Well, look, because of the Chinese challenge, Vietnam, India, Australia Japan have all been dramatically intensifying their own bilateral and multilateral relations with each other, to form a kind of emerging Asian power web to balance against China’s growth.
But without an American director for this emerging Asian power web, it doesn’t really add up to much – you need an engaged Washington that has a big idea for Asia, as big as Belt and Road, that’s about free trade, military alliances, and about democratic trending, even if each of these countries aren’t all democratic. And when Trump tore up the Trans Pacific Partnership he threw away that American big idea and left the stage to China’s Belt and Road.
I was not happy that Trump rejected the TPP. Although I'm not sure it could have passed the Senate process as it was negotiated. So blaming Trump for killing something that was dead on arrival doesn't make sense. It would be nice to have an alternative. Three years later we don't have that. And that is on Trump.
But with industrial production for the American market moving from China to other countries in the region, doesn't that provide those nations with trade reason to oppose China and side with America without a new TPP?
And for countries that border China or are too close to China, isn't the real variable American military power that makes resisting China an option rather than futile?
The idea that the neighbors of China will band together to oppose China is the wrong issue because without America they cannot really resist China with interior lines that can pick off one member of that hypothetical coalition without much of the rest being able to intervene. India and Japan have significant power. But their ability to project that power much beyond their own backyard is limited. Banding together isn't that important, practically speaking.
Raw power math that calculates whether an alliance of regional countries can resist China is not enough, as I wrote in 2010:
But for all those neighbors to be willing to stand up to China's power, they have to be confident that [America has] the power and determination to use it against China and to be confident that other potential partners won't stop absorbing some of China's power by making deals with China to ally with Peking. If these countries don't have confidence that we will help them, they'll cut a deal with China to protect themselves and turn away from us.
So we have to be careful about maintaining our power in the Pacific and maintaining our reputation for supporting allies and fighting until we win. If any nation, like Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Australia, or Vietnam think that they can't count on us for effective military support, they'll withdraw from the potential balancing coalition against China. And once one country defects, the power potential arrayed against China will drop enough to perhaps push another country to defect and align with China rather than with us.
America's military power and geographic reach are the factor that can weave the separate power capabilities of nations around the perimeter of China into an effective proto-alliance.
Our absence from the region will allow China to divide and conquer.
