Asia After Trump

Apr 9, 2018 Joseph S. Nye, Jr.

The rise of China and the election of President Donald Trump have led many to believe that the American century is effectively over. But the United States still has important power advantages – both globally and in the Asia-Pacific region – that will last well beyond the next four or even eight years.

SINGAPORE – When the Trilateral Commission – a group of political and business leaders, journalists, and academics – met here recently, many expressed concern about the decline of American leadership in Asia. Every Asian country now trades more with China than with the United States, often by a margin of two to one. That concern has been exacerbated by President Donald Trump’s recent imposition of tariffs and expressions of contempt for multilateral institutions. A frequently heard question in Singapore: Will US leadership in Asia survive the Trump years?

History provides some perspective. In 1972, President Richard Nixon unilaterally imposed tariffs on America’s allies without warning, violated the framework of the International Monetary Fund, and pursued an unpopular war in Vietnam. Fear of terrorism was widespread, and experts expressed concern about the future of democracy.

The following year, David Rockefeller and Zbigniew Brzezinski created the Trilateral Commission, which meets once a year to discuss such problems. Contrary to conspiracy theories, the Commission has little power; but, like other informal channels of “track two” diplomacy, it allows private citizens to explore ways to manage thorny issues. The results can be found in its publications and on its website.

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0 Comments on this paragraph, 12 Comments on this article

Barry Rosenfeld Apr 15, 2018

Nye has built a career advocating "soft power," but also has never connected it to the base of hard power that rules international relations. People paid attention to US cinema and related industries, for example, only because US economic and military power gave the world the impression that the US also had a cultural and social system worth emulating. The US prevailed in setting up the Breton Woods - institutions because of its economic and military preponderance, not because of its soft power.

Now Nye invens a scenario that allows him to maintain a position that is contrary to the current facts of the world, one in which the HARD Power of China - and Russia - force others to pay attention to them. The reality of one-party rule that allows for long-term strategic thinking and policy implementation has not bee lost on US "allies," such as Poland, Turkey, Hungary, and Slovakia. What does the mess of short-term tactical political maneuvering, a manifestation of degenerate democracy, offer any country?

The relative decline of the US economy, the basis for US military power and for the smorgasbord of soft power initiatives, set in with the Clinton administration's policies to allow China to compete with the US, although it pursued mercantilism at the expense of US free trade policies. Nothing soft about China's use of hard economic power, soon to be followed by hard military power. Does Nye really believe that the Confucian Institutes, posing as NGOs, that China has set up throughout the world, would be of interest without the resurgence of Chinese hard power? If he does is is more than a fool, he is a danger.
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Peter Lintner Apr 11, 2018

All alleged US advantages are offset by one real disadvantage, the exploding debt levels. US federal debt reached 20 trillion on September.8.2017, it surpassed 21 trillion on March.15.2018, that is US added 1 trillion of debt in just 6 month. New world record? And all that with US economy at the top of the cycle. Just imagine the exploding debt levels when US enters a recession. A trillion here, a trillion there and pretty soon we are talking about some real money ....
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j. von Hettlingen Apr 11, 2018

Joseph S. Nye is bullish about his country’s international standing in the post-Trump America. He also doubts whether China will outdo the US in the coming years, citing the legendary Singaporean leader, Lee Kuan Yew, whose response to a question he asked “whether China would surpass the US.” The answer was “no.” As Lee put it, China can draw on a talent pool of 1.4 billion people, but the “openness” of the US not only inspires 7.5 billion, but can recombine them in a diverse culture that enhances creativity in a way that Chinese nationalism cannot. “If that openness survives, American leadership in Asia, and elsewhere, will most likely survive as well.”
The author attended the annual Meeting of the Trilateral Commission in Singapore last month, during which the role of US leadership in Asia, China’s influence in the region, and the US-China relationship were discussed. Trump’s withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership has played into Beijing’s hands. China has now increased its regional involvement considerably. Its “One belt, One road” initiative aims to link Asia, Africa and Europe, and most countries in between, by land and sea. China invests in infrastructure projects in countries, which are of strategical importance. The huge loans they borrow leave them vulnerable to China’s influence. Meanwhile Beijing is embroiled in territorial disputes with many countries in Asia. The ongoing tensions between China and the US on tariffs trigger fear of a trade war, which will devastate the global economy.
Amid the gloom and doom among the participants of the meeting, the author sought to convince them that the US will survive the Trump presidency and “recover its leadership... ..if it relearns the lessons of using power with others as well as over others.” He says after the damage inflicted by Trump, “the US will have to use its soft power to create networks and institutions that will allow it to cooperate with China, India, Japan, Europe, and others to deal with transnational problems.” In our world of interdependence countries need to tackle challenges like “monetary stability, climate change, terrorism, and cyber-crime “ together, as these issues can not be solved unilaterally by one country alone.
In the event of a two-term Trump tenure, the author points out where the US has an edge over China – demography, energy, technology, research and development, currency and geography – in the years to come.
Despite its 1.4 billion people, the US is “the only developed country expected to contribute to global population growth by 2050.” Thanks to the “shale revolution” America is – unlike the energy-hungry China – expected to be self-sufficient, and can rely on its own resources, turning from being an importer to an exporter. The US still leads in science and technology, as the Chinese do not have the kind of leading-edge know-how that US firms have. Moreover, of the top 20 universities in the world, “16 are in the US, while none are in China.”
Although the remminbi was added to the IMF SDR currency basket in 2016, the greenback is still the world’s most used currency. “Of the foreign reserves held by the world’s governments, just 1.1% are in renminbi, compared with 64% for the dollar.” The US is surrounded by oceans, facing no threat from Canada and Mexico. China shares borders with 14 countries, with “some of the most important, such as India, Japan, and Vietnam.”
The author says, despite rivalry, discord and resentments, “the US and China are not destined for war. Neither poses an existential threat to the other.” Both countries can manage their differences and “many conflicts” while not succumbing to “hysteria or fear,” as it was the case between Britain and Germany in 1900, when Britain, after being surpassed by Germany, feared its foe. Their mutual hostility led ultimately to World War I.
Apart from soft power, the US still has allies in many parts of the world, despite Trump’s attempt to scrap the decades long agreements. On the contrary China has no true allies and friends, even though its cash reserves in trillion dollars open the door to investment opportunities.
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Peter Schaeffer Apr 10, 2018

Most this is silly. The American Century is over. The Chinese Century has already started. China passed the U.S. in real GDP in 2014. In several key areas, China is astoundingly ahead of the U.S. The list is long.

China’s economy has already surpassed the U.S. by many measures (including total GDP as stated above). By some measures (steel production (10X), coal production (5X), cement production (30X), electricity 1.5X) China dwarfs the US.

China has 10X the population of Japan and 4X+ the population of the US. If China attains 50% of US per-capita GDP, China’s economy will be two times (+) larger than the US. No Chinese country (treating Singapore, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan as countries) has failed to achieve much more than 50% of US per-capita GDP. The actual numbers are Singapore (153%), Hong Kong (101%), Macau (165%), and Taiwan (84%).

Japan was never going to overtake the US because Japan’s population is so small. As stated above, China is already well ahead of the U.S.

China has some geographic issues to be sure. However, India probably isn’t one. The two countries don’t have a long and conflicted relationship (they did fight a brief war in 1962). The real point is that the Himalayas have separated China from India for many millennia and still do. By contrast, the Russian border is considerably more contentious and dangerous.

China has other advantages. The U.S. is torn by endless fratricidal racial/sexual/ethnic identity politics. China is not. Indeed, there is a derisive Chinese word for Western SJWs (Baizuo). The people who rule the U.S. (de facto) are laughed at in China.

To say the least, the U.S. is divided. President Trump has tried to address the failed economic relationship between the U.S. and China. You would think that even the people how disagree with his specific policies (tariffs), would agree that the U.S./Chinese relationship is a failure and must change. You would think…

Clearly, the prospects for U.S. global power in the 21st century are poor. However, they are better than Europe. Europe is doomed to utter irrelevance in the 21st century. The question for Europe is not power in the word, but minimal survival.
- Paul Friesen Apr 10, 2018
  
  I mostly agree, but would rather quibble with the statement "China has other advantages. The U.S. is torn by endless fratricidal racial/sexual/ethnic identity politics. China is not."
  
  China does have restive minorities. Tibetans and Uighurs are perhaps the best known. They are heavily repressed at present, and so are not a serious problem for the government, but they have the potential to become problems.
  - Peter Schaeffer Apr 10, 2018
    
    China certainly has Tibetans and Uighurs. However, 90+% of the Chinese people are Han. Historically, the Han population was united by a common written language, but divided by many spoken languages. By imposing Mandarin, the Chinese government has brought more unity to China than has existed at any point in the past. Of course, there is more to Chinese unity than the imposition of Mandarin. The current government has built vast highways, railways, airports, and networks to tie China together. Beyond all of the physical infrastructure, the current Chinese government has promoted (heavily) the idea of one Chinese nation. My sense of it, is that China will remain tightly unified for many years to come.
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Godfree Roberts Apr 9, 2018

Another tendentious attempt to maintain the fiction that the US is and will continue to be #1 when the facts suggest otherwise. A few of those facts:

Technology: China leads the world in all fields of civil engineering, Manufacturing, Supercomputing, Speech Recognition, Graphenics, Thorium power, Pebble Bed Reactors, Genomics, Thermal Power generation, Quantum Communication Networks, ASW Missiles, In-orbit Satellite Refueling, Passive Array Radar, Metamaterials, Hyperspectral Imaging, Nanotechnology, UHV Electricity transmission, Electric Vehicles, High Speed Rail, Sustainable Energy, Radiotelescopy, All fields of Sustainable Energy Research and Manufacturing, Hypersonic Space Weapons, Satellite Quantum Communications and quantum secure direct communications.

Research base: According to the Japan Science and Technology Agency, China now ranks as the most influential country in four of eight core scientific fields, tying with the U.S. The agency took the top 10% of the most referenced studies in each field, and determined the number of authors who were affiliated with the U.S., the U.K., Germany, France, China or Japan. China ranked first in computer science, mathematics, materials science and engineering. The U.S., on the other hand, led the way in physics, environmental and earth sciences, basic life science and clinical medicine. China is also rapidly catching up in physics, where the U.S. has long dominated. It is spending more than $6 billion to build the world's largest particle accelerator, which could put it at the forefront of particle physics. https://tinyurl.com/ydeqeqnb.

Geography: The US is isolated from the core of the planet and most of its inhabitants, who live on the Eurasian/African continents and which are rapidly becoming united behind China. The SCO alone unites half the world's population and four nuclear powers, for example.
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Paul Friesen Apr 9, 2018

I figure the days of the U.S. as top dog in the world are numbered. History since the industrial revolution is of countries industrializing in a serial fashion. One after the other, countries leave the group of poor, unindustialized countries and go through a process of rapid industrialization. After a few decades, they converge with the older industrialized countries in per capita GDP. If China has a per capita GDP comparable to the U.S., it will have around 3X the total GDP.

The only argument I have seen that makes sense to say this may not happen is the one that says that artificial intelligence could turn the whole thing on its head. That is a point. These two trends are in some sort of a race. But I still expect that China will soon outpace the U.S. In fact, it has already done so in many ways. It just does not throw its weight around as much as the U.S. - not yet anyway. It has yet to begin invading small countries on the other side of the globe and leaving them smoldering ruins. It has not yet triggered a global financial crisis through lax regulation of "financial innovation". Perhaps it cannot be a true world leader until it has done these things.
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lt lee Apr 9, 2018

Nye believes "the United States still has important power advantages – both globally and in the Asia-Pacific region – that will last well beyond the next four or even eight years" and longer. He lists the following advantages:

1. Demography: "the US is the only developed country expected to contribute to global population growth by 2050. "
2. Energy: "A decade ago, the US seemed hopelessly dependent on imported energy. Now the shale revolution has transformed it from an energy importer to an exporter,..."
3. Technology: "... the US remains the world leader in research, development, and commercialization of these technologies."
4. Research base: "According to a ranking by Shanghai Jiatong University, of the top 20 universities in the world, 16 are in the US, while none are in China."
5. Reserve currency: The dollar.
6. Geography: "... geographical advantages that China lacks."

The above are all true. However, the US has lost the future vis-a-vis China. When Joseph Nye talks about US "soft power", he mostly talks about people's willingness to bet on America's future. It reflects America's current hard power. But it also reflects people's imagination on what America would be. Power is about the present here and now. Imagination is about the future.

The same applies to China's rise. Hard power wise, China is still second to the US, a distant second, some will. But given China's history, i.e. long run track record, and size. Many are willing, (prematurely?), to bet on China's future.
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