OCTOBER
2019

The Crisis of US Credibilityin East Asia
Hitoshi Tanaka, Senior Fellow, JCIET

he decision by the US Congress to open animpeachment inquiry into President Donald
Trump over his pressuring of Ukraine to investigate
former Vice President Joe Biden has brought renewed attention to the foreign policy of the Trump
presidency. This drama is playing out in parallel tothe ramping up of the 2020 US presidential campaign. It is thus an opportune moment to reflect on
the Trump administration’s impact on East Asia andthe urgent need to revitalize regional multilateral
cooperation—irrespective of whether the US public elects Mr. Trump to a second term or goes in another direction.
President Trump’s so-called “America First” approach is characterized by unilateralism, protectionism, and transactional deal making. This has served
to undermine the liberal international order that theUnited States worked so diligently to build in thepostwar era and to diminish the country’s global leadership. As such, US allies and partners have been losing confidence in the United States.
This growing crisis of credibility presents a serious challenge to East Asian regional stability. The
America First approach hinders the ability of theUnited States to manage and resolve key security issues in East Asia. The most critical of these issues—
denuclearization negotiations with North Korea,
contingency planning in case of an emergency scenario on the Korean Peninsula, and the managementof regional relations with China—can only be effectively addressed through intensive multilateral cooperation between the United States and its regionalpartners. For the sake of East Asia’s future shared security and prosperity, there is an urgent need for US
allies and partners to coordinate and deliver a consistent message to the United States to encourage it
to return to multilateralism and to begin the task ofrebuilding US credibility.

The Credibility Crisis

There are five key aspects of the Trump administration’s foreign policy that have precipitated the decline
in American leadership on the world stage: a decay
in US moral leadership, a retreat from multilateralism,
an embrace of unilateralism, an undermining of therules-based liberal international order, and a weakening of alliance relationships. Taken together, this represents a crisis for US leadership in East Asia.

OCTOBER 2019 | 2
US Moral Leadership

Throughout the postwar era, the United States hasunquestionably been the frontrunner among theworld’s economically advanced democracies. This US
position has been underpinned not just by its overwhelming hard military power but also by the soft
power of its moral leadership. This soft power bolsters
cooperation with US allies and partners and their
willingness to actively promote US leadership in areasof shared interest. However, under President Trump,
the United States is no longer seen by friends and allies, or by rivals, as a champion of democracy, humanrights, or free trade. This has served to embolden authoritarian regimes and to erode the liberal characterof the international order. Concerted cooperation isurgently needed among the economically advanced
democracies around Asia Pacific and the world to preserve the liberal international order.

Retreat from Multilateralism

consulting its allies, the Trump administration withdrew the United States from multilateral agreements
such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), theParis Agreement on climate change, and the Iran nuclear deal. From the outside, these withdrawals often
seem to be little more than a partisan rejection of
the achievements of President Trump’s predecessor,
President Barack Obama, rather than decisions basedon the contents of the agreements. This undermines
trust in US participation in future agreements, undercuts the future leadership role of the United States in
multilateral initiatives, and damages the US nationalinterest and shared regional and global interests. Even
more confounding is that, despite withdrawing fromthe TPP, the Trump administration has compelled
Japan to negotiate a bilateral trade deal so that theUnited States could gain TPP-like treatment. Putting
allies through such rigmarole simply to score domestic political points cannot help but to strain alliances.

The United States under President Trump has retreated from multilateralism. President Trump has
skipped multilateral meetings—including the 2017
East Asia Summit (EAS) in the Philippines, the2018 APEC summit in Papua New Guinea, and 2018
EAS in Singapore—raising doubts about the UScommitment to the region. When he has attended
multilateral summits, his presence has generally
been more disruptive rather than constructive, andUS leadership on shared concerns has been conspicuously absent.
At the 2019 G20 Summit in Osaka, the Trump administration was responsible for upending language
surrounding free trade and climate change in thejoint communiqué. The 2019 G7 Summit in Biarritz,France, avoided a communiqué entirely due to difficulties in forging a common positive message and instead settled for a one-page declaration. Traditionally,summit communiqués have been a mechanism toforge consensus, interpret rules, and show the direction of the international community in cooperating toaddress shared global challenges. This practice is nowat risk. The failure to conclude communiqués of serious substance sends a message to the world that theUnited States and its allies are divided.

Undermining the Rules

America First Unilateralism

Weakening Alliances

Under the banner of America First, the Trump administration has embraced unilateralism. Without

The Trump administration regularly violates the basic
principles of the liberal international order. Having declared himself a “tariff man,” President Trump is using
tariffs as a means of pressuring other countries to grant
the US concessions. This US abuse of the WTO’s national security exemption has spiraled into a trade war
with China. So far, the Trump administration has imposed tariffs on over US$360 billion worth of Chinese
goods while China has retaliated with over US$110 billion of tariffs on US goods. Trump’s tariffs have also
been aimed at allies, including steel and aluminum tariffs against Canada, Japan, Mexico, and the European
Union. The threat of tariffs against the Japanese automobile industry cast a shadow over negotiations forthe recently concluded US-Japan trade deal.
The undermining of the World Trade Organization(WTO) by the Trump administration also weakens
the rules-based trading system. Most notably, by using
its veto power to prevent new judges being appointed
to the WTO Appellate Body, the United States risks
paralyzing the entire WTO trade dispute settlement
and enforcement mechanism. As such, it also risks
ceding any ability to lead reforms of the WTO to update its rules for the 21st century.
The hub-and-spokes system of US military alliances with countries such as Australia, Japan, theOCTOBER 2019 | 3
Philippines, and South Korea has been based on
the credibility of the United States and its willingness to forward deploy US troops and underwrite
regional security. This has enabled the UnitedStates to maintain its power projection capability and protect its vital interests in this economically dynamic region. Since the end of the Cold
War, US allies have begun assuming greater rolesin the name of burden sharing. In addition to its
host-nation support, which covers the lion’s shareof US basing costs, Japan has revised the US-Japan
Defense Cooperation Guidelines in 1997 and 2015
to codify the roles of the Japan Self-Defense Forcesin the event of a regional crisis.
The Trump administration’s demands of allies, however, go beyond burden sharing. His callfor allies to pay the full cost of hosting US bases
is rooted in the false understanding that bases are
only for the benefit of host nations and fails torecognize the substantial benefits for the UnitedStates and the region of maintaining US forward
deployment. Moreover, US alliance relationships
have been further weakened by the lack of priorconsultation on key policy decisions that affectallies. While requesting like-minded countries patrol the Strait of Hormuz to protect commercial
vessels, President Trump risks destabilizing theMiddle East by demonizing Iran. Trump’s decision to abandon America’s Kurdish allies in Syria
will also not go unnoticed by other allies aroundthe world. Ultimately, the inability of the Trumpadministration to articulate a mutual interest todefend the East Asian region undercuts US allies’
confidence to cooperate with the United States.

Trump administration’s policy direction and urge
the United States to return to the path of exercising
its leadership through multilateralism.

Risking Instability in East Asia

Against the backdrop of a disengaged United States,
Japan–South Korea tensions have been allowed toescalate to the extent that they are undermining USJapan-ROK trilateral security cooperation. The tensions revolve around history and territory issues, thecancellation of the 2015 comfort women agreement,
the ROK Supreme Court decisions on forced laborers during World War II, Japan’s export restrictions
on chemicals used in semiconductors and smartphone displays, the downgrading of each other’s tradestatus, and South Korea’s decision not to renew theGeneral Security of Military Information Agreement(GSOMIA). Trilateral cooperation is imperative forcontingency planning vis-à-vis North Korea in case

The credibility crisis outlined above presents a serious challenge to stability in East Asia. The key
security challenges facing the region, namely denuclearizing North Korea, US-Japan-ROK trilateralcontingency planning vis-à-vis North Korea, andmanaging relations with China, all require intensive
multilateral cooperation. But as it sticks to unilateraland bilateral approaches to diplomacy, the Trumpadministration lacks a coherent Asia policy with thestrategic capacity to guide multilateral initiatives. Itis critical that US allies forge a coordinated messageon the damages wrought by the America First foreign policy as well as the unpredictable nature of theDenuclearizing North Korea

Critics of President Trump have admonished himfor meeting with and legitimizing North Koreanleader Kim Jong-un and worry that he will makea bad deal that allows North Korea to keep its nuclear weapons in some form. However, given thesevere lack of trust between North Korea and theUnited States, initiating negotiations with Kim
was a necessary and positive step forward as partof a longer journey to denuclearize North Korea.
Criticism of President Trump’s North Korea policy
would be better focused on the damage caused byhis unilateral approach.
While North Korea has stopped testing nuclear
weapons and long- and medium-range ballistic missiles, it has continued to test short-range ballistic missiles (SRBMs) and a suspected ­submarine-launchedballistic missile. Despite the fact that these tests
violate UN Security Council resolutions and serve
to develop North Korea’s capabilities to avoid regional missile defense systems, President Trump has
shrugged them off as unimportant. This negatively
impacts regional defense, leaving Japan and South
Korea particularly vulnerable. But there is no indication that the security impact on key US allies factors
into President Trump’s decision-­making process atall. This is despite the fact that these allies will be
critical to the success of any successful negotiations
with Pyongyang.

Trilateral Security Cooperation

OCTOBER 2019 | 4of an emergency situation on the Korean Peninsula.
This is especially necessary in terms of the role of US
military troops based in Japan and the rear-area andlogistics support role to be played by the Japan SelfDefense Forces. For this reason, the termination ofGSOMIA is especially damaging.
In the past, the United States was sensitive to thestate of Japan-ROK relations insofar as tensions impacted trilateral security cooperation. Yet now thatJapan–South Korea relations appear to have hit theirlowest point since the two countries normalized relations in 1965, the Trump administration has notshown any enduring interest in mitigating the tensions. Ultimately, it is the responsibility of Japan andSouth Korea to resolve their bilateral issues. Yet thelack of US concern or encouragement of trilateral cooperation is worrying.

Managing Relations with China

Managing regional relations with a rising China will
be a critical issue over the coming decades. In addition to the need to end the US-China trade war andthe damage it is inflicting on the global economy, careful, multilateral coordination is needed on a range ofissues, including China’s aggressive moves in the Eastand South China Seas, the Belt and Road Initiative,
and the competition for technological supremacy. Yet
US allies and partners do not see the world purely
through the lens of US-China relations and are anxious about the risks that US-China economic decoupling could entail.
Given Japan’s declining population, expanding
economic relations with China has been importantfor Japanese growth. For instance, Japan’s tourism
boom has been fueled by Chinese tourists whose
numbers grew from 1.3 million in 2013 to 8.3 million in 2018. Moreover, Japanese and Chinese businesses signed 52 memoranda of understanding forjoint development of infrastructure in third countries during Prime Minister Abe’s visit to Beijing inOctober 2018. The general trend in Japan continues
to be toward increased interdependence with China,
while being mindful of the strategic implications
and the need to diversify its economic and strategic ties with countries such as Australia, India, andSoutheast Asian nations.
There is a critical need for US allies and partners
around the region to engage in discussions about
managing relations with China. The United Statesshould be leading this conversation, but in order toreliably do so, it must move away from any notionof unilateral measures aimed at economic decoupling. A so-called G2 approach would also be a mistake given that it would risk dividing the world into
China-supporting and US-supporting blocs. Whatis needed is intensive consultations about how tobest manage the strategic risks of interdependencewith China in a way that preserves the liberal international order.
Under the current circumstances, Japan must pursue a dual engagement policy toward both China
and the United States. The nature of this engagement
will necessarily be different for each. With regard to
China, the policy objective is not to confront or contain it but to influence the process of its economic andpolitical evolution. As such, engagement with China
should take a functional approach across various areas
including trade, investment, the environment, energy,
and technological innovation. With an eye on future
US relations, Japan must continue to rigorously expand regional free trade arrangements in the hopethat the United States will realize the disadvantages of
its non-participation. In order for Japan to continue tofacilitate the US military presence in the region, it isessential that Japan continue to incrementally expand
its security role and develop the roles and missionsof the Self-Defense Forces under the 2015 security
legislation. A Northeast Asian confidence-building
mechanism must also be pursued, modelled on theSix-Party Talks.

■■■
The staggering decline in US leadership under theAmerica First approach to foreign policy has precipitated a crisis of credibility in US leadership.
This has had a destabilizing effect on East Asia as
the avenues for US allies and partners to engage theUnited States in multilateral cooperation have narrowed considerably.
There is an urgent need to rebuild US credibility—
for the sake both of the United States and of broader
regional stability—so that US allies and partners may
effectively work together once again to address theshared critical challenges facing the region. This will
require stronger and more effective arguments fromthe intellectual community in the United States. Itwill also require US allies to be frank with President

OCTOBER 2019 | 5Trump. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is perhaps best positioned among US allies to undertake
this impossible task given his cultivation of strong
personal ties with President Trump and deliver afrank wake-up call on behalf of the international community. The path to rebuilding strong and credible
US leadership in East Asia and globally is throughmultilateral cooperation and the preservation of theliberal international order.
Hitoshi Tanaka is a senior fellow at JCIE and chairmanof the Institute for International Strategy at the Japan
Research Institute, Ltd. He previously served as Japan’s
deputy minister for foreign affairs.

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East Asia regional issues from a Japanese perspective.
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