Soon after this became public, former Indonesian foreign minister Marty Natalegawa warned that the dispute might tear ASEAN apart. A few days later a Chinese Navy ship ‘stole’ (or ‘discovered’, according to China) a US unmanned underwater vessel (UUV) some 450 metres from a US Navy oceanographic ship sailing off the Philippine coast.
The UUV incident occurred outside China’s nine-dash line territorial claim. The incident seemingly disregarded the procedures agreed upon in the US–China Code for Unplanned Encounters at Sea, which have previously worked well in avoiding confrontations. Most importantly, it also marked the first direct intervention — in tweet form — by the Trump presidency into the South China Sea imbroglio.
These tweets suggested that the United States’ South China Sea policy under Trump will become more assertive, just as China’s policy did when President Xi Jinping took power.
Trump seems set to focus the US–China relationship on ‘making deals’. He is expected to adopt a transactional approach that aims to gain particular near-term outcomes important to him. This approach appealed to at least some Chinese who saw Trump as ‘a businessman who puts his commercial interests above everything else’.
Trump’s transactional approach in the South China Sea might be almost reassuring to China given its experience of using the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands as bargaining chips in negotiations with Japan. But this bargaining with Japan occurred within a relatively conventional diplomatic framework. Trump’s approach appears markedly different for five reasons.
First, Trump’s real intentions are enigmatic. His signature diplomatic communication is a 140-character tweet that can confuse and obfuscate even simple issues. Trump’s tactic seems to be to let others decipher what he means and wants. This is not unlike China’s strategic objectives in the South China Sea, which have not been formally stated but left for others to discern. The same approach was evident in the UUV capture. But it will now be Xi reacting to what he imagines Trump wants — which may not necessarily be what Trump is actually seeking.
Second, Trump can tweet faster than the Chinese decision-making processes can make decisions. Indeed, multiple tweets about multiple issues may overwhelm China’s rather centralised governmental system. This may allow Trump to gain the initiative — or at least appear to.
This may shock a domestic Chinese audience used to China setting the agenda in the South China Sea. As Kai He has suggested Chinese leaders may well take risks if they feel they are losing the respect of the domestic audience as this may adversely affect political stability. Accordingly, Chinese leaders could escalate early in a Trump tweet-induced crisis if they become confused or worried. They may make poorly considered responses when driven by the pressures of a Twitter timeframe.
Third, for both leaders, domestic issues are perhaps the most important. For both leaders, jobs and growth are needed to maintain their domestic power base. Both leaders can also ruthlessly exploit nationalist emotions when necessary. South China Sea issues for either leader might be quickly linked to other more critical domestic matters.
The South China Sea is important for Xi’s ‘China Dream’ but it is less important for the United States. Trump might therefore be willing to agree to a trade-off to gain some major American domestic goal. Or Trump may see the South China Sea as an area of special Chinese sensitivity that is worth pressuring China on in order to gain an advantage elsewhere.
Fourth, future South China Sea political manoeuvres will likely play out very publicly, unlike some in the past. The global media now keenly follows Trump’s tweets as a major news source, often reading into his words the meaning they want to find. Trump continually plays to his electoral base as part of demonstrating he is a strong leader that puts ‘America First’. He may seem relentless in seeking constant public approval but the bully pulpit is important to his ability to favourably manipulate a hesitant Congress.
In this, Trump seems uncommonly comfortable exposing his administration’s unstructured decision-making processes, with powerful, semi-autonomous Cabinet secretaries and top aides acting independently and openly arguing over issues. It’s hard to see Xi taking a similar approach. For the US domestic audience — and probably much of the world — China will appear closed, opaque, out-of-touch and left behind in most matters. In contrast, Trump’s rapid-fire decision making will be publicly displayed, albeit with all its failings.
Lastly, Trump’s strategy will have implications not just for China but also for US allies. There will be a premium on timely interjections to the Trump administration, and most likely also into the Twitter sphere. Sitting back and ‘hoping for the best’ in a rapidly evolving situation may turn out poorly. There is now a real need to think ahead so as to be well prepared to take best advantage of sudden tweets and unexpected crises. Methodologies such as alternative futures, grand strategy and risk management may need reviving.
Dealing with the Trump presidency might be best seen as an exercise in operating in a state of permanent crisis management. Issues will emerge at breathtaking speed that have to be quickly resolved or forgotten, even though the long-term consequences for onlookers may be significant. The South China Sea will be one area where this decision making approach will play out — and probably sooner than later.
Dr Peter Layton is a Visiting Fellow at the Griffith Asia Institute, Griffith University.
This is the best post on Trump’s likely impact on Asia that I have read.
Predicting what President Trump is going to do requires the exercise of imagination in very unconventional ways.
When Dr Layton writes that “Trump can tweet faster than the Chinese decision-making processes can make decisions”, this is surely an example of the kind of unconventional exercise of the imagination, and of analysis, that we will constantly need.
“Trump’s rapid-fire decision making” will probably be all the more significant over the next few months. This will be so if the excessively long process of forming a new administration down to the level of deputy assistant secretaries if not beyond remains in force.
I wonder, and worry, that Trump’s ‘real intentions’ are little more than the flexing of muscles to demonstrate power and control. Time will tell whether strategy and policy aimed towards mid-term, let alone longer term, goals are something that he is interested in let alone capable of.
WaPo has an analysis comparing Trump to Latin American strongmen (caudillo) like Chavez or Peron. It makes for instructive, albeit unsettling, reading.
‘Operating in a state of permanent crisis management,’ otherwise known as turmoil if not chaos, may well become the so called new normal in the Trump administration. If so, we are all in for an adventurous, rough ride.
Ken and Richard’s insightful comments nicely bring out inter-related aspects. Historical analogies need to be used carefully however, there was an earlier instance of this deliberate crisis management approach in the American decision-making process prior to the Iraq 2003 invasion.
A crisis usually involves a very high threat and limited decision time which Saddam’s Iraq was not. Deliberately choosing a crisis decision mode though noticeably strengthened the authority accorded by the public to high-level Bush administration officials and in setting tight parameters minimized public and elite debate over the given rationale or the alternatives. The form of the decision-making process then allowed the content (invade Iraq) to seem acceptable and rational.
(The process is examined in Steven Metz’s, Decision-making in Operation Iraqi Freedom: Removing Saddam Hussein by Force, Operation Iraqi Freedom Key Decisions Monograph Series published by the US Army Strategic Studies Institute in 2010)
Thanks, Peter, for an insightful perspective accompanied by a very relevant and still current example.
To elaborate further on my comment I would note that Trump’s so called ‘out sized personality’ is one whose reactivity leads him, and those working for/under him, from one largely self generated crisis to the next. Issues don’t really get addressed in a constructive and effective way because there is little, if any forethought, given to the potential consequences of a decision. One then has to respond to events as they seem to unfold without realizing how one has created many, if not all, of these problematic circumstances in the first place. When he ‘failed’ in the private sector (which he has done a number of times, by the way), Trump created havoc and damage for some people but he could declare bankruptcy and start all over again. He won’t have that luxury as the President of the USA. Neither will the world because millions rather than dozens of people will be negatively impacted.
In the novel, American Psycho, and in the movie based on it, the murderous protagonist, Patrick Bateman, was obsessed both by Donald Trump and by his then wife, Ivana.
This is a reminder that Trump has been a cultural ‘icon’ of a vulgar and unpleasant kind for decades in the US. This is one of the many ways in which he differs from most if not all previous American presidents.
But it is no doubt too early to say whether his grasping and perhaps neurotic personality will grate on those foreign interlocutors not already won over to the crude deal-making that he seems to favour. Maybe he will by contrast be shrewd enough to charm them.
His cabinet appointments, as well as his appointment of Friedman as ambassador to Israel and his declared intention to move the US embassy to Jerusalem, suggest that he will cause more harm initially in the Middle East than in Asia.