Presence matters; leaders take global powers seriously who show up
By: Salman Rafi Sheikh
The chairman shuffles
President Donald Trump’s recent sprint across Southeast Asia – a flurry of reciprocal-trade announcements, a high-profile ceasefire ceremony between Thailand and Cambodia, and the promise of talks with Xi Jinping in South Korea – was intended to do one thing loudly: show that the US still matters in Asia.
With Trump dancing to performances in Malaysia and assuring the region “that the United States is with you 100 percent and [that] we intend to be a strong partner for many generations,” the optics and the rhetoric have been undeniable even if the trade terms negotiated are onerous. But the deeper question raised by the trip is structural rather than rhetorical: can this kind of transactional diplomacy reverse China’s deep economic lead in the region?
The empirical backdrop matters. The Lowy Institute’s 2025 Asia Power Index finds China to be Asia’s largest economic player, with the strongest economic relationships and broad investment networks across Southeast Asia. Most importantly, Beijing, even with its surveillance state and bullying tactics in the South China Sea, has overcome the US in terms of popularity. Although the Lowy Institute report shows China’s lead by a tiny margin of just 1 percent, China’s rise has been palpable, translating into a visible structural advantage measured in trade volume, infrastructure finance, and persistent supply-chain integration.
In short, China’s footprint in the region is not merely political theatre; it is baked into how Southeast Asian economies function. Plus, Beijing’s engagement is multilateral, which aligns with regional associations like Asean’s own largely regional and global outlook. The region is known more for thinking regionally than extra-regionally, a policy vision that China understands more than the US. It is for this lack of understanding that Trump, for instance, withdrew from the Trans-Pacific treaty in 2016 and why he didn’t attend the Asia Pacific Economic Forum (APEC) meeting in South Korea on this visit.
Still, Washington’s primary objective remains to tackle China. So what is Trump’s strategy? In practice, it has three visible strands: spectacle, leverage, and hedging. The spectacle is the president showing up – the photo ops, the signing ceremonies, the public mediation of a border ceasefire – that seeks to reassert the US presence after years when many in Asia felt Washington had been distracted. By brokering peace, even if more performance than reality, the drudgery having been accomplished by local players, Trump wants not just to win the Nobel Peace Prize next year, but he also wants to indicate Washington’s continued geopolitical relevance in the region.
No comments:
Post a Comment