Michal Kolmaš & Šárka Kolmašová. Cambridge Review of International Affairs. Volume 32, Issue 1, February 2019.
Introduction
This article argues that Donald Trump’s Asian strategy hardly marks a radical transformation from Barack Obama’s ‘pivot to Asia’. This is because the ‘pivot to Asia’ never really existed. Although Obama was successful in building legitimacy for the strategy through international norms, he failed to translate his lofty rhetoric into practice. Much of his original pivot components (building a constructive relationship with China, coordinating with Asian allies and multilateralism in the Association of South East Asian Nations and the Trans-Pacific Partnership) has either failed or did not live up to expectations. Donald Trump was adamant that the Asian pivot was a bad strategy and that he would not follow it. But although he completely discarded Obama’s legitimization of the rebalance (as Trump speaks pragmatically and does not care about international norms), in actuality he has followed many of Obama’s policies, and even improved on some of them. That being said, Trump’s ‘pivot actions’ appear to be erratic, pragmatic short-term actions rather than a meticulously planned long-term strategy similar to Obama’s rebalance (which did not materialize). Thus, while Obama failed to transform the pivot into an effective strategy, neither is Trump’s effectiveness backed by a coherent Asian strategy.
In the last few decades, the Asia-Pacific region has attracted unprecedented attention because of three notable regional developments. First, some old—and in many respects cold—conflicts in the region have been revisited, primarily in the South China Sea, making Asia prone to relive what Aaron Friedberg (1994) called ‘Europe’s past’ (defined by power relations and security dilemmas.) Second, Asian states have gained substantial economic momentum, leading their frontrunner, China, to overtake all other world economies except the United States (US) in economic performance. Third, Asian states have become more confident in region-building. In the last two decades, a number of regional institutions have sprung up ranging from informal environmental fora to institutionalized attempts at security cooperation. These three developments have led many (Yahuda; Scobell and Harold) to argue that Washington’s position in the region is inevitably weakening.
The US response to the growing importance and assertiveness of these regional actors has been labelled as ‘the American pivot to Asia’ or ‘strategic rebalance’. This strategic reorientation was designed by Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton around 2010 and was to be implemented through bilateral (close coordination with allies and other countries in Asia and a constructive relationship with China) and multilateral (cooperation with Asian institutions such as the Association of South East Asian Nations [ASEAN] and the promotion of the Trans-Pacific Partnership [TPP]) components in a multilayered and multifaceted manner designed to rewrite the previous hub-and-spoke system (Donilon; also Harold, 86-87; Campbell).
Obama’s policy towards Asia was framed by the endorsement of these components, and his justification rested on the taken-for-granted mutual benefits of enhanced cooperation. The official discourse of his administration was consistent in legitimizing the foreign policy orientation to the Pacific. On the other hand, the effectiveness of its practical implementation is rather questionable, as most of the concrete strategies were limited to formal declarations. Donald Trump’s ascension to the presidency in 2016 raised the question of whether he would follow in Obama’s footsteps. On many occasions during his campaign, Trump made strong negative comments about American involvement in faraway areas. He questioned the ‘weak-kneed’ American stance towards the politically revisionist and economically predator-like China, an ‘ineffective’ policy towards North Korea and an ‘overly benevolent’ trade policy towards other Asian states that he claimed were taking advantage of the US.
Trump was simply not keen to continue with Obama’s pivot strategy. His belligerent and incoherent rhetoric has left many commentators asking what exactly the President’s strategy towards Asia is. Although Trump’s rhetoric clearly differs from Obama’s normative vocabulary, we believe that it would be wrong to assess Trump’s strategy towards Asia as representing a fundamental political transformation. We argue that the change has been limited to discursive framing, rather than practical political action. We will show that Obama’s policy was more successful in terms of building strong legitimation through referring to international norms and a liberal world order. Trump’s rhetoric is grounded in pragmatism and ad-hoc political manoeuvring, which makes his foreign policy inconsistent and unpredictable. Yet, both administrations have been ineffective in bringing about the original components of the pivot.
In the first section, we will introduce theoretical concepts, namely political legitimacy and different strategies of legitimization, including rationalization, reference to existing norms and pragmatic reasoning. These will be traced through a critical discourse analysis of Obama’s and Trump’s respective positions towards Asia in order to find out what particular strategies they have employed and why. In the second part of the analysis, we will move beyond the discourse and its effects to find out to what extent it has corresponded to actual policy-making steps. To do so, we focus on the two levels of coordination (bilateral and multilateral) which outline the structure of the comparative analysis. Finally, the concluding section attempts to answer the main question: To what extent have the two administrations been effective in getting closer to Asia?
Discursive Strategies of Legitimization
The analytical part is based on the concept of discourse according to Norman Fairclough, Ruth Wodak and Theo van Leeuwen, who revealed political power structures in various forms of communication. Discourse is not a mere text but a category interconnecting communicative events and social practices while constituting wider structures (Fairclough, 28). Critical discourse analysis (CDA) typically does not search for causality with respect to the changing social context and eternal process of social construction. It aims to reveal meaning of action hidden in discourse through detailed textual linguistic analysis followed by interpretation of intertextuality and identifying references to other existing discourses (Fairclough, 3; Fairclough and Wodak, 277). Fairclough (26) emphasized the orders of discourse as the key analytical step, as they represent argumentative strategies that mediate what is considered socially preferable.
While conducting a CDA, we focus on strategies of legitimization. These indicate what sources of legitimacy have been promoted by particular political actors and in a given political context. By ‘legitimization’ we mean a construction of positive, beneficial, ethical, understandable, necessary or otherwise acceptable action (van Dijk; van Leeuwen and Wodak). In a wider sense, it is a process that constitutes to what extent political actors, parties, organizations or governments will be perceived as justified holders and executors of political power (Weber; Rativoi). While this is an intentional and generally strategic action, there are various techniques by which legitimacy may be constructed, depending on the ideological or political preferences of the speakers. Any typology of legitimization strategies rests on various sources of legitimacy, ranging from legal authority to ethical standards, socially accepted norms and historical analogies (Van Leeuwen). These can be useful to identify discursive references to particular normative standards; however, they have limited capacity in assessing the actual logic of international cooperation. Therefore, we have synthesized the concept of legitimization with existing research on cooperation in international relations, using three different logics of actions, namely (i) rationalism, (ii) appropriateness and (iii) pragmatism.
Following the ‘logic of consequences’, the rationalist paradigm dominated by neoliberal institutionalism and neorealism has privileged material aspects and formal standards regulating state behaviour (Keohane and Martin; Jervis). Discursively, this approach is indicated by reference to rational interest in material gain—for instance, the accumulation of wealth or stronger defence capacities, whether on the national, regional or even systemic (community) level. For example, neoliberals argue that interlocking China within trade ties and international institutions will render conflict less likely, and thus the strategic goal of American foreign policy should be complemented by a more trade-oriented and institutional approach (Zoellick). On the other hand, neo-realists assume that there is great potential for conflict, given the changing distribution of power. The rise of China may very well lead to war during the ‘transition period’. when the power of China and the US is equal; as Mearsheimer stated: ‘China will try to dominate Asia the way the US dominates the Western Hemisphere’ (Mearsheimer). In order to prevent this, realists usually argue for a mixture of power and diplomatic measures designed to check China’s rise. For instance, John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt (also Brands, Feaver, Mearsheimer and Walt) argue that the US should deal with a rising China through direct containment and/or offshore balancing.
In contrast, the generation of social constructivists who boomed in the 1990s challenged the exclusive emphasis on calculation, while contributing significantly to the debate with an alternative ‘logic of appropriateness’ and the study of culture, norms and identities constituting (rather than simply controlling) state actions (March and Olsen; Checkel; Adler). Actors are motivated according to standards of appropriate behaviour, which have cemented into social practices and are therefore taken for granted. Legitimacy is then gained through reference to widely recognized norms, such as democracy and rule of law, or cultural identities and their proximity.
In the context of the US pivot to Asia, this motivation stresses American political culture, the perception of appropriate norms, values and the role of existing relations in American engagement in Asia. The pivot is understood as ‘reflecting more historical continuity than change in America’s strategic calculus’ (Harris; see also Lantis). Social constructivists stress the role of America’s ‘Pacific identity,’ which emerged from US engagement in the Asia-Pacific in the nineteenth century. The pivot is thus not depicted as a strategic, rational calculus, but rather as a symbolic and appropriate policy reflecting US commitment to regional stability and the country’s Asian allies.
Whereas rationalism and appropriateness differ as driving forces for action, they both shape stable and relatively predictable preferences. Pragmatism, on the other hand, is far less predictable. Pragmatist behaviour is not guided by a coherent set of norms or interests, but by ad-hoc political circumstances. The pragmatic approach is also more flexible, as it lacks any theoretical programme or set of assumptions, except the primacy of practical action (Hellmann, 639). Actions are driven by personal belief, which is based on experience, expectation and creative intelligence, rather than by any existing normative rules (Dewey, 41-47). Pragmatism simply privileges an agent’s point of view and legitimization through reference to the personal interpretation of what is the most desired political action in a given situation.
The typology serves our purpose in two respects. In differentiating between three logics of action, it enables one to read the discourse of two American administrations and understand why one is more consistent and predictable than the other. The analytical part goes beyond the categorization of discursive strategies and also aims to understand to what extent they correspond with the effectiveness of actual policy-making steps. For instance: Does a stronger (more persuasive) legitimization frame reflect more engagement and consequently more proactive implementation of the declared policies? Or does legitimization only serve its own purpose—meaning the actors just want to justify their political authority rather than achieve actual progress in cooperation?
We are particularly interested in the effectiveness of each administration’s approach to Asia, or, to frame it differently, the materialization of the rebalance strategy. In order to do so, we distinguish three indicators, which broadly correspond to the original five components of Obama’s rebalance. These indicators include (1) material investments and strengthening military presence, (2) solidifying existing ties and forming constructive relationships with others and (3) participation in functioning and comprehensive multilateral institutions. The first indicator denotes a significant increase in spending on America’s Asia strategy, including investment and military buildup and willingness to engage in conflict areas such as the South China Sea. The second indicator targets bilateral engagement in Asia directed at traditional allies as well as other Asian states. In order for these engagements to be understood as solidified, however, they have to be complemented by a practical political outcome rather than just a symbolic declaration. The third indicator points to the formation of or participation in a demanding regional organization, most notably the administration’s role in the construction of the TPP—one of the original components of Obama’s pivot—and its relation to ASEAN.
After this brief introduction of the research design, we will close the theoretical-methodological section by reflecting on some limitations of its scope. On the one hand, the wide-ranging approach to different logics of political action provides a useful framework for understanding the transition of US foreign policy from one president to another. On the other hand, we are not able (and did not intend to) generalize which logic would dominate and thus provide the best heuristic tool for political reasoning. Neither can we answer the major question of whether Obama or Trump has enacted a better foreign policy towards Asia. We have only focused on different legitimization frames, the corresponding logic of action and the interaction of discourse and practice in policy-making. In addition to that, while we focus on the discursive frames of legitimization, we do not have the ambition to reveal the most objective driving forces for Obama’s or Trump’s political actions. Their strategies of legitimization do not necessarily indicate the actual motivations of the respective administrations. In particular, we are aware of the importance of rational interest-based political decision-making, which has always shaped US foreign policy towards Asia. However, we want to stress that various administrations have various perceptions of what constitutes a legitimate policy.
Obama’s Narrative: Pivot as a Continuation of America’s ‘Pacific’ Identity
The most remarkable shift in Obama’s foreign policy towards Asia was the emphasis put on norms and values that were seen to be bringing greater prosperity, stability and security to the region. While he followed some of George W Bush’s initiatives, there was a visible discursive shift from neo-conservative democracy promotion towards partnership based on shared identity and mutual solidarity. Some experts assessed potential costs and benefits for the US and its traditional allies (Inboden), but Obama in his speeches never explicitly prioritized material gains or other profits for his nation alone and stressed multilateralism or global peace as inherent values to be protected.
The normative legitimization of America’s international engagement was first clearly visible in Obama’s 2010 National Security Strategy. The document speaks of recent political developments and sought to emphasize that the ‘burdens of a young century’ cannot fall on any one country’s shoulders. The provision of ‘world order’ should rest on just, fair and legitimate international cooperation: ‘We have had the foresight to act judiciously and to avoid acting alone’ (U.S. President’s Office, 3). The US, in Obama’s eyes, has not ‘succeeded by stepping outside the currents of international cooperation’, but rather by ‘steering those currents in the direction of liberty and justice, so that nations thrive by meeting their responsibilities and face consequences when they don’t’,
Obama used similar rhetoric when defining the pivot in his seminal speech to the Australian parliament in 2011. When legitimizing the rebalance, he stated, ‘We (the US) stand for an international order in which the rights and responsibilities of all nations and all people are upheld. Where international law and norms are enforced. Where commerce and freedom of navigation are not impeded. Where emerging powers contribute to regional security, and where disagreements are resolved peacefully’ (Obama). The perceived legitimacy of Obama’s rebalance strategy thus rests on the pivot’s normative base—that is, respect for international law, human rights and peaceful conflict resolution.
Similarly, in her Pacific Century article, Hillary Clinton wrote of the need to provide peace and security in Asia because it is ‘crucial to global progress’ and because this will further promote the integration of billions of people across the region into the global economy, social empowerment and people-to-people links.
Both Clinton and Obama legitimized the pivot by connecting it to the long-term American presence in Asia and a lengthy history of providing peace and stability. Clinton likened the pivot to America’s postwar reconstruction of Europe through the Marshall Plan; Obama drew on American links with Asian countries since the nineteenth century, stating,
The United States has been, and always will be, a Pacific nation. Asian immigrants helped build America, and millions of American families, including my own, cherish our ties to this region. From the bombing of Darwin to the liberation of Pacific islands, from the rice paddies of Southeast Asia to a cold Korean Peninsula, generations of Americans have served here, and died here—so democracies could take root; so economic miracles could lift hundreds of millions to prosperity. (Obama)
Obama defined a story of American identity that is inherently tied to Asia. In fact, he used the term ‘Pacific’ on 16 occasions during the Canberra speech of 2011. Similar statements can be observed in other speeches of Obama. The roots of this identity, according to Obama, can be found in qualities such as democracy and justice, which are common to all of humankind. Policies that promote them (such as the pivot) thus must be universally acceptable. ‘Do we move towards further integration, more justice, more peace? Or do we move towards disorder and conflict?’ (Obama). Although both Obama and Clinton spoke of American national interest in Asia’s prosperity, they always connected the interest to some normative value—Clinton spoke of American global leadership, which is ‘vital to Asia’s future’, while Obama mentioned the need to ‘responsibly meet the challenges of today’ in order to guarantee prosperity and security to all. The discourse is mostly structured around the logic of appropriateness, according to which cooperation is based on US identity-building vis-à-vis other regions. Rationalist-based legitimization would require more reference to US material profits, security guarantees or power accumulation, rather than global prosperity and solidarity among partners.
Trump’s Narrative: Belief and Disregard
Donald Trump’s narrative of Asian politics and America’s interest in the region has been much less predictable. In contrast to Obama, who tended to use positive qualities and norms, Trump has been much more critical and assertive. Throughout his presidential election campaign in 2016, Trump accused Asian nations of ‘taking advantage’ of the US through unfair trade policies and general reluctance to provide for their own security. For instance, Trump said that ‘Japan is killing us (the US)’ and that the US cannot ‘continue to allow China to rape our country and that’s what they are doing’ (CNN; Reuters).
China has been the primary target of Trump’s criticism. Although Trump’s advisers and experts have pointed out the ‘hazards’ in Trump’s threatening narrative towards China, Trump has repeatedly accused China of unfair practices and framed Beijing as posing a security threat to the US. ‘There are people who wish I wouldn’t refer to China as our enemy. But that’s exactly what they are,’ Trump wrote in his bestselling campaign manifesto, Great again: how to fix our crippled America (Trump). He accused China of militarizing the South China Sea, manipulating its currency and hampering attempts to rein in North Korea’s dictator, Kim Jong-un.
That being said, Trump’s discourse on China has not been entirely one-sided. He has repeatedly stated that American disputes with China are not entirely China’s fault. Beijing has merely exploited poorly executed agreements made by previous US administrations. His focus on other security disputes with China has not gone into detail, and, as in the case of Russia, he has repeatedly stressed his desire to live in peace with the people of China. This was perhaps most visible after the Mar-a-Lago meeting with the Chinese President, Xi Jinping, in April 2017. Trump made several remarks on how their mutual rapport had persuaded him to cooperate, claiming that he had ‘developed a very good chemistry with Xi Jinping’ (CNN). This chemistry, as Trump later added, was one of the reasons why good relations were forming between the two countries.
These remarks are indeed interesting. Contrary to Trump’s previous statements, in which China was depicted as a threat to American national interests, Trump’s post-Mar-a-Lago narrative has depicted the People’s Republic as a state that can help the US achieve its interests. China was no longer an enemy; China was a friend. Trump dropped many of his previously critical remarks regarding China’s economic policy in order not to hamper the emerging relationship with Xi.
Similarly, Trump has toned down his narrative on other Asian countries. Prior to the South Korean elections in 2017, in which a former Sunshine policy adviser, Moon Jae-in, was elected, Trump angered the South Koreans by suggesting that the country, an ally for over six decades, pay for an antimissile system built by the Americans to deter North Korea (New York Times). This was in line with his earlier (pre-election) comments when he stated that he would withdraw security support for South Korea and Japan if they did not pay. And yet, as the presidency unfolds, Trump has switched away from these campaign threats in favour of good diplomatic relations with the Koreans and Japanese. Perhaps this is one of the clearer lines of the Trump narrative. Trump has adopted a moderate approach to China, Japan and South Korea, as long as they aid him on matters that concern the US in Asia, notably the North Korean crisis. For instance, in September 2017, when China followed Trump in tough sanctions against North Korea, Trump called the move ‘very bold’ (see The Guardian).
Similar oscillations are visible in Trump’s approach to Southeast Asia. Contrary to Obama, who went to great lengths to establish partnerships with countries such as Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand, Trump has criticized these countries for taking advantage of Washington. He has failed to recognize Southeast as a coherent region and has criticized the Obama-proposed institutionalization of relations there through the TPP. However, during his official visit to Southeast Asia to attend an ASEAN meeting in November 2017, Trump actually made open and friendly remarks and suggestions, such as to mediate on the South China Sea and again hinted that the points of contention between the US and Southeast Asian states were largely the fault of previous administrations: ‘I don’t blame any of those countries. I blame the people we had representing us who didn’t know what they were doing because they should have never let that happen’ (White House).
Contrary to Obama, Trump’s legitimization of his Asian strategy rests largely on his personal beliefs and practical accomplishments, rather than on normative legitimacy or international acceptance. Trump seems to care very little about international appraisal of his policies, as long as he ‘believes in them’ or they prove to be effective. And yet his policy cannot be marked as a consistent realpolitik guided by power and wealth accumulation. The frequent U-turns in his position can hardly indicate rationalism based on calculation of national benefits. His rhetoric is based on pragmatic logic, which rests on given political circumstances and their subjective assessment through personal experience. While his statements have been criticized as inconsistent and incomprehensive, pragmatism provides a persuasive explanation of his rhetoric.
The Bilateral ‘Pivot’
The discursive interpretations of the rebalance policy illustrate that Obama was preoccupied with the international legitimacy of the pivot, which was, according to him, built on its normative qualities. Trump’s rhetoric has brought about a great change in this regard, the President being more interested in his opinion of the policy and its pragmatic effect than its international acceptance or normative value. Having established this difference, we now turn to the practical implementation of the presidents’ Asian strategies in order to find out whether the change has transcended the discursive level to practical policies. We will do so in two main sections (bilateral and multilateral) and by assessing the three particular indicators outlined above that encompass all five original pillars of the pivot.
When Obama announced the pivot in his Canberra speech in 2011, he claimed that, as a first step towards the rebalance, the US would deploy 2500 US Marines to Darwin and allocate 60 per cent of its Navy fleet to the Asia-Pacific. It took six years for the American government to, more or less, reach this goal. In 2017, Defense Secretary James Mattis finally announced that six out of ten Navy ships, 55 per cent of the Army and two-thirds of the fleet Marine forces had already been assigned to US Pacific Command and that, ‘soon, 60 per cent of overseas tactical aviation assets will be assigned to this theater’ (U.S. Department of Defense). Yet, it would be very misleading to attribute these outcomes to the pivot. In fact, by 2014, only 1150 Marines were transferred to Darwin and the full contingent was not due to be in place until 2017. The military ‘addition’ to the Pacific fleet was similarly contested.
Although, as Mattis mentioned, the US has almost reached the goals that Obama spoke about in his pivot legitimization, this is hardly a sign of a strengthening American presence, but rather one of disengagement from the Middle East. In fact, there have been virtually no additions to American presence in Asia. Obama’s words about strengthening American presence were uttered during his re-election bid. Obama pledged to cut down on military spending and return American troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, but in order to assert himself against Republican hawk candidates he shifted the focus to Asia, where so much future growth and insecurity could coexist. The notional 60 per cent of the forces assigned thus did not mean ‘strengthening presence’, but rather subtractions elsewhere. Moreover, because of recent developments in the Middle East, assurances that 60 per cent of the Navy would rebalance to the Pacific belied the fact that many of the vessels involved would be littoral combat ships and that the Pacific Fleet would be liable to provide assets for operations in the Persian Gulf (International Institute for Strategic Studies [IISS]).
Obama’s military strategy included some less robust, though diplomatically important, actions. The Obama administration started its first ever ‘two plus two’ dialogue with Japan, agreed to revise the Guidelines for US-Japan Defence Cooperation, signed a new Force Posture Agreement with Australia and completed a new Enhance Defence Cooperation Agreement with the Philippines. The US has also signed the Joint Vision Statement on Defence Relations with Vietnam, the ten-year Defence Framework Agreement with India and the Joint Statement on Comprehensive Defence Cooperation with Indonesia (Campbell, 25).
Obama further assured Japan that the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands come under the US-Japan defence treaty. Along with South Korea, Washington increased its forces on the Korean Peninsula in the aftermath of North Korean rocket launches in 2010. On his visit to Seoul in 2014, Obama agreed to delay wartime operational control (OPCON) over the South Korea armed forces, thus strengthening the deterrence potential in Northeast Asia. This deterrence potential was further enchanced by the 2016 Obama-Park agreement on the deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system to South Korea. Washington also stationed coastal battleships in Singapore and started negotiations on re-establishing permission to station ships in Subic Bay in the Philippines.
The US has been active in other Asian countries as well. Under the Obama administration, Washington significantly expanded ties with India that were originally set up under the George W Bush administration. Obama called India the US’s ‘natural ally’ and affirmed the strategic partnership in a 2012 Strategic Guidance document, stating, ‘The United States is also investing in a long-term strategic partnership with India to support its ability to be a regional economic anchor and provider of security in the broader Indian Ocean.’ The newly elected Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government raised the prospect for a stronger India in 2014 and took a stronger stance towards China and Pakistan. Obama made a historic visit to India to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi (and to attend India’s national Republic Day celebrations).
In practical terms, the partnership is marked by the renewal of the defence relationship. The new BJP government has made efforts to remove the liability issues that were blocking nuclear trade with the US and has expedited the Defence Technology and Trade Initiative, which will include co-production of the Raven unmanned aerial vehicle and reconnaissance modules for the C-130J and other low-end weapons. Although Russia will continue to be India’s main arms supplier, the US and India announced the Joint Strategic Vision for the Asia-Pacific and Indian Ocean Region, which will provide a roadmap for the partnership and for dealing with China’s encroachment in the South China Sea and East China Sea (Burgess, 369).
These developments are indeed notable. But it would be a simplification to attribute them solely to Obama’s pivot strategy. First, as discussed before, the military additions have remained significantly limited. Second, although Obama was active in promoting relations with Asian states, much of his diplomacy initiative was a mere continuation of existing American ties (such as the discussed Indian relationship), rather than a revolution as promoted by his pivot discourse. In fact, these developments can partly be seen as a reaction to a changing security situation in the Asia-Pacific. Under Xi Jinping, China has become more assertive in the South China Sea and East China Sea. Although one of the components of the rebalance was a ‘constructive relationship with China’, this was perhaps more visible before the launch of the pivot, as Nina Silove (46) has illustrated with reference to the US-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue of 2009. Outside this framework, Obama did much to contain China through building/strengthening alliances with Asian states (sometimes noted as ‘offshore balancing’ and ‘burden-sharing’, though Obama refrained from using these terms and spoke of ‘international rules and norms’; see Obama).
In fact, although Donald Trump has openly criticized both the pivot and Asian countries, he has approved of similar, if not stronger, military and diplomatic measures towards Asia. Trump has repeatedly criticized American engagement in faraway areas and pledged to cut down on diplomatic personnel. But he also believes that strengthening military presence is necessary to enhance American credibility in the world. According to Trump, reducing American military presence would encourage competitors such as China and Russia in their military buildup, and thus limit the possibilities of expanding American interests in the world.
In his first military budget, Trump proposed to increase the US Army by 50,000 troops, and the number of Marine Corps battalions from 23 to 36, increasing the current target of 182,000 to 200,000 active-duty Marines. He also planned for the US Air Force to increase the number of combat-ready tactical fighters by 100 to a total of 1200 and to vastly expand the US Navy by moving the target of ship procurement projections from 308 ships to 350 by the 2030s (Cullen, 10). Trump’s military expansion is particularly evident in Asia—in 2018, the Pentagon prepared to deploy several thousand Marines (within Marine Expeditionary Units) and strengthen naval activity in the East China Sea (CNBC). In this sense, then, Trump has been more active in fulfilling the material pivot indicator than Obama. That said, however, Trump has been less willing to engage China in the South China Sea, which has led to great uneasiness in some Southeast Asian states.
Although Trump’s initial isolationist discourse met with great dissatisfaction among Asian states, much of the anxiety has gradually dissolved. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was among the first foreign officials to be invited to Washington to meet the newly appointed president. Trump affirmed a long-standing security alliance with Japan and reiterated his support for Japan’s territorial struggles vis-à-vis China. Abe was further relieved by Trump’s tough policies directed at North Korea, after the latter’s missile tests in spring 2017, stating, ‘We would like to resort to diplomatic and peaceful means in resolving this situation and I think on this point, the US and Japan share the same views’ (CNBC). Trump’s strong stance on territorial disputes seems to go hand in hand with Abe’s attempt to reconsider Japan’s peace constitution and formulate a stronger Japanese role in regional security.
South Korea has similarly been a target of Trump’s criticism. Trump has threatened to terminate the US-South-Korean free trade agreement, which he called ‘horrible’, and demanded that South Koreans pay for the controversial THAAD system that the US deployed in May 2017 (Kim). The Korean media painted Trump as a ‘bully’ and questioned the effectiveness of Trump’s strong discourse towards North Korea. Much of Moon Jae-in’s campaign was run on anti-US sentiments, arguing for the re-evaluation of the THAAD system and a return towards the Sunshine policy of Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun. After his election, however, Moon softened his stance somewhat, when he gave an interview to the Washington Post in which he said that the US would remain at the core of South Korea’s security arrangements and that South Korea would coordinate its actions with Trump (Washington Post).
In Indonesia, Trump’s anti-Muslim remarks and policies met with dissatisfaction. This was further aggravated when Trump called for an investigation into a ‘trade imbalance’ between the US and 16 countries, including Indonesia. Trump had promised to crack down on ‘cheating foreign importers’ by signing two executive orders and gave 90 days for his administration to develop and implement a strategy for combating ‘violations of US trade and customs laws’ (Jakarta Post).
Trump’s discourse, however, has been much more critical than his practical policy towards Southeast Asia. In October 2017, Trump met with Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha, offering a resumption of diplomatic and economic relations after Prayut was shut out by Obama for seizing power in a coup d’état in 2014. Trump has also spoken to Malaysia’s Prime Minister Najib Razak, who was being investigated by the Obama Justice Department, to promote trade relations between the countries. Trump has also made significant advances in American relation with the Philippines. During his November 2017 trip to Southeast Asia, Trump met with President Rodrigo Duterte, who had been harshly criticized by Obama for his deadly war on drugs. Trump and Duterte shared their dissatisfaction with Obama’s rhetoric and forged a ‘warm and friendly’ relationship between ‘important allies’ (Bloomberg). In the meeting, Trump avoided discussing human rights issues and extrajudicial killings in order to focus on the economy and potential trade deals between the two countries.
To conclude, Obama—although successful and active in promoting defence cooperation with Asian states based on normative legitimization—did not manage to achieve significant cooperation (a constructive relationship with China and strengthened bonds with Asian allies) or practical outcomes (the strengthening of American military presence in Asia and taking on a larger role in regional security) that could be understood as a true legacy of the pivot. Instead, he promoted a set of offshore balancing policies and legitimacy-building that attempted to restore the status of the US as a regional leader. Trump, on the other hand, disregarded the pivot and normative legitimacy of American actions in Asia, but strengthened American military presence in the region nonetheless. Trump has also revisited a set of ties with Asian states (including the aforementioned Philippines, Thailand and Malaysia) which were severed under Obama because of ideological and human rights concerns. On the other hand, this diplomatic initiative can hardly be understood as a striking change to America’s Asia policy. The military buildup is part of his general military strategy rather than a special measure directed solely at Asia, and Trump’s diplomatic measures simply reconfirm the existence of the hub-and-spoke system, with which he seems to be content.
The Multilateral ‘Pivot’
Perhaps the most visible push for regional cooperation based on normative grounds can be found in Obama’s multilateral initiatives, especially in the US relationship with ASEAN. Whereas George W Bush was reluctant to cooperate with ASEAN (as signified by his skipping the US-ASEAN summit of 2007, which celebrated 30 years of US-ASEAN relations), Hillary Clinton visited the Asia-Pacific region on at least eight separate occasions in 2009 and 2010 alone (Raine and Le Miere, 161). Among these visits was a trip to the ASEAN Regional Forum Summit, where she delivered a speech declaring the ‘openness of the South China Sea’ to be an item of US national interest, arguing for a special US commitment to navigation freedom and security (New York Times).
Obama also regularly participated in US-ASEAN meetings, including the first US-ASEAN leaders’ meeting in Singapore in 2009. During the same year, Washington strengthened cooperation with the institution by signing the ASEAN Treaty of Amity and Cooperation and assigning an ambassador to the organization. By signing the treaty, Obama paved the way to access to the East Asian Summit (EAS), which took place in 2011. High-ranking US representatives have been attendees to the EAS ever since, calling for stronger regionalism and possible multilateral security architecture. Moreover, in 2015, US Defence Secretary Ash Carter delivered an address at the Shangri-La Dialogue in which he articulated an American vision for a stronger regional security architecture that would build on Washington’s already robust efforts in the maritime security domain in Southeast Asia over the previous few years.
In the economic field, Obama was a stern promoter of liberal economic multilateralism in Asia, especially in states that have been strongly linked with the developmental model of economic growth. The TPP, which was legitimized as the guarantee of freedom and prosperity across the Pacific basin, was the principal instrument of the US economic dimension of the pivot.
But it would be misleading to argue that Obama’s ASEAN and TPP initiatives are the soul legacy of the pivot strategy. Obama’s push for the TPP, although presented as a lynchpin of regional freedom and prosperity, must be understood in the context of Washington’s dissatisfaction with trade imbalances and the shortcomings of the liberal trading system. The TPP and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) were both designed to promote liberalism in countries curbing trade with various barriers. Obama envisioned both of the organizations as a platform for new and improved economic coordination in the world based on Western liberalism. It is fair to say that Obama went to great lengths to promote the TPP’s formation (in a push to go beyond the hub-and-spoke system), but, since the organization was never ratified in the US and Donald Trump eventually choose to withdraw from it, we can hardly speak of it as a major achievement in Obama’s pivot strategy.
Obama’s multilateral strategy to Asia was also negatively received by China. Already worried by the Obama-Pak agreement to allocate the THAAD system to South Korea and Obama’s pledge to bring 60 per cent of the US Navy to Asia, China felt uneasy about the American promotion of the TPP. Beijing understood the TPP as Obama’s tool of containment and instead called for a more open and less demanding Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP; see Kolmaš).
Second, despite Obama’s lofty rhetoric and symbolic actions such as participation in ASEAN meetings and the EAS, the President’s actions had little effect on the actual security situation in Asia. Obama was unable to stop North Korea from exercising two nuclear tests in 2016. Obama also failed to curb China’s island-building programme and to stop China from assertive and provocative actions in the East China Sea and South China Sea. Moreover, Obama was unable to push the US to ratify the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) treaty, which would have shown that Washington strongly upholds the notions of international law it tries so hard to promote. Defence Secretary Leon Panetta noted that the US had undercut its credibility in Asia ‘just as we’re pushing for a rules-based order in the region and the peaceful resolution of maritime and territorial disputes in the South China Sea … How can we argue that other nations must abide by international rules, when we haven’t officially accepted those rules?’ (US Department of Defense).
Obama’s ineffectiveness led some Asian states to question American security guarantees and to take measures into their own hands. Japan adopted new security laws that reinterpreted the 1947 Constitution. Filipino President Duterte said that ‘China was the stronger partner’ and ceased maritime cooperation with the US (The Guardian).
In contrast to Obama, Donald Trump was an open critic of most multilateral initiatives and trade treaties around the globe, arguing that these steal jobs away from Americans. It was therefore no surprise when Trump announced the formal scrapping of the TPP in January 2017, saying that it was a ‘fraud’ and ‘one of the worst trade deals’ in American history (The Guardian). Instead of a multilateral trade pact, the US administration proposed (or merely planned) a series of free trade agreements. The Trump administration has, for instance, offered to set up a free trade agreement with Japan. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross discussed this possibility during his visit to Tokyo in April 2017 (as a part of the so-called US-Japan economic dialogue headed by Mike Pence and former Japanese Prime Minister Aso Taro). Although Aso started negotiations on the free trade agreement, Japan was generally reluctant to withdraw from the TPP, which it understood as the guarantee of American presence in Asia and in which Tokyo had vested enormous political capital.
Although Trump was initially strongly critical of the TPP, he eventually changed his tune. Attending the World Economic Forum in Davos in January 2018, Trump stated that if the TPP was renegotiated, American participation could be back on the table. In April of the same year, Trump reportedly asked his economic representatives Larry Kudlow and Robert Lighthizer to review re-entry into the TPP (The Guardian). His remarks came amidst prolonged and heated trade negotiations with China over its protectionist policies. In the President’s eyes, rejoining the TPP would help the US get more leverage in dealing with China and could persuade the nation to stop subsidizing so many of its industries. While this expectation may perhaps prove correct, this U-turn is hardly a long-term and coherent Asia strategy, but rather short-term pragmatic thinking.
Trump’s pragmatic re-evaluation of the TPP is understandable within Trump’s re-evaluation of other multilateral organizations in Asia. During his campaign and first year of presidency, Trump was very critical of ASEAN and multilateral cooperation in general. Trump’s friendly attitude towards China left many Southeast Asian leaders wondering if they were facing abandonment by the US, especially given Obama administration’s engagement of South East. Trump has been very slow in appointing diplomats to Asia. It took him more than a year to appoint an assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs. Other key posts—such as State Department officials covering global issues, an ambassador to ASEAN and some ambassadors to individual Southeast Asian countries remained vacant or temporarily filled well into the first year of Trump’s presidency (see Li; to compare with Obama’s personnel policy, see Campbell). Trump has also failed to appoint staff to the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Millennium Challenge Corporation, aid agencies important to Southeast Asian states.
Over the course of the Trump presidency, however, the White House has adopted a more conciliatory approach towards regional multilateral initiatives (most notably ASEAN and the TPP), as became apparent during Trump’s first official visit to Southeast Asia in November 2017. At an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting in November, Trump called the ‘Indo-Pacific’ region ‘nothing short of miraculous’ and offered renewed friendship with America, making it clear that this ‘friendship’ should be based on fair trade practices and reciprocity (Deutsche Welle). A few days later in Vietnam, Trump suggested ASEAN could mediate disputes in the South China Sea. Although it met with a cool response (Philippine Foreign Affairs Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano said that ASEAN cannot just ‘give an instant reply to Trump’s generous offer’), the statement marked the first time during his Asia trip that Trump had acknowledged issues in the South China Sea. During his visit to China a few days earlier, Trump refrained from mentioning the problem, leading ASEAN states to again question Trump’s commitment to SEA. However, Trump’s words on the issue gave ASEAN leverage in dealing with China.
Southeast Asian states were further assured of Trump’s engagement in the South China Sea by his National Security Strategy (NSS) issued in late 2017. The strategy offers a strong stance on China, claiming that Beijing is a ‘revisionist power’ that ‘wants to shape a world antithetical to US values and interests’ (U.S. President’s Office, 25). The strategy also softens Trump´s earlier abandonment of Southeast Asia. It proposes bilateral trade agreements with Southeast Asian states, subscribes to protecting freedom of navigation and argues for ‘competitive diplomacy’ championing upgrades to US diplomatic facilities and coalitions. However, in practice—outside American naval exercises in May 2017 and the NSS rhetoric—Trump’s position towards China’s claims in the South China Sea remains muted and calm. The administration has declined several requests from the military to carry out naval patrols in the disputed waterway (De Luce and Johnson). The aforementioned exercise in May 2017, when a US Navy destroyer sailed within 20 kilometres of the disputed Mischief Reef in the Spratly Island chain, can be better understood as a demonstration of American intent to uphold the principle of freedom of navigation in advance of the Shangri-la dialogue in Singapore, which was scheduled for June 2017.
Arguably, Trump’s muted policy and rhetoric towards the South China Sea dispute is due to the fact that the White House seeks Chinese help on the North Korean issue. Washington’s lukewarm attitude to the dispute shows that Trump’s willingness to contain China, as strategic realists have proposed, is not entirely committed. Trump’s pragmatic policies make use of a rising China to promote American interests in Asia. Similar pragmatism can easily be found in Trump’s approach to the TPP. Contrary to Trump, Obama’s multilateral approach to Asia was based on a norm-based vocabulary calling for freedom, democracy, rule of law and increased cooperation. Obama was very active in promoting and cooperating in institutions throughout Asia and initiated a set of agreements to foster American leadership there. However, the lofty rhetoric and multilateral initiative only marginally translated into practical policies and did not do much to ease tensions in East and Southeast Asia.
Conclusion: The Strategy that Never Existed
Analyses of the 44th and 45th US presidents’ normative commitments and rhetoric could suggest that while Barack Obama genuinely cared about the rebalance strategy, Donald Trump completely disregarded it. However, as we have argued in this article, neither of the two have conducted policies that reflect the original categories of the rebalance strategy.
Obama endorsed the pivot in his idealistic and normative discourse and succeeded in promoting the legitimacy of the strategy to a global audience. He regularly promoted the pivot in multilateral fora and through discussions with regional leaders. But Obama’s practical policies failed to live up to his exalted discourse. Obama was unable to combine support for Asian states and their multilateral settings with his containment policies towards China. His normative legitimization alienated some regional leaders including Duterte, Prayut and Najib, and his actions in the South China Sea failed to prevent China from conducting assertive policies. Obama’s push for greater military presence in Asia did not materialize.
Trump initially had no interest in Obama’s pivot strategy. He criticized Obama’s policies towards Asia and Obama’s multilateral initiatives leading to the formation of the TPP, from which he withdrew as one of his first acts in power. He believed that Asian countries were taking advantage of the US and that they should play a stronger role in maintaining their security. But while Trump was adamant that Obama’s strategy was the wrong one, he failed to provide his own. Much of Trump’s policy towards Asia is guided by immediate pragmatic interests and personal beliefs. While this disregard for norms in favour of pragmatic gain has given Trump the chance to thaw some frozen relations, it can hardly be seen as a coherent policy towards Asia which subscribes to the original pivot categories.
Although Obama and Trump have been guided by completely different motivations, their strategies seem to have remained more or less similarly built around a hub-and-spoke system and fundamental alliances. Obama may have been more open to the normative idea of multilateralism, while Trump is obsessed with pragmatic benefits and bilateralism; however, the general policy line is roughly the same. This is perhaps the greatest testament to our argument that the pivot has never really materialized.