Asia adrift, Asia alone

Today, barely a decade after President Barack Obama announced a “pivot” to Asia, America’s commitment to the region is as tenuous as it was in 1975. True, formal mutual defense treaties with Japan, Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, and South Korea are still in force, and the US retains bases, and basing rights, in many other places, including Singapore. But relations between the Trump administration and the governments of Asia’s democracies are a far cry from what one typically finds between long-standing allies. Instead, they more closely resemble those seen in commercial transactions, with shared values and security concerns counting for nothing.

Meanwhile, the USSR’s Pacific fleet, then part of the world’s second-largest navy, took up residence at the giant American-built naval base at Cam Ranh Bay, on Vietnam’s southeast coast. Basing rights in Vietnam allowed Leonid Brezhnev’s Kremlin to project Soviet power far into the Pacific, directly imperiling the sea lanes that brought imported Middle Eastern oil and gas to Japan and South Korea at a critical stage in their dash for growth.

After holding its last joint exercises in 1976, the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization—the central institutional component of the US-designed regional security structure—was dissolved the following year. The message for Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand—all of which had provided support for America’s war effort in Vietnam—was clear: You’re on your own.

Fortunately for that generation, China did not yet pose the threat that it does today. It was still trapped in the policy madness of Chairman Mao Zedong, whose Cultural Revolution had left deep and long-lasting wounds. US President Richard Nixon’s opening to China (which came as Mao was winding down the Cultural Revolution) did represent a strategic breakthrough; but the US goal was to counter Soviet power globally, not to create a new regional security structure for Asia.

At the time, the boost to Asian economies from China’s economic transformation was still decades away. So dismal was China’s post-Mao economy that when Deng Xiaoping ordered the People’s Liberation Army into Vietnam to “punish” it for invading Cambodia, the Vietnamese defeated the PLA handily, with some 25,000 Chinese soldiers killed within a month. Deng learned his lesson: China had become so backward that it had to change, and fast, if it was to survive in a world dominated by a hostile USSR and a wounded, but economically mighty, US. He began pursuing in earnest his “reform and opening up” policy launched the previous year.

Granted, America’s allies in Asia never possessed anything like the commitment to mutual defense that NATO’s Article 5 offers. But with Trump casting doubt even on that supposedly ironclad guarantee, Asia’s democratic leaders have had to accept that this US administration may no longer honor its security commitments to them. Of course, this realization does not follow from some decisive moment like the chaotic evacuation of the US embassy in Saigon or the “Nixon Shock” inflicted on Japan by the opening to China. But a similar sense of abandonment and betrayal now prevails across the region.

How could it be otherwise? Trump has launched tariff wars against America’s Asian friends and fawned over dictators like North Korea’s Kim Jong-un. He is demanding that US allies pay upfront for US protection, and yet he seems reluctant to reaffirm America’s security commitments under existing treaties. In September, hundreds of South Korean autoworkers who were helping to launch a Hyundai factory in Georgia were rudely rounded up, shackled, and kicked out of the country. And in negotiations over “reciprocal” tariff arrangements, the Trump administration has sought to demand huge sums of money—$550 billion from Japan and $350 billion from South Korea—with an unspoken “or else” always lingering in the air. The sum demanded of South Korea is around a staggering 20% of the country’s GDP—an amount that, if offered up, would deprive its domestic economy of two-thirds of a year’s worth of investment.

Trump’s attempt to run a protection racket—demanding payment for defense commitments—is equally pernicious. He seems to think that the US gains little or nothing from its ability to station troops on the Japanese island of Okinawa and in South Korea, and to build naval, air, and military facilities on the Philippine island of Luzon, overlooking the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait. Apparently, the current US administration is unbothered by Chinese President Xi Jinping’s efforts to turn that sea into a Chinese lake.

Following the US withdrawal from Vietnam, a long period of economic uncertainty and insecurity beckoned. But many Asian countries managed to stabilize their positions by adopting policies that not only fueled a regional economic boom, but established new mechanisms to enhance their security.

Across the region, governments recognized that complete reliance on the US was no longer a viable strategy. Southeast Asian governments— perhaps because they felt the most vulnerable in the security vacuum left by America’s retreat—started doubling down on the export-oriented development model they had embraced under the umbrella of American protection.

If the US government would not commit itself to the region’s security, Asian governments would secure new commitments from the US private sector. Corporate America would become their ally in US debates about Asian security. Ultimately, these initiatives succeeded beyond political leaders’ most optimistic expectations. Until well into the early years of this century, foreign direct investment from the US was the dominant source of investment in the region.

Asian leaders are pursuing similar self-reliance strategies today. Consider Japan, which has been particularly active. When Trump walked away from the Trans-Pacific Partnership during his first term, Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzō—characteristically seeing the lay of the land before anyone else—salvaged the initiative and brought together 12 dynamic economies under the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Similarly, under Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s leadership, the 11 countries that comprise the Association of Southeast Asian Nations have broken down barriers to cross-border trade and investment. And India, which Trump hit with a 50% tariff in August, has begun to reorient its trade to new regional partners.

But it is on matters of security that Asia’s governments have made the biggest moves. Here, again, Japan has taken a leadership role, pushing for closer cooperation within the Quad (Japan, Australia, the US, and India). Moreover, Japan’s defense budget, which was already growing before Trump returned to the White House, is now projected to expand even more rapidly. And no one should be fooled by the 2%-of-GDP figure that is often thrown around; large sums are also being allocated to other sectors that will buttress Japan’s military capacities.

Japan should view the current moment as an opportunity to address long-standing structural vulnerabilities born of excessive reliance on the US, and to assume greater leadership in promoting regional security. We have already seen some pivotal steps in this direction, starting with a massive increase in intelligence sharing among Asia’s democracies. The revival of an agreement on such exchanges between Japan and South Korea is especially important.

Notably, South Korea’s new president, Lee Jae-myung, has committed his government to upholding the agreement with Japan finalized by his impeached predecessor. This is an important breakthrough for the Japanese-South Korean relationship, which has long been subject to sharp swings based on domestic partisan alignments.

Lee’s more left-leaning supporters would typically be antagonistic to such an agreement. But regional and geopolitical conditions apparently have made everyone understand that partisan divisions over defense must now stop at the water’s edge. Lee is putting the South Korean government’s money where his mouth is, announcing that he intends to boost defense spending far more than had been expected. He wants South Korea to have the world’s fourth-largest defense industry by 2030.

To realize this strategy, Japan must create a national intelligence agency of the type that the world’s leading powers already possess. Fortunately, Japan’s new initiatives in military and economic security—which focus on advancing domestic capabilities in semiconductors, shipbuilding, space, quantum computing, AI, critical minerals, and next-generation nuclear energy—are already giving rise to a more networked Indo-Pacific security architecture.

Through deeper cooperation with partners such as South Korea, Australia, India, and ASEAN members, Japan’s efforts can supplement and reinforce America’s increasingly ambiguous stance on its long-standing security commitments. Such cooperation can make the US presence in the region more sustainable by easing its strategic burden—one of the Trump administration’s most clearly stated goals. This last point is essential, because the US remains the only power that can provide the scale of deterrence and countervailing force necessary to manage a rising China.

But the fact remains that the monumental task of stabilizing what is arguably the most fraught and complex strategic environment since WWII cannot be borne by the US alone. Close coordination among like-minded states in the region, beginning with a Japan that recognizes that it must play a leading role, is indispensable to building a truly stable, secure, and viable structure of peace for all of Asia.

Akihisa Nagashima is former national security adviser to former Japanese prime minister Shigeru Ishiba; and member of the lower house of the Japanese Diet.