Former US president Bill Clinton once observed “it’s just one small step from legacy to lame duck”. With the Republican party now firmly in control of the US Congress, the present incumbent of the White House will be mindful of the metaphorical tightrope he is walking as his current tour of East Asia reaches a climax this weekend.
After attending the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Beijing and the ninth East Asia Summit in Naypyitaw, Myanmar, president Barack Obama’s round of regional visits finishes in Brisbane, Australia, where he will join his fellow G20 leaders and give a major foreign policy speech. This address should give a clearer notion of what legacy he hopes to leave in the Asia-Pacific region despite his reduced status at home.
Mr Obama’s trip is intended to consolidate one of the signature themes of his approach to international affairs, namely the US “pivot” or “rebalance” away from Europe and the Middle East towards East Asia. The pivot, initiated in 2010, was intended to reassure regional allies such as Japan, Australia and the Philippines by reaffirming US commitments. The policy covers a broad range of issues, with the main focus being on security and trade. Through a renewed alliance structure, Washington has sought to both prevent China from bullying its neighbours and increase its own market access along the Asia-Pacific littoral.
Militarily, the pivot showed a degree of continuity with the Clinton and Bush administrations’ boosting of the US force deployments in the region. Even at the height of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts, the US continued strengthening military units in the Pacific and expanding its defence cooperation with local allies. Recent military agreements have included joint naval exercises with Japan, arms for the Philippines and defence cooperation agreements with Indonesia and New Zealand.
In terms of trade, the US is pushing its ambitious Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a deal that could potentially include 12 nations from the Asian and American continents producing a third of the world’s economic output. Among the Asian nations expected to join the TPP are Japan, Malaysia, Singapore and Vietnam, though China has been excluded because it fails to meet free market and environmental standards. In furthering its own trading interests, Beijing is seeking to build the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific.
Washington and Beijing’s competing trade agendas reflect the geopolitical rivalry between the two countries. Chinese president Xi Jinping sees the TPP as a purposely designed rich man’s club and evidence that the US is bent on containing Chinese power. China has strongly resented the US taking sides with Vietnam and the Philippines over territorial disputes in the South China Sea, in particular the potentially oil-rich Spratly Islands. In addition, the Chinese are also suspicious of the blandishments of western “soft power” in the form of human-rights promotion, as was seen during the recent disturbances in Hong Kong when Beijing firmly told the US and its allies not to interfere in the affair.
Increasing tensions between the US and China have affected issues beyond East Asia, such as the Iranian nuclear programme and the Syrian civil war. Although China worked with its UN Security Council partners to build the international sanctions regime against the Iranian nuclear programme, China has been less cooperative of late. In response to further western efforts to tighten sanctions, China reached its own bilateral agreement with Tehran to purchase oil. Beijing has also used its UN Security Council seat to hold back western intervention in Syria and align Chinese policy with Russia’s backing of Bashar Al Assad’s regime.
Aside from China, Russian attendance at the current round of multilateral meetings reflects its great power status in Asia and beyond. With western sanctions and falling oil prices, Russia is staring at the likelihood of a damaging recession over the next few years. Nevertheless, Russian president Vladimir Putin’s presence at the G20 will be a tangible reminder that Mr Obama, like any other leader, has to engage hostile governments as well as needy allies within the institutional structures that frame international relations.
While the US president might have promoted the Asia pivot, he has to consider national interests in their totality and this means continued involvement in the problems of Europe and the Middle East. Inevitably, both international and domestic actors sense that power is draining away from the current Washington administration. Beijing and Moscow share the view that Mr Obama is a president prone to rhetorical flights of fancy about international cooperation that do not reflect the reality of the hard-nosed competition for power and influence between the major players on the international scene.
Nevertheless, even with the Republicans having swept the board in the US midterms, it is too early to write off Mr Obama as a lame duck. Freed from expectations in the domestic sphere, he retains the power to secure a genuine foreign policy triumph in the form of the TPP. Ironically, with the Republican Party now dominant in Washington, the proposed agreement will stand a greater chance of being approved by Congress. The president thus still has the power to leave a shining international legacy in Asia at least before he leaves office.
Stephen Blackwell is an international politics and security analyst
