Singapore

Singapore’s "Straits Times" published an article entitled "Fighting China-Declaring War Is Not Enough" on October 27, stating that since China’s growing strategic power and ambitions began to challenge the US-led Asia-Pacific order, America’s regional friends and allies I have always hoped that Washington’s response will not be too cold or too hot, preferably just right. They don't want the United States to back down and hand over its regional strategic leadership to Beijing. But they also never want the United States to engage in confrontation with China, triggering an escalating strategic competition between the two most powerful countries in the region, because that would be more dangerous and terrifying than living in the shadow of China.

    They hope that Washington will pursue a calm, prudent, and resolute strategy, and take a middle path between the two extremes. On the one hand, it will limit Beijing's influence without triggering a full-scale strategic confrontation. But obviously, we have not seen calmness and prudence from Washington.

    On the contrary, since Trump took office, he and his team have gone from one extreme to the other. Before Trump pleased Beijing, he seemed to have no anxiety about China's use of its growing national power to expand its influence in Asia. This year is completely different. The United States declared that China is a major strategic opponent and vowed to fight back. The information from Washington is becoming more and more blatant. Trump launched a full-scale trade war with China, not only to solve the trade problem, but also to derail the giant ship of China's economic development.

    However, there are various signs that the Trump administration does not have a unified set of major concrete measures to counter China. This shows that Washington has never admitted to American voters how much it will pay and how dangerous it will be if it truly launches a strategic competition against Beijing in Asia. At the same time, America’s Asian allies are likely to enter a very difficult period. Many people in Washington hope that the greatest cost and risk of anti-China will fall on Asian friends, not on the United States itself. This is consistent with Trump’s consistent view that allies should not ride for free.

    We will see the United States continue to put pressure on those countries, forcing them to join forces with Washington to deal with Beijing. This means not only supporting Trump’s actions to isolate China economically, but also directly participating in U.S. military operations to counter China, such as joining the U.S.’s "Freedom of Navigation Operations" in the South China Sea to provide a base for the new U.S. troops stationed in Asia... Undoubtedly, these practices will certainly bring huge losses to the vital interests of American friends and allies who maintain good relations with China.

    Asian countries may eventually face a choice between the United States and China, which they have been trying to avoid for a long time. If Washington thinks that if they are forced to make a choice, they must choose the United States, that would be a big mistake. We can see from Japanese Prime Minister Abe’s recent visit to China that even Japan, which fears China most, realizes that when the support of the United States is full of uncertainty, Japan cannot afford the price of alienating China.

    In fact, Trump has never mentioned whether he believes that the United States’ strategic leadership in Asia is important to the United States. On the contrary, he devalued the alliance on which the strategic leadership of the United States relies, thus giving people an opposite impression. So who can be sure that at a critical juncture, the Americans will stand together with their allies against China? Who can be sure that they will win even if they work together?