America is losing South-East Asia to China
President Joe Biden will not attend this year’s East Asia Summit
Eight years ago Barack Obama spent several days in the twilight of his presidency in Laos. He bought a coconut from a roadside stall, visited holy sites, then sat through two days of stultifying summitry. But when Asian leaders once again convene in Laos on October 11th, President Joe Biden will not be there. He is skipping the East Asia Summit, an annual meeting of 18 countries, for the second year in a row. Antony Blinken (pictured), his secretary of state, will represent America instead.
A big part of Mr Obama’s “pivot to Asia” was a promise to join the East Asia Summit every year. Chaired and hosted by a rotating cast of South-East Asian leaders, the summit gives the region’s politicians an opportunity to set the agenda and tell the American president what they think of his policies. It sent a signal that America would listen to small countries, and drew a contrast with China, which has a habit of hectoring its neighbours at the meeting. The year that America joined the East Asia Summit, Hillary Clinton, Mr Obama’s secretary of state, joked that “half of diplomacy is showing up.”
America’s disengagement from Asia’s top multilateral institution is partly the result of conflicts in Europe and the Middle East that have diverted its attention. But it is also deliberate. The Biden administration has mostly stopped trying to persuade the region of its position on China in talking-shops like the East Asia Summit. Instead it is focused on working with countries that already share its perspective, such as Australia, India and Japan, which along with America make up the Quad, a security grouping. Mr Biden hosted their leaders at his home last month.
But South-East Asia remains at the geographic and economic heart of the competition between America and China, so ignoring it carries risks. For the first time this year an annual survey of politicians, civil servants and business leaders by the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, a think-tank in Singapore, found that if forced to align with either America or China, South-East Asian elites would choose China.
Besides diplomacy, there are three reasons for this. First, American protectionism and industrial policy are alienating South-East Asia. America offers no new access to its market in free-trade agreements. Tariffs are upending established trade patterns. “Derisking” measures are driving up costs as supply chains split into two.
Second, South-East Asians have begun to question whether American policy on Taiwan is driving up the risk of conflict. America has always struck a careful balance on the self-governing island. It works to deter Chinese plans to retake it by leaving open the possibility of an American military response, while discouraging Taiwanese leaders from moving towards independence and thus provoking China.
But South-East Asians fear that America might be departing from this line. A visit to Taiwan in 2022 by Nancy Pelosi, the former speaker of the House, raised tensions in ways that South-East Asian states found dangerous. Mike Pompeo, who was secretary of state under Donald Trump, has said that America should support Taiwanese independence. If Mr Trump returns to government, Asian officials will worry more.
Third, America’s backing of Israel in its conflict with Hamas has cost it support among Muslims and young people in the region. Many see a double standard between America’s condemnation of China’s persecution of Uyghurs and its support for Israel’s bombing campaign in Gaza. So unpopular has Mr Biden become among Malaysians that its leader, Anwar Ibrahim, is said to be relieved that the American president is skipping the summit in Laos. ■