Trump's soothing balm

Trump's soothing balm

Volatile US president backs away from confronting China and makes it up to Japan.
President Donald Trump who entered the White House with a wrecking ball, put it down this week to call China's President Xi Jinping.And the world breathed a sigh of relief.
In December Trump's unprecedented phone conversation with Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen raised the possibility of a direct confrontation. A fuming China had earlier ruled out a phone conversation if Trump did not accept China's sovereignty (प्रभुत्व/श्रेष्ठत्व) over Taiwan. With Trump now personally telling Xi that he will follow the 44-year-old “One China policy” there is relief. But the crisis has added to the sense of declining American influence in Asia and earned Trump the sobriquet (उपनाम) zhilaohu ¬ “paper tiger”.
The fact is that Trump created the crisis and then retreated (पीछे हटना) before the Chinese threat. The phone call may have been thoughtless but since the call Trump has repeatedly justified direct contact with Taiwan as something of a bargaining chip ¬ an approach that infuriated Beijing and made Taiwan, a vibrant democracy, uncomfortable.
Many experts believe Trump's volte (पैंतरा बदलना) face may now embolden (साहस देना) Xi to take a tougher line against the US. The recent aerial encounter between a US reconnaissance (जासूसी देख-भाल) aircraft and Chinese naval patrol planes may have been unplanned but it was nonetheless a reminder of the Chinese challenge.China will continue to harass if not directly challenge the US in the airspace near China's claimed territory . Several such encounters have taken place, including a fatal (जानलेवा) one near Hainan island in 2001.
Like raising and dropping the Taiwan issue, Trump has scored similar self-goals by disparaging (उपेक्षा करनेवाला) US allies like Nato, predicting the breakup of the European Union, and criticising Germany's asylum (शरण-स्थान) policy as disastrous. Even his secretary of state designate threw down a gauntlet to China by warning “the island-building stops and, second, your access to those islands also is not going to be allowed”.
Perhaps the most astonishing (आश्चर्यजनक) of Trump's self-inflicted wounds was his casual pulling of the plug on TPP, a free trade pact of 12 Pacific countries that would have ensured American leadership of the region. The American withdrawal has simply left the field free for trading giant China to dominate, and on its own terms.
As if threatening China in the South China Sea was not enough Trump chose to gratuitously (अनावश्यक रूप से) insult Australia, the most loyal ally in Asia whose support would be key in confronting China. In a phone conversation with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull he called an agreement signed by Australia with the Obama administration the “worst deal ever”.
He accused Australia of seeking to endanger the US by exporting the “next Boston bomber”, and hung up midway through the call. The report of the disastrous phone call has dismayed Australians and added to the rising voices of businesspeople and intellectuals to loosen Australia's ties with Washington and seek closer cooperation with China ¬ its biggest trade partner.
Meanwhile, Trump's willingness to renounce (छोड़ना/दूर रहना) the leadership role in Asia in favour of a transactional approach has spread despondency in the region. China's generous aid to countries that have sided with it ¬ from Cambodia and Thailand to Malaysia and the Philippines ¬ has already brought dramatic shifts in their attitude to the US. Even Vietnam, which defied Chinese pressure to join TPP, is now left high and dry and obliged to review its policy and seek accommodation with China.
In the wake of a series of needlessly confrontational moves the report of an “extremely cordial” phone conversation with Xi has come as a soothing balm.There have been other signs too that some of his professional hires like defence secretary Jim Mattis were beginning to exercise a restraining influence on the Twitter-happy, irascible (गुस्सावर) president. In his first visit as defence secretary Mattis assured South Korea and Japan that contrary to Trump's campaign talk of loosening the alliance the US was committed to their defence.
Having disparaged Japan for being a freeloader and suggesting that it might be left to build its own nuclear defence Trump has now found in Shinzo Abe a very good friend, who was treated to four dinners and an Air Force One ride to play golf in Florida. Despite Chinese warnings about not getting involved, the two leaders affirmed that the US-Japan Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security covers the Senkaku Islands claimed by China.
Their joint statement specifically said they “oppose any unilateral action that seeks to undermine Japan's administration of these islands”. In a pointed allusion to China's role in the South China Sea their statement “underscored the importance of maintaining a maritime order based on international law, including freedom of navigation and overflight and other lawful uses of the sea”. They also noted their opposition to “any attempt to assert maritime claims through the use of intimidation, coercion (दबाव) or force”. This statement will go some way to reassure Asia.
The relief, however, could be shortlived. While Trump was entertaining Abe North Korea fired off a ballistic missile in defiance of the Trump administration's warning. As Asia watches for Trump's response it will have ambivalence (उभयभाविता). Nobody wants Trump to respond by initiating an armed conflict, neither will Asia wish the loud-mouthed president to develop the reputation of being a paper tiger.