Asia Pacific leaders praise Trump as questions surround regional security | 2024 US Election News

Taipei, Taiwan – Asia Pacific leaders have moved to strengthen ties with Donald Trump following his re-election as US president, as questions are raised about what his return to power will mean for security in the region.

Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba told reporters he looked forward to working closely with the president-elect and “bringing Japan-US unity and Japan-US relations to a higher level”.

On social media, Taiwan's President William Lai Ching-te and South Korea's President Yoon Suk-yeol also spoke of their hope for a strong relationship with the US and a “bright future”.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese also took to social media to say that Australia and the US are “great friends and great partners” in the future, while Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto wrote about strong cooperation between Washington and Jakarta.

Even Chinese President Xi Jinping had good words for Trump, despite a recent campaign promise to hit China with punitive tariffs for unfair business practices. Xi said he believed the US and China could find “the right way to get along”.

Despite the good wishes, however, Asian leaders are likely to worry about what the return of Trump's unpredictability will mean for regional security.

For more than seven decades, the US has served as a guarantor of security for the governments of Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, and Taiwan. Thailand is also a long-time US military ally since it signed a joint defense treaty in 1954.

The rise of a more muscular China has put those assurances back in the focus of the US's Asian allies as Beijing takes an increasingly assertive stance in asserting territorial claims in sensitive areas, such as the South China Sea.

North Korea also threatens stability in Asia as it continues to develop advanced missiles and nuclear weapons.

Trump's return to the White House now looks set to improve strained relations in the region as he pursues an “America first” isolationist foreign policy.

Concerned partners

“Regional partners are probably worried,” said Bonnie Glaser, managing director of the Indo-Pacific Program at the German Marshall Fund.

“With China's growing power, many countries in the Indo-Pacific are looking for stronger US engagement and leadership in the region,” Glaser said.

US regional partners all want or need something from Washington, he added.

South Korean leaders want US firepower – including its nuclear capabilities – to bolster their country's defenses, which already include the THAAD ballistic missile system, against an increasingly assertive North Korea.

Japan needs help in deterring China as it is constitutionally prohibited from having a provocative military posture, and its new coalition government is less hawkish than the Liberal Democratic Party administration.

The Philippines, which has gone back to supporting the US under President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr, needs US support in fighting China's pressure in the South China Sea.

Indonesia has been careful to balance US relations with China to ensure access to both foreign investment and assurances about regional security.

Then there are regional agreements such as the Quad (involving India, Japan, Australia, and the US), the AUKUS security agreement (Australia, the US, and the United Kingdom), and more recently , a new tripartite security arrangement between Japan, South Korea, and the US.

Whether the relationship will survive after January 20 – when Trump is sworn in as US president – is now a question mark, said Wen-ti Sung, fellow with the Atlantic Council's Global China Hub.

“All of the US's best friends and allies are likely to move from clear alignment to a hedging position between the US and China. That will cause problems of cohesion, making cooperation difficult to achieve,” Sung told Al Jazeera.

Sung also doubted that Trump would have the same courage to speak out in his second term.

Although his initially chaotic foreign policy kept world leaders guessing during his first term – when he started a trade war with China, met with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, and exchanged angry phone calls with ex-Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-wen. Beijing – this time it's more than a known amount.

“Trump's strategy going forward has been an unpredictable one, the kind of strategy with diminishing returns over time. It works once, twice,” said Sung.

“At some point, people get tired,” he said.

“Unpredictability equates to uncertainty, which in turn equates to low reliability. Low credibility means low deterrence, which means that Trump's America will not be able to deter and stop China from pursuing coercive tactics,” he added.

Trump's 'transactionalism' and Taiwan

Few places in Asia have more to lose than Taiwan, an independent democracy that relies on the US to fend off an invasion by China, which has long threatened to annex the island either peacefully or by force.

While on the campaign trail this year, Trump said governments like Taiwan should pay the US for protection from China. The US does not officially recognize the government of Taipei, but under a 1979 treaty it promised to help Taiwan “defend itself”.

In effect, this has led to billions of dollars in US arms sales and other aid to Taiwan, as well as monthly surveillance of “freedom of navigation” by the US through the Taiwan Strait. US military bases in South Korea, Japan, and Guam are also seen as another deterrent.

David Sachs, fellow for Asia studies at the US-based Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), told Al Jazeera that he expects the new Republican administration to demand that Taiwan increase its defense spending from 2.5% of gross domestic product (GDP). to GDP. up 5 percent on kindness.

Trump once said that Taiwan should spend 10 percent of its GDP on defense.

While that's a tall order, unlike some of the US's allies, democracies in East Asia have few alternatives.

“Taiwan can quietly increase cooperation with countries like Japan and the Philippines. “Economically, it can strengthen relations with Southeast Asia, but no country will play the security role that the United States plays,” CFR's Sachs told Al Jazeera.

Although the US and Taiwan had relatively good relations during Trump's first term, there is no guarantee that Taipei will receive the same treatment this time.

Many in Taiwan already fear that they could become a negotiation between the US and China – something that Washington has done in the past.

Since Trump is a businessman, anything can be considered on the negotiating table – even his plan to hit China with a 60 percent tariff, Sachs said.

In a possible sign of changing times, Taiwan's current President Lai did not attempt to repeat the 2016 congratulatory phone call his predecessor held with Trump after his election, Taiwan's presidential office said.

That simple phone call broke decades of protocol that had barred senior US officials from communicating with their Taiwanese counterparts, lest they offend China and its “one China” policy.

Recently, the US and Taiwan have had a great deal of direct interaction, although there are still red lines.

Keeping Trump's attention on the importance of a secure and independent Taiwan will require more than innovation. Trump needs to be reminded what the US desperately needs from Taiwan – advanced computer chips.

As the world's leading producer, Taiwan's high-end semiconductor production has long been described as the “Silicon dome”, protecting it from outside forces. That industrial prowess has also attracted new partners in Taiwan, or informally, who want a piece of the hi-tech pie in exchange for passive support.

The US has also pressured Taiwanese companies to diversify their supply chains outside of Taiwan and in places like the US mainland, Japan and Europe. Leading Taiwanese chipmaker TSMC has invested $65bn in Arizona.

But more may be needed to ensure Taiwan's continued security under a Trump presidency.

“Taiwan has to rethink its entire value proposition, which is going to be very difficult,” CFR's Sachs said.

“From Trump, you will never hear such a world view – you get along with autocrats. He is publicly mentioned, he gets along with Putin, Kim Jong Un, and Xi Jinping,” said Sachs.

“What gets you somewhere with Trump plays into transactionalism, and it shows what's in the United States,” he said.