New POTUS to bring sea change for Pacific region

Transcript

SARAH GRAHAM: Quite broadly Trump's foreign policy plans are seen as likely to cause instability in the region. He's questioned the value of America's traditional alliances with particularly Japan, not so much with Australia. By all indications he doesn't have too much of a problem with Australia, but he's talked about making allies pay their fair share or walking away and this would obviously be a great source of uncertainty and tension in the region given anxiety about China's rise. He said that he doesn't really have a problem with Japan or South Korea obtaining nuclear weapons and that would weaken the global nuclear non-proliferation regime and again reverberate regionally but globally. There's a lot of uncertainty about what Trump would do. His policy on the South China Sea, for example, has oscillated quite a bit and so we would expect to see a great deal of uncertainty until he puts together a team and really starts talking to governments and I suppose the best case scenario is that he puts together a strong foreign policy team who can coherently build a vision for the region and one that governments in the region can kind of work with and be comfortable with.

SALLY ROUND: What about Hillary Clinton? Will she be continuing Obama's so-called pivot to the region?

SG: Absolutely. In fact she has sought to claim credit for the pivot, or strategic re-balance. She did a lot of the diplomatic legwork, published a very important article, articulating what the pivot was so she will be keen to continue with that but I suppose she will be aware of  some of the concerns that the pivot hasn't been well-implemented and that there wasn't enough follow through and that this has left China a bit of latitude to come in with its actions in the South China Sea and also its economic agreements, so she will be looking to re-establish American credibility and to re-establish the American presence and really reassure key allies that the United States is in it for keeps. Hillary Clinton's not particularly well-liked in China actually. In some ways the Chinese prefer Trump. That's because there's sort of a long record of Hillary Clinton's comments on things like human rights and because she's associated with the pivot and the pivot is seen as a kind of containment strategy by the United States. She's going to have to manage that relationship carefully. She'll want to hold a firm line on things like the South China Sea and the norms that govern the maritime space there. On the other hand she will want to work with China to reset the approach to North Korea because under Obama North Korea has become incredibly worrying. They've had nuclear tests and all sorts of incidents with the south. It's really shown that the Obama policy of strategic patience needs a rethink. So if Hillary Clinton wants to strengthen sanctions around North Korea she's going to need to get China on board so that's a difficult diplomatic tightrope to walk there but as such an experienced official she's probably better placed than anybody to do that.

SG: Going back to a possible Trump presidency, would that leave more room for China to ease into the region?

SR: It really depends because we just don't know what Trump will do. If he's such a great deal-maker then perhaps China can offer him a good deal for the US to pull back on the South China Sea. On the other hand Trump has said that he needs to rebuild the American military, that he wants to particularly throw money into the navy and presumably South China Sea is one place where that would be used so perhaps that's a signal of more of an engaged foreign policy. To the extent that he's inexperienced, and I think he's going to have trouble putting together a good team of people in those top bureaucratic positions, there may be some period of chaos and disengagement within the administration as it settles in and that's maybe going to give China more latitude to continue its activities around say island-building and those sorts of things in that flashpoint of the South China Sea.