US President Donald Trump didn\u2019t make it to this week\u2019s summit of Asian nations in Singapore, but his influence was still keenly felt among the leaders who gathered in the city.<\/p>\n
One prime minister warned that the trade war between Washington and Beijing could trigger a \u201cdomino effect\u201d of protectionist steps by other countries. Another fretted that the international order could splinter into rival blocs.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe most important and talked-about \u2026 leader, President Trump, is the only one that did not turn up,\u201d said Malcolm Cook, a senior fellow at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore.<\/p>\n
And yet, in Trump\u2019s absence, countries from South to East Asia pressed on with forging multilateral ties on trade and investment among themselves, including with China.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow the world is facing rising protectionism. It is all the more important for us to come together and respond to the complex world situation to uphold multilateralism and free trade,\u201d Li said on Thursday.<\/p>\n
The US president\u2019s lack of engagement with Asian nations came just days after a trip to France for World War One commemorations at which he appeared isolated from NATO allies.<\/p>\n
Simon Tay, chairman of the Singapore Institute of International Affairs, said Trump was inadvertently bringing Asian nations together.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot necessarily by design, but because he is not being a consistent and reassuring presence, and because his policies have tended to fracture the natural order that Asia is dependent upon,\u201d he said. \u201cAsians are trying to figure out what else they can do without relying on America too much.\u201d<\/p>\n
Xi\u2019s multi-billion-dollar plan, which aims to bolster a sprawling network of land and sea links with Asian neighbours and far beyond, is viewed with suspicion in Western capitals as an attempt to assert Chinese influence.<\/p>\n
Trump attended both the ASEAN and APEC meetings in 2017, and his decision to stay away this year has raised questions about Washington\u2019s commitment to a regional strategy to counter China.<\/p>\n
Vice President Mike Pence, who represented Trump in Singapore, told the meeting that United States\u2019 commitment to the Indo-Pacific is \u201csteadfast and enduring.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asia presents the Trump administration with some of its most pressing foreign policy challenges, including its strategic rivalry with China and efforts to persuade North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons programme.<\/p>\n
Washington has touted what it calls an \u201cIndo-Pacific\u201d strategy aimed at greater regional cooperation, notably with India, Australia and Japan, to counter China\u2019s influence, including in the disputed South China Sea, where it conducts naval patrols to challenge what it sees as Beijing\u2019s excessive territorial claims.<\/p>\n
Pence said on Thursday \u2013 without naming China \u2013 that there was no place for \u201cempire and aggression\u201d in the Indo-Pacific.<\/p>\n
His comments follow a major speech in October in which he flagged a tougher approach by Washington toward Beijing, accusing China of \u201cmalign\u201d efforts to undermine Trump and reckless military actions in the South China Sea.<\/p>\n
A U.S. State Department spokesman said: \u201cWe welcome contributions by China to regional development, so long as it adheres to the highest standards the people of the region demand. We are concerned by China\u2019s use of coercion, influence operations, and implied military threats to persuade other states to heed China\u2019s strategic agenda.\u201d<\/p>\n
Shortly before Pence spoke in Singapore, the U.S. Navy announced that two of its aircraft carriers with around 150 fighter jets were conducting warfare drills in the Philippine Sea, a show of force in waters south of China and within striking distance of North Korea.<\/p>\n
Pence told reporters in Singapore that he had been struck in conversations with world leaders by \u201cthe connection that President Trump has made\u201d with them through his vision for a free and open Indo-Pacific.<\/p>\n
However, analysts say that countries across Asia are waiting for the United States to put substance behind its Indo-Pacific rhetoric, and Trump\u2019s absence from the summits only served to heighten concerns among Southeast Asian states that Washington no longer has their back.<\/p>\n
Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said on Thursday it was \u201cvery desirable\u201d for ASEAN not to have to take sides with world powers, but there may come a time when it would \u201chave to choose one or the other.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some Southeast Asian nations may be quietly impressed by the United States\u2019 robust approach to Beijing on trade, intellectual property issues and the South China Sea, but others have made it clear they already see China\u2019s rise as inevitable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
US President Donald Trump didn\u2019t make it to this week\u2019s summit of Asian nations in Singapore, but his influence was still keenly felt among the leaders who gathered in the city. One prime minister warned that the trade war between Washington and Beijing could trigger a \u201cdomino effect\u201d of protectionist steps by other countries. Another […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":47389,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47388"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47388\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47390,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47388\/revisions\/47390"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}