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These past few weeks have been a time for political parties in the United States to hold their conventions. We have seen how Republican nominee Mitt Romney was praised, made his “big speech”, introduced his family members, reached out to non-traditional voters of the Republican party and revealed his choice of vice president.
Soon, we will hear the big speech of President Barack Obama at the Democratic Party’s convention. To Americans, the conventions might strengthen confidence in voting for someone.
To the world, the conventions provide an opportunity to witness the competition in US politics, the agendas critical to voters in the country, and hence the direction of future US engagement with other countries.
It is clear now that Americans care most about their pocketbooks and how the future president can change the luck of America’s macro economy for the better.
The gist of the debate becomes: should we give President Obama a further chance to deliver the promises he made in 2008 or should we give someone else a chance? It’s a tough call indeed.
Yet for non-Americans, the dilemma among Americans has clear implications for us. We understand that whoever is elected will prioritize strengthening the US economy.
Any talks, visits, dialogs with the US would actually have the embedded agenda of fixing the US economy. Each will have its own ramification on how the US handles bilateral, regional and multilateral engagement built in the past.
In that case, who is more important to the US now than the economically beaming Asians? Well, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would say that not just Asia is very important but all Asia-Pacific countries. Facing the Democratic convention, she is currently traveling to six countries in the Asia Pacific where any small and big countries matter in the eyes of US politics.
She is scheduled to visit Cook islands (in order to meet officials from tiny island countries across the Pacific, as well as Australia and New Zealand), Indonesia, China, Timor Leste and Brunei, and then she’ll head off to the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum in Vladivostok, Russia. On these visits, Clinton will touch on issues important to the region, namely the contestation of power in the South China Sea, trade and food security.
There is another important agenda at hand, which is to demonstrate US attention to even the smallest nation-states scattered across Asia. The foreign policy duet of Obama-Clinton took the approach of embracing influential countries like Indonesia and India and reaching out to those that have not been given a pat-on-the-back by high-ranking US officials for decades, such as Laos and Myanmar.
And then what? Both the Democratic camp and the Republicans have made it clear that they have serious concerns over the rise of China, both in economic power and defense capacity. China is depicted as not taking enough “responsibility” in its rise to the region or to the world.
Last November, the Pentagon said that by 2020 roughly 60 percent
of its naval fleet would be stationed in the Asia-Pacific region, and it was also considering deploying sea-borne anti-missile systems in East Asia. The first of 2,500 US marines arrived a few months ago. Yet this is not enough.
Romney showed his desire to maintain a strong military presence in the Pacific, engage India, Indonesia and Taiwan in order to monitor aggressive behavior in disputed waters and preserve open trade routes for the US. Romney believes that the US should supply Taiwan with “adequate aircraft and other military platforms” to reinforce maritime domain awareness; employ radar and other detection networks to prevent surprise confrontations and military miscalculations.
Both Democrats and Republicans are sending signals that cooperation with the US is always better than confrontation and that the era of US hegemony is far from over.
Clinton said: “We [the US] are prepared to lead [the world] … whenever the US has experienced setbacks, we have overcome them through reinvention and innovation. Our capacity to come back stronger is unmatched in modern history.”
Of course, who could forget that the US has the largest defense budget and military and nuclear capacity in the world?
Despite China’s military build-up, its overall defense budget remains only a fraction of that the US. Who could not notice that US military bases are everywhere in nearly every corner of the world, with more than 1,000 bases in total (Connie Bakrie, Seputar Indonesia Aug. 8)? Yet, the US has stated that it would beef up its defense, military and nuclear capacity.
It also plans to expand alliances with Australia from a Pacific partnership to an Indo-Pacific one, disarm and be firmer with North Korea and do more strategic things together with Asia-Pacific countries.
In the past, we witnessed the US grow into a protectionist country during its difficult economic time. This time, the US pledged commitment to integration with the world market and has praised regional free-trade initiatives (including the controversial US-South Korea Free Trade Agreement). Will this improve the Americans’ pocketbooks fast enough?
The eerie alternative option of the past is the use of war and military tension to create jobs, attract investment and rally the support of Americans for their leader. War and military tension would energize the defense industry, as well as its supply chains.
Sure, it’s morally costly, but surprisingly we are seeing that Democrats and Republicans are converging in the view on taking firmer action vis-à-vis those being in the way of US interests.
Clinton said that the US was keeping a cool head in engaging with other countries; but what’s the guarantee? Clinton has said she would step down even if Obama is re-elected.
How Indonesia reacts and nurtures relations with the US, China and other countries will matter a lot in the next few years. Tension between the US and China is simmering and the tools for aggression are in place already.
When leaders of these countries find comfort in making threats, accusations and looking powerful through military showdown, it is not impossible that the jitters over a preemptive strike could spread to other countries. Robert Kaplan said last year that the future of world war is in Asia, potentially in the South China Sea. Nobody wants this prediction to materialize.
In light of the visit of Hillary Clinton to Jakarta this week, it is clear that what Indonesia allows will make a difference in the seas of Asia Pacific. Clinton would seek Indonesia’s support in heightened US “presence” in Asia. But the problem here is to alleviate military tension, accusations and threats coming from either the US or China.
The Comprehensive Partnership between the US and Indonesia should not stop short of military exercises or rejuvenating weapons, because it would send the wrong signal on where Indonesia stands in all of this. The time is ripe to urge the implementation of the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation by the US; pushing it to refrain from escalating tension and surrounding Asia with deadly weapons.
Even if open war does not happen, the worst that could happen in this region from all of this is deep divides, particularly those that cut deep into ASEAN and its Plus members. Indonesia may not be interested in aligning with either the US or China, but the tough homework would be to inspire other countries to do the same.
The source of current and future economic growth is in Asia. There is enough potential for growth for everyone when opportunities and challenges are managed peacefully.
The writer is co-founder and director, Paramadina Graduate School of Diplomacy in Jakarta.
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