equipped only with helicopters to
respond to humanitarian crises, such as the 2005 tsunami in Southeast Asia, and
other non-military activities.
However, the “destroyer” Kaga is,
in reality, an aircraft carrier, one of two possessed by the Japanese navy and
the largest warships in what is a potent maritime force.
The Kaga is making a
dramatic change of character and is being fitted out as a true aircraft
carrier. It will be equipped with American-made F35-B stealth fighters, part of
an order of 105 of the state-of-the-art US warplanes Japan is buying.
Responding to China
It is not only Japan that
feels compelled to respond to China’s growing naval might in an age when
Washington’s intervention at times of crisis is increasingly doubtful.
Tokyo’s military and political
co-operation with Australia and, particularly, India have grown in response to
Beijing’s imperial expansion.
New Delhi has modernized and
expanded its own naval forces as Beijing has moved into India’s neighborhood.
China has established civilian port facilities in Sri Lanka and Pakistan, but
made a major military statement in 2017 when it acquired a naval outpost in
Djibouti in the Horn of Africa.
This “string of pearls” is an
important element in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative.
This massive project aims to invest trillions of dollars modernizing the
transportation and associated infrastructures between China, its sources of raw
materials and its markets for manufactured goods in Asia, the Middle East,
Europe and Africa.
At the political level,
relations between Beijing and New Delhi are better now than they have been for
decades. On Wednesday, freshly re-elected Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi
announced he will try to extend this rapprochement by holding a second informal
summit with Chinese President Xi later this year.
However, military trust has
not yet caught up with the diplomatic advances, and probably never will.
Generals are paid to prepare against security disasters.
Earlier this year India
announced it has set up a fourth airbase on the Andaman and Nicobar Islands,
which facilitate monitoring Chinese naval activity in the approaches to the
choke point Straits of Malacca between Singapore and Indonesia.
India also plans to set up
military facilities in Mauritius and the Seychelles. These are to enhance its
own naval operations in the Indian Ocean and to prevent Beijing from using
those island nations as bases for its own ambitions.
Thus the balance and
construction of political, economic and military power in the Indo-Pacific is
changing almost by the day. But when future historians come to tell this story,
they may well point at Trump’s May visit to Japan as a milestone along that
road where the geography visibly changed.
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