The Rebalance After Obama

Where does the U.S. “Rebalance” to Asia go after the Obama administration?

That's a question U.S. allies, partners, and adversaries alike are asking in the region as they witness what is sure to go down in history as one of the most unusual U.S. general election cycles. With months left in office for Barack Obama, it's unclear if the continuity that Asian states came to expect from Washington over the past eight years will maintain momentum once he leaves office. Specifically, there are good reasons to expect that a win by either major party candidate -- the Democratic Party's nominee Hillary Clinton or the Republican Party candidate Donald J. Trump -- will result in a recalibration of U.S. strategic thinking about the Asia-Pacific.

Comparing these two candidates on Asia (or most other questions of foreign policy merit) is not a simple task. Clinton, a former secretary of state, was the Obama administration official who, in a 2011 Foreign Policy article, boldly noted that the United States "stands at a pivot point." The pivot to Asia became the energetic descriptor of what was meant to be a brusque turn eastward by Washington, following a swift end to a decade of adventurism in Afghanistan and nearly that much in Iraq.

The world, it turned out, had other plans. The Arab uprisings beginning in 2011 and the subsequent collapse of the ill-fated "reset" with Russia in 2014 ensured that Europe and the Middle East would continue to demand U.S. attention. The "pivot" by 2014 had almost fully been replaced with the language of the "rebalance," a noun suggesting a longer, more deliberate process. Clinton had, in the meantime, stepped out of Obama's cabinet.

Clinton, as secretary, pursued a nearly unprecedented level of diplomatic interaction with Asian states. One account of her travels found that neither her predecessor Condoleezza Rice nor her successor John Kerry (to date) traveled as regularly to the region. Clinton, in particular, was a frequent visitor to Southeast Asia. Seemingly prescient of the contemporary tensions in the East and South China Seas, Clinton originally drew a line in the sand for China at the 2010 ASEAN Regional Forum when she reasserted the U.S. policy of remaining neutral on the sovereignty of features in disputed waters while standing up for strategically central principles, including the freedom of navigation and overflight.

Clinton's opponent in the general election, by contrast, has never held elected office. Donald J. Trump's background as a real estate magnate, reality television star, and volatile billionaire hasn't quite translated into acerbic insight on U.S. Asia policy. Early in the primary stage of the election, Trump caught the attention of Asia analysts for his vitriol against China over trade imbalances. (Economists, meanwhile, raised concern over his proposals for protectionist tariffs, which earned comparisons to the Smoot-Hawley Tariff of 1930, right before the Great Depression.) Trump's anti-China rhetoric perhaps reached its apotheosis in May 2016 when he point blank said, "We can't continue to allow China to rape our country and that's what they're doing."

Trump, more so than any major party presidential nominee in recent memory, has thrust open the door on abandoning long-standing orthodoxies in U.S. foreign policy. U.S. allies across the Atlantic have recoiled in horror at Trump's insinuations that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's collective security commitments can be adjudicated on an ad hoc basis. In Asia, meanwhile, major U.S. allies, including Japan and South Korea, have had to endure Trump's criticism of their purported lack of fairness and commitment to the United States. Shortly after winning the nomination, Trump insinuated that should the United States come under attack, Japan would "sit home and watch Sony television." Recent revisions to U.S.-Japan defense guidelines and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's efforts toward military normalization were of little concern here. Trump has gone as far as to encourage Seoul and Tokyo to develop their own nuclear weapons and cast off the post-war assurances of extended deterrence under the U.S. nuclear umbrella.

While Hillary Clinton seems like the safer bet for U.S. partners and allies concerned about Washington meeting its obligations in the Pacific, some Asian commentators have expressed concern about her reputation as a relative foreign policy "hawk." Clinton, more so than risk- and cost-averse Obama, is seen as willing to apply the tools of U.S. hard power in the pursuit of strategic objectives.

A New York Times profile of her leadership during the 2011 intervention in Libya under the aegis of UN Security Council Resolution 1973 described her as wanting to be "caught trying" when crisis strikes. Asians might fear that a Clinton administration could fall into entanglements in the Middle East and Eastern Europe more easily than the Obama administration, leaving Asia policy as a relative afterthought. A corollary, of course, could be a more assertive U.S. hand in places like the South China Sea. For instance, while the Obama administration has yet to assert high seas freedoms around Chinese artificial islands, it's conceivable that Clinton may opt for the chance to send Beijing a stronger message.

For U.S. partners in Asia, while the thought of a Trump victory and a perpendicular shift in U.S. security policy is a source of great anxiety, the fact that neither candidate has endorsed the Trans-Pacific Partnership--the cornerstone of the Obama administration's trade agenda--is also worrisome. Trump has made lambasting the TPP a regular feature of his political speeches. He doesn't stop at the agreement itself; he's regularly criticized the very idea of free trade. Clinton, meanwhile, disavowed the TPP in its current form after advocating for it enthusiastically as secretary of state. Clinton, however, has mostly sought to avoid the topic of the TPP, rather than spending time bashing the Obama administration's trade policy.

Should the TPP falter, the rebalance will take a major blow. Obama administration officials have at times described the TPP as equally important as or even more important than any security initiatives to the future of U.S. influence in the Asia-Pacific. Obama, in appealing to U.S. lawmakers to favor the trade agreement, has said that should the TPP fail, China would fill the void with a trade agreement more favorable to its interests, such as the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) or the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP).

Seen from Asia, there's considerable reason to believe that the TPP may never enter into force. Given the provisions baked into the pact, without the U.S. Senate's imprimatur, the agreement can't enter into force--even if all other 11 signatories successfully ratify the TPP. Asian skepticism over TPP, however, may be misplaced. Several U.S. political analysts believe that Clinton has hedged her bets with the TPP and is likely to soften her position, ultimately calling for the pact's ratification should she triumph in November. A lot may depend on the extent of Clinton's victory and her approval ratings more broadly in the first days of her potential administration.

As this issue of The Diplomat goes to print, Donald Trump's general election chances appear to be dwindling considerably. Nationwide polling suggests a comfortable lead for Clinton, with traditionally Republican states like Georgia and Utah turning into surprise battlefield states in the 2016 race. Asian governments shouldn't get too complacent just yet, however. Trump's questioning of the two underlying functional themes of the U.S. rebalance to Asia--a more visible security footprint in favor of liberal international norms and the economic ruleset to match--has found resonance among his supporters, who chant "America First," yearning for retrenchment and isolationism.

The future of the rebalance past this administration remains deeply uncertain. Obama will travel to Laos and China for what may be his final Asia trip in September. American diplomacy, fortunately, is highly bureaucratized and the Obama administration has certainly done a lot to institutionalize high-level exchanges with old allies and new partners in Asia alike. Obama's possible successors may have a different read of Asia's primacy on the totem pole of U.S. foreign policy priorities, but only one of them threatens to dramatically upend America's status as a Pacific power. In the more likely outcome of a Clinton victory, it's quite possible that the unfinished work of the Obama-era rebalance will continue.