Trump's unpredictable streak puts Asia on edge

Adm. Samuel Paparo, commander of all U.S. naval forces in the Indo-Pacific, was tongue-tied.

Addressing a conference of military and national security professionals in November, he stumbled and struggled to get out a sentence on how President-elect Trump’s unpredictability might be used for good in confronting the deepening alliance among China, Russia, Iran and North Korea.

“I really see a lot of continuity coming,” he managed to spit out, triggering laughs in the room.

Then, in an unusually casual move that downplayed the seriousness of the question, he high-fived his co-panelists, Australia’s chief of intelligence and the chief of Canada’s defense staff.

The episode, during the Halifax International Security Forum, demonstrated the hope-for-the-best attitude among U.S. officials and America’s allies despite uncertainty over whether progress made during the Biden administration to deepen relations with, and between, Indo-Pacific partners may get torn up by Trump’s desire to undo any Democratic-led initiatives.

There are fears Trump could fragment alliances that Biden created by focusing too much on bilateral and deal-making ties. Or, he may withdraw military and economic support in the region as a gesture of goodwill toward China’s autocratic president, Xi Jinping.

But Trump’s selection of Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) for secretary of State, and Rep. Mike Waltz (R-Fla.) as national security adviser, instills confidence in some skeptics of a balanced approach to the region.

The two men are viewed as experienced national security professionals with a track record of understanding threats posed by the Chinese Communist Party and supporting democratic allies, and that could help fulfill Trump’s promise to end wars while demonstrating “peace through strength” — the Reagan-era slogan that Trump has adopted.

“I allow myself a note of optimism on foreign policy in the next Trump administration,” Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.), the ranking member of the House Select Committee on Intelligence, said during a panel on the future of U.S.-China relations at the Brookings Institution last month.

“If that adds up to a fairly hawkish approach, but a skepticism of kinetic conflict, we might be all right.”

But Trump’s invitation to Xi to his inauguration, holding recent phone calls with the leader, and describing his cutting off the relationship with Xi during COVID as a “bridge too far,” suggests the president-elect may soften hardlines against Beijing’s military and economic aggression and coercion.

As an example of how badly the relationship soured during the pandemic, Trump green-lighted his State Department's determination that Xi had committed genocide against Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang on the last day of his first term in office.

“This is a very interesting move by Trump that fits very well with his practice of unpredictability. I don’t think anyone expected this,” Lily McElwee, deputy director and fellow in the Freeman Chair in China Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told CNN.

McElwee described the invite, which Xi is unlikely to accept, as a “very, very cheap carrot” that does not harm too badly U.S. interests.

Likewise, Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), the outgoing chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, muted his criticism.

“The only way that we can resolve differences is to meet with leaders that don't necessarily agree, in China's case, that we disagree with a lot of what they're doing,” he said. “So I think dialogue is important. I think it takes preparation, strategy, and there is a way in which you show visibility on those visits as to how important it is as well as to how appropriate it is.”

Trump’s invitation to Xi serves as another example that the president-elect does not stick to any predictable, diplomatic framework, compared to the Biden administration.

For example, Biden choreographed meetings with Xi at major global summits, giving the impression he was taking into account positions of key allies. In 2022, he met Xi on the sidelines of the G20 in Bali, Indonesia; in 2023, on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Council in California; and in 2024 at the APEC summit in Lima, Peru.

In contrast, Trump held his first major meeting with Xi at his Florida residence, Mar-a-Lago, early in his first term.

And he relished in personal meetings with North Korean dictator Kim Jung-un, holding major summits in Singapore in 2018 and Hanoi in 2019. While those failed to achieve Pyongyang’s denuclearization, Trump signaled few hard feelings by taking a shocking step out of South Korea’s demilitarized zone and into North Korea to shake Kim’s hand in 2019.

Trump’s preference for Kim, Xi and Russian President Vladimir Putin — saying in September he has “a very good relationship” with the alleged war criminal — has some experts pointing to democratic countries facing an existential threat absent U.S. support.

Ukraine is the bellwether test, where Trump has said Kyiv should probably prepare for a withdrawal of U.S. assistance. Meanwhile, Russia has relied on support from North Korea, China and Iran to carry out its war of aggression.

“This is a real coordinated military effort by four authoritarian countries to work together to overthrow a democracy,” said Francis Fukuyama, the senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute at Stanford University, during the university’s panel discussion in November.

“Trump is not going to save them.”

American democratic allies in Asia say repeatedly that Ukraine’s survival is a key deterrent against Xi’s aggressive ambitions in the Indo-Pacific, in particular as a safeguard for Taiwan, the democratically-governed island nation that Xi has called to reunify with by force if necessary.

The Biden administration has sought to deepen ties with democratic countries to strengthen that deterrence against Beijing, but it’s unclear how Trump will address those relationships given the fact Biden elevated, or created, some of these groupings. This includes a historic trilateral summit among the U.S., South Korea and Japan; elevating the Quad partnership to the leader level (U.S., Australia, India and Japan); and creating AUKUS, the military production partnership of the U.S., Australia and the U.K.

“Trump is going to demand for South Korea to pay more for their defense,” potentially straining the alliance with the U.S., Gi-Wook Shin, Korea Program Director with the Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford University, said on the November panel.

That could blow back on Seoul using political capital to engage with the U.S. and Japan — with historic grievances with Tokyo adding a barrier to cooperation, he added.

But with Rubio and Waltz on Trump’s team, supporters of these initiatives are projecting confidence. This is despite other people in Trump’s orbit who may push for antagonistic and combative relationships with partners.

“I think [Rubio] rejects the idea of withdrawing back into the United States,” Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Cambell said in discussion at the McCain Institute Washington Forum in December.

“I think some of those ties, some of them new and innovative ones, like AUKUS and the Quad, I think the hope is that they will be continued in a new administration.”

Putting the U.S. in a position of strength against China, and standing with allies and partners in the region, is a rare area of unity among Republicans and Democrats in Congress — and could serve to influence or guide Trump’s policy priorities.

Following a trip to Australia in August, Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), the past chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, called the AUKUS partnership critical to developing the military tools of the future, including those powered by artificial intelligence.

“Chairman Xi’s biggest concern is AUKUS,” he said, speaking to reporters in November, and highlighted Australia’s development of an underwater drone called Ghost Shark, which can deliver sea mines, torpedoes, drones and missiles.

“I asked, how many of these do you need to cover the Taiwan strait, probably six to eight,” he said, describing his briefings in Australia. “How much do they cost, $10 [million] to $20 million … my overall point is this is the future we’re headed.”

McCaul said he expects to push back if he feels Trump is headed in the wrong direction, coming from a place as a chairman emeritus and who is not expected to fall in line with the “Make America Great Again” and “America First” crowd.

“I think the chair is going to be bound by whatever comes out of the White House, and while I certainly support most of those ideas, I will have some freedom and flexibility to speak my own mind and try to influence and persuade people,” he said.

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