How Trump is losing Asia

[Zorro]

The United States has dispatched two aircraft carrier strike groups to the South China Sea to contest China’s creeping annexation of the maritime region. It is one of the bluntest expressions of U.S. hard power in years.

Yet the very fact that such a dramatic step was even necessary indicates how the power balance is shifting in China’s favor. China’s long-term and methodical attempt to dominate shoals and islands in the region is a reflection of both U.S. domestic distractions and its loss of prestige throughout Asia.

While the United States is half a world distant from Asia, China is Asia’s geographical, demographic, economic and military organizing principle. Asians simply cannot escape the Chinese. For them to align with the United States in the face of China’s immovable presence has always required faith in the word and commitment of the United States to this vast region. But for the first time since World War II, a U.S. president has shaken that faith to its core.

Donald Trump began his presidency by abrogating the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the years-in-the-making trade, investment and political cornerstone of a U.S.-led liberal order in Asia. Trump tore up this historic framework in the face of China’s own grand strategy for Eurasia: the Belt and Road Initiative. While China was promoting a vision, however imperfect and coercive, the United States deliberately has had nothing to offer.

It gets worse.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/07/08/how-trump-is-losing-asia/

Trump has unilaterally surrendered America's dominant role in influencing Asian trade and security policies to China, with nothing of value in return.

[Iliyah]

1. Shithole has unilaterally surrendered The United State of America, period . . .

[TreasonousBastard]

2. There was a lot of whining about the TPP from the progressive wing, but...

the point of it was as a balance to China's power in the region and worldwide.

Note that not only is China dominating Asia, but it is rapidly moving into Africa and South America. Granted that the US and Europe held these to be happy hunting grounds, but the Chinese don't see them as territories as much as trade partners.

Aside from buying bunch of Hyundai's what do we have to offer S. Korea when China starts squeezing them? Does Japan trust us any more when China and Russia start sniffing around at it's outer islands again?

Our grandchildren will likely look at China much the way the world looked at us 50 years ago.

Than you Mr. Trump. Historians will look at you as the catalyst that allowed US influence to die out.

Myself, I don't blame Trump so much-- he is what he is and can't change. I blame his enablers. those who support Trump are the real villains-- they know how risky it is to bring a half-trained gorilla into the household, but they brought him in anyway.

Actually, we may have been better off with a real gorilla.

[pazzyanne]

3. My career navy uncle always told us that the country we should fear was China.

Looks like he was right. Of course, he could not see a pResident tRump during the time he served.