By: Azhar Azam
Notwithstanding the US still topped the ranking scoring 81.6 points, the think tank analyzed that its standing has waned in all but one of the index measures registering the largest fall “in relative power of any Indo-Pacific country” in 2020. China, with 76.1 points, stood its ground and narrowed America’s prior 10-point lead by a half.
Index says this closing power disparity suggests that Washington, “far from being the undisputed unipolar power, can more correctly be described as the first among equals in a bipolar Indo-Pacific.” It singled out the Trump administration’s unilateral inclinations to pronounce the US underachievement in Asia.
China’s major strongholds are economic capability, future resources, economic relationships and diplomatic influence. It gives an insight about Chinese economic recovery and diplomacy is outperforming American gains vis-à-vis military capability, defense networks, resilience and cultural influence.
Washington has long counted on military bases, troop deployment and diplomatic influence to retain its image of a peerless global power. China thinks that the US is rehearsing the same technique against it to set off a new cold war by taking other countries on-board.
For any kind of cold war to succeed, US would need to blockade China on economic and diplomatic fronts and engage its “strategic rival” in a military gridlock through regional and global alliances like it did to smash the Soviet Union into bits.
Even though Washington’s campaign against Beijing has been shouldered by some international states and leaders, its conviction to isolate China internationally is being eclipsed by the lilies of near-perfect Chinese economic and diplomatic arrangements.
An AP report in December 2019 on the fading US global influence said in the first three years of Trump’s presidency, once close American partners – France, Egypt, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Mexico, Turkey, Germany and others – had quietly broken away from Washington. It could frankly be dubbed a pushback to the US president’s ham-fisted policies.
While the Trump administration proactively pursues its “America First” foreign policy ahead of the presidential election, the global trend to divorce the US-centric international order for a more balanced approach has accelerated in 2020 with many in France, Germany and others giving equal importance to their relationship with China.
Trump’s crassly assertive attitude, vexatious trade war, grievously hardline on defense-burden sharing, ruthless demolition of the international treaties and the baleful “with us or against us” policy have inadvertently pushed US allies into the Chinese orbit.
His everlasting insulting and offending comments toward the US partners stroked a double whammy to American key national security and foreign policy objectives. On one side, he cramped the bilateral diplomatic and economic relationship and on the other, his retry attempts added an impetus to China’s rise.
President’s ram-sheet of the Covid-19 and compelling attitude as a means to strong-arm American allies has altogether played a stingy role in bringing disgrace to the country. Amid widespread destruction by insidious disease triggering a furor to US coronavirus response internationally, he got a very little confidence from global publics on his handling of world affairs, including from Australia, Japan and South Korea.
However, it doesn’t mean the US is out of game or has conceded an edge to China in Asia. Washington’s solid lead over Beijing in the key areas such as military capability and defense networks suggests if it gets the economy back on track quickly, the US has a great chance to cement its position across Asia by improving economic relations and expanding diplomatic influence.
China, at the center of Asia's rise as a leading global power, won’t stand idly by or just watch the proceedings and let the things spin out of control. Beijing will be privy to the falling trajectory of its standing in the region – which with South Korea and Japan already seeing US as the world's economic power could weaken its position in Australia and India after it severed ties with both the regional powers. It, if not circumvent, would delay engaging in a direct conflict with either of them and try to improve ties through its fortes, economic relationships and diplomatic influence.
The US is acting exactly in the opposite direction and looking to exploit the regional tensions. In his five-day trip to Asia, the Secretary of State Mike Pompeo seeks to partner India to “thwart (China) threats, challenge its infrastructure projects in Sri Lanka and Maldives and discuss “Chinese activities” in the South China Sea with Indonesia.
Support from Asian countries will be a defining moment for conversion of China-US rivalry into a cold war. In a lead-up to this looming great power competition, Beijing has deployed BRI and renascent economic recovery to inveigle regional nations while the White House is living off its technological superiority, military wherewithal and defense cooperation to outcompete or “trump” the new American adversary.
*This is one of my opinion pieces (unedited) that first appeared in "New Straits Times":