PREDICTING THE UNPREDICTABLE
What does Asia really know about Trump?
With no political track record to speak of, Donald Trump is confounding the analysts attempting to forecast what the US president will do next. Everyone is on a steep learning curve, but the early lessons are that the billionaire reality TV star has a penchant for throwing away the playbook, disdains multilateralism, and is absolutely determined to deliver on campaign promises that many observers thought were just slogans.
Pundits are also starting to see contradictions between some of Mr Trump’s words and deeds. While he lambasted China as a trade enemy, he grew cosy with Jack Ma, the billionaire founder of Alibaba, who came to visit him in the US. While he upset Beijing by flirting with Taiwan, Mr Trump picked Terry Branstad, governor of Iowa and a friend of Chinese President Xi Jinping, as the US ambassador to China. Mr Branstad reportedly was a very welcome choice in Beijing.
After just three weeks in office, it is almost impossible to know whether the 45th US president will be an innovative trailblazer or a disaster, and what that might mean for Asia.
“President Trump is proving that he can, he does and he will do. The point is that nobody knows what he is going to do. Then, there’s a problem because the price of not knowing is costly,” Kobsak Chutikul, a former Thai ambassador, told a recent forum at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand.
But some good news is emerging for old allies in Asia Pacific such as Thailand.
Tomorrow Adm Harry Harris, the Commander of the US Pacific Command, will launch the 36th Cobra Gold joint military exercises at U-tapao airbase in Chon Buri province. The drill has long been a symbol of cooperation between Thailand and the US, but recent exercises were scaled back to signal the previous administration’s disapproval of Thailand’s coup-installed regime.
“Cobra Gold this year is going to be the biggest with 62 media representatives registered to cover the event. That is a stark contrast from two years ago when the military drill did not get much attention because of the withering relationship between the US and Thailand,” said Kavi Chongkittavorn, an expert on Asean.
“Admiral Harris’s scheduled trip to Thailand will be closely watched,” Mr Kavi told a forum held by the Institute of Security and International Studies (ISIS) of Chulalongkorn University.
“It signals many diplomatic developments in the region, among them warming ties between the US and Thailand, one of the oldest alliances in the region.”
The relationship between the two nations dates back 200 years ago but turned distinctly frosty after the coup in May 2014. The preaching and hectoring about democracy by US diplomats rubbed salt into the wound.
Mr Kavi sees Mr Trump’s presidency as a clean break that will lead to a reboot in a more favourable direction. “Admiral Harris will be the highest-ranking US official to visit Thailand since the coup,” he noted.
Kerry Gershaneck, a distinguished visiting professor at Chulachomklao Royal Military Academy in Thailand, shared that optimism. He criticised former president Barack Obama’s much-touted pivot to Asia as being too soft and giving a pretext to China to gain geopolitical advantage. As Beijing strengthens alliances with the likes of Cambodia and even the Philippines, US influence in the region is waning. He believes Mr Trump will recalibrate foreign policy in the region and that Washington will challenge China’s illegitimate territorial claims in the South China Sea.
The fact that Mr Trump has never mentioned Asean does not mean the region is not on his radar. “Remember, he is businessman. He has invested in this region and he knows this region will become a growth engine,” said Mr Gershaneck, who also is the director for governmental and public relations for Pacific Forum/CSIS in Hawaii.
“Expect the unexpected from President Trump. But also expect great continuity of the US in Southeast Asia and greater interaction,” he said. Also expect less political intervention and less commentary on Thailand’s internal affairs. Unlike his election rival Hilary Clinton, Mr Trump is a fan of strongmen such as Vladimir Putin, and seems to have little interest in imposing US-style democracy and human rights playbooks on other countries.
Phil Robertson, deputy director for Asia with Human Rights Watch, believes the world can expect to see a new America, more divided inside yet appearing to the outside world to stand like a fortress. He also foresees a renewed Cold War atmosphere, this time between the US and China.
Mr Robertson believes Mr Trump will not place as high a priority on Asean as Mr Obama did. And while the new president is on record as believing torture is a good way to interrogate terror suspects, he may not be above using human rights as a tool to pressure China at some point.
“We will also not see the same attention given to civil rights as we got from Obama’s government,” he said. “The Cobra Gold military joint exercise sends a clear signal that [Thailand’s coup makers] are going to get away with it.”
Benign neglect might be a good for the new president to make friends with some of the totalitarians in Asean. But governments and business leaders are starting to worry about Mr Trump when it comes to trade.
Supavud Saicheua, the managing director of Phatra Securities, says he is worried about the future of multilateralism.
“That is a big contrast from the US since World War II, in which the US has been the architect of inclusive growth such as through the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF),” he said.
Under President Trump, bilateralism will be the name of the game, also quidpro-quo. The US has started laying the groundwork to negotiate bilateral free trade agreements with countries like Japan and South Korea. At the same time, Mr Trump has met executives from US pharmaceutical companies who lobbied about drug prices. The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which he has effectively killed, was never to their liking.
Bilateral deals are nothing new in international trade, but the negotiator is. Mr Trump is known as a brutal negotiator, who looks at every relationship as a transaction. After all of his bluster, bullying and threats, there are no win-win deals because his side always has to get more than the other.
“The risk is that after many bilateral agreements, there will be precedents and there will be templates. It is as if they will go to you and say, ‘Here is this Big Mac, eat it,’” said Mr Supavud.
Such an approach might be suitable for the rough-and-tumble business world in which Donald Trump once operated, or even the reality show he once hosted. But international politics is not a business transaction; it requires delicate strategy, subtlety and diplomacy, not iron-fisted horse-trading.
Keith Richburg, director of the Journalism and Media Studies Centre at Hong Kong University, also expects Mr Trump’s hardline and anti-radical Muslim rhetoric might alienate some Muslim countries in this region such as Malaysia and Indonesia.
Yet, the real test will be how the US deals with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un. The Obama administration repeatedly expressed a sense of urgency on North Korea, labelling it a top national security threat.
North Korea’s 33-year-old leader is expected to provoke Mr Trump. A few days before the US presidential inauguration, Pyongyang leaked the news about preparations for an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) test, said Mr Richburg, a former foreign correspondent with the Washington Post.
“We may never know how and when he will test a ballistic missile and we do not know how Mr Trump will respond. So North Korea will always be the really big question mark,” he said.
[The expanded Cobra Gold exercise] signals many diplomatic developments in the region, among them warming ties between the US and Thailand, one of the oldest alliances in the region” KAVI CHONGKITTAVORN Institute of Security and International Studies, Chulalongkorn University