Opinion | ‘Asia wary of US claims it’s committed to regional security’
Region is wondering whether it is witnessing the unraveling of a long, stable order underpinned by American power, writes Richard Heydarian
This Shangri-La Dialogue security forum in Singapore, which brought together 23 defence ministers and leading experts from across the world over the weekend, ended up as a painful exercise in strategic reassurance by the United States.
It also saw relatively heated exchanges between the two major protagonists, China and the United States, on the conception and trajectory of how to maintain peace in Asia.
Across the region, strategic partners and treaty allies have been stung by President Donald Trump’s neo-isolationist language. His emphasis on an “America First” policy has been largely interpreted as an expression of unilateralism and retrograde nationalism.
The US president’s withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact as well as the Paris agreement on climate change has put into question Washington’s commitment to uphold the decades-old liberal international order of its own creation.
No less than the Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, the event’s keynote speaker, called upon Washington to uphold a “rule-based” regional order. All of a sudden, everyone is wondering whether we are witnessing the unraveling of a long stable order underpinned by American power and purpose.