[The news comes after Mr. Obama’s U-turn on intervention in Syria
amid signs of a new American insularity, and as the revolt in the House of
Representatives left Asians puzzling over America’s messy democracy and
wondering if the United States would be able — or willing — to stand up to
China in a confrontation.]
By Jane Perlez
 |
| Picture courtesy: Bali, Indonesia |
This week, Mr. Xi became the first
foreigner to address the Indonesian Parliament, offering billions of dollars in
trade to the country that was Mr. Obama’s childhood home. Mr. Xi then moved on
to Malaysia, before preparing to attend two Asian summits that Mr. Obama had to
abandon because of the government shutdown.
With the cancellation of the
visits, the much-promoted but already anemic American “pivot” to Asia was
further undercut, leaving allies in the region increasingly doubtful the United
States will be a viable counterbalance to a rising China.
The news comes after Mr. Obama’s
U-turn on intervention in Syria amid signs of a new American insularity, and as
the revolt in the House of Representatives left Asians puzzling over America’s
messy democracy and wondering if the United States would be able — or willing —
to stand up to China in a confrontation.
That wariness, Asian officials and
analysts say, is giving China a new edge in the tug-of-war between the two
countries over influence in Asia, with the gravitational pull of China’s
economy increasingly difficult to resist.
“How can the United States be a
reliable partner when President Obama can’t get his own house in order?” asked
Richard Heydarian, a foreign policy adviser to the Philippine Congress and a
lecturer in international affairs at Ateneo de Manila University in Manila. “It
makes people wonder: is the United States really in the position to come to our
aid in the event of a military conflict.”
And in rare public criticism of the
United States by a senior Singaporean official, Bilahari Kausikan, the recently
retired permanent secretary of the Foreign Ministry, said in a speech in Hanoi
on Thursday that in the face of China’s challenge, Washington – and its ally,
Japan – were “not exerting sufficient countervailing economic influence.”
China’s mounting investments in
Southeast Asia — including the establishment of a $50 billion Chinese
infrastructure bank to rival banks influenced by the United States — are no
longer “just a matter of business” but “a core Chinese interest,” Mr. Kausikan
warned.
“Where economics goes, strategy
inevitably follows,” he said.
That is not to say the United
States will lose its standing in the region it has long dominated anytime soon.
Many Asian countries remain wary of China’s territorial ambitions and had
welcomed the “pivot” as a protection against extensive Chinese claims in the
South China and East China seas. The presence of tens of thousands of American
troops in Japan and South Korea, and of naval fleets roaming the Pacific, add
to that projection of power.
As if to bolster that point, the
American secretary of defense, Chuck Hagel, visited South Korea and Japan this
week, and the secretary of state, John Kerry, was in Japan, for talks to beef
up the American alliances with those two countries. In Japan, the United States
signed an agreement that allows the deployment of American drones there for the
first time and gives implicit backing to Japan’s slow but steady moves to
strengthen its once powerful military.
But even in Japan, doubts were
expressed about the willingness of the United States to back its longtime ally
in the event of a conflict between Japan and China over islands in the East
China Sea known as Diaoyu in China and Senkaku in Japan. The conservative
government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has already increased the military
budget, partly from fear that the United States would not come to its aid
despite its treaty obligations.
“The analogy is when Obama
initially tried to use military strikes against Syria, but then they didn’t
happen,” said Ken Jimbo, associate professor of international security at Keio
University in Tokyo. “What if North Korea is aggressive towards South Korea,
how would the Obama administration react? What about the Senkaku: if China is
assertive with its maritime forces would Washington provide any physical
commitment?”
In Seoul, Mr. Hagel, and the
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin E. Dempsey sat with
President Park Geun-hye this week at a dinner to celebrate the 60th anniversary
of the American-South Korean alliance this week, as the popular press hammered
the United States for a “new isolationism.”
In the mass circulation daily,
JoongAng Ilbo, a columnist, Kim Young-hie, wrote, “Washington’s primary
concerns have veered away from Asia, the Korean Peninsula and North Korea.” The
Obama administration’s policy toward North Korea was “strategic neglect,” Mr.
Kim said.
In Indonesia, where China has long
been viewed with suspicion, attitudes toward the Chinese have warmed, said
Rizal Sukma, executive director of the Center for Strategic and International
Studies.
“I would call Indonesia’s attitude
towards China now as ‘a display of growing comfort amid persistent ambiguity,’
” Mr. Sukma said. “On the one hand, it values economic opportunities offered by
China. On the other hand, Indonesia is still anxious about China’s long-term
intentions in East Asia.”
He added, “Like many other East
Asian countries, Indonesia has been in doubt regarding America’s ability to
sustain the pivot strategy, with the huge cuts in the defense budget over the
next five years.”
In his speech in Jakarta, Mr. Xi
said China expected to reach one trillion dollars of trade with the 10 members
of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations by 2020.
All countries in Asia, except the
Philippines, now count China as their chief trading partner, said Peter
Drysdale, an economist who heads the East Asia Forum at the Australian National
University in Canberra.
China’s trade with these nations
had grown so quickly in the last 10 years, overtaking the United States as many
countries prime trading partner, that China would only have to increase its
trade fourfold in order to reach that goal, he said.
“United States trade would have to
increase a tad more than fivefold to match that – a bit more of a stretch,” Mr.
Drysdale said.
By failing to show up at the Asia
Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting, which opens on the Indonesian island of
Bali on Monday, and by not attending the East Asia Summit in Brunei two days
later, Mr. Obama could be ceding Mr. Xi plenty of ground.
One of Mr. Obama’s goals at the
Bali summit was to push Asian countries invited by Washington to join the
Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact to finalize negotiations by the end of the
year. The administration has not invited China to join the 12-member group, and
China views it as a tool to contain it.
The pact — a major platform of Mr.
Obama’s Asian pivot because it serves as an argument that the new policy is not
only military but economic — is running into problems in some countries, particularly
Malaysia, where Mr. Obama was supposed to go next week.
With Mr. Obama in a battle with
House Republicans over fiscal problems, Asian leaders will now be asking
whether the president possesses the political capital to get the trade pact
through Congress, Asian officials said.
Without Mr. Obama in Bali, Mr. Xi
will be able to push a counter trade grouping favored by China, the Regional
Comprehensive Economic Partnership, which embraces a broader group of Asian
countries than the Pacific Partnership. The Regional Partnership does not
include the United States.
If showing up is more than half the
game, Mr. Xi will be highlighting Mr. Obama’s absence at the summits, some
Asians said.
“He is winning hearts and minds in
the right places,” said Endy Bayuni, senior editor of the Jakarta Post, a
national daily newspaper, of the Chinese leader. And, he said, even if he had
turned up in Bali Mr. Obama would have most likely been afforded a “less warm
reception.”
Reporting was
contributed by Martin Fackler in Tokyo, Choe Sang-Hun in Seoul, Joe Cochrane in
Jakarta and Floyd Whaley in the Philippines.
