Glimpse of a post-American world
By Nathan Gardels November 17 at 1:04 PM
Events this week on opposite sides of the planet offered a glimpse of what a post-American world might look like. In Bonn, Germany, nations of the world gathered together at a summit to chart the path ahead on fighting climate change through implementing the Paris accord, which U.S. President Donald Trump has rejected. At the APEC meeting in Danang, Vietnam, 11 Pacific Basin countries, led by Japan, decided to push ahead on a multilateral trade agreement that would substitute for the Trans-Pacific Partnership that the Trump administration has pulled out of.
A year into his presidency, Trump and his “America first” policies at home have yet to yield any significant benefits for the “left behind” he championed during his election campaign. Abroad, it appears that it is America itself that is being left behind.
“During President Donald Trump’s first official Asia tour,” Richard Javad Heydarian writes from Manila, “the precipitous erosion of America’s decades-long hegemony in the region has been painfully apparent.” Heydarian notes how the U.S. presence in Asia is becoming critically unbalanced. “While America continues to maintain a significant military edge over its closest rivals, it’s gradually losing the main battle that is defining this century: trade and investment,” he says. “Meanwhile, China is busy shaping the world in its own image with verve and vigor. In a surreal twist of events, a communist regime has now emerged as the unlikely guardian of globalization and multilateral diplomacy.”
Evaluating Trump’s 12-day Asia tour, former Australian Prime Minster Kevin Rudd also sees that America’s retreat means that other nations will set the agenda. “The U.S. has ceded regional economic leadership separately to China and Japan for the foreseeable future at least,” he writes. Inevitably, the economic fate of the region bleeds over into security issues. “There is also the question of how to manage the danger of a broader bifurcation of the region between Chinese and American spheres of influence,” Rudd warns. “Such a process is inherently destabilizing. Indeed, regional governments are feeling the pressure to choose.”
Rudd’s concern brings to mind a wise adage from Singapore’s former foreign minister George Yeo: “While Asian countries might value the U.S. as a friend, no one wants China as an enemy.” Rudd’s advice for escaping this dilemma is “to form a more resilient regional security architecture that escapes brittle, binary strategic choices.”
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