This weekend, President Obama will try, for the last time, to revive his “pivot to Asia” while in China for the G-20 meeting of top world leaders. It’s a reminder of another mess for the next president to clean up.
Obama will have a tete-a-tete with President Xi Jinping Saturday. He’ll give some speeches. But mostly, his Asian grand finale will highlight the heap of regional crises he’s leaving unsolved.
Start with the good: Obama negotiated the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement with America’s allies. The agreement has the potential to counterbalance China’s growing economic dominance of the region. It’ll be “seen as a demonstration of America’s commitment to be a Pacific power,” Obama’s foreign-policy guru Ben Rhodes told reporters this week.
True enough. Indeed, Obama conducted tough negotiations with Japan and other TPP partners, and managed to overcome their (and some of our) worst protectionist tendencies. He may now whisper in Xi’s ear that the pact won’t harm China, which isn’t a party to the deal.
All to the good. But Obama failed to sell this deal where it counts most: in America.
Union types and environmentalists in his own party joined hands with Republican America-Firsters, and the resistance soon spread to party centrists and leaders. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell now swears he won’t bring the TPP to a vote this year. And both major presidential candidates say they oppose it.
And so TPP, the economic jewel of Obama’s “pivot,” looks like it’ll be buried at least until a future president revives or renegotiates it.
Meanwhile, what about “freedom of navigation,” which aides say Obama will raise with Xi?
China has seized tiny islands in vast ocean area claimed by Vietnam, the Philippines, Taiwan and others in the South China Sea. It habitually challenges Japan on the Senkaku Islands, which are under Japanese stewardship in the East China Sea. As Eli Lake reported in these pages Thursday, China has sent unmarked armed military boats to the water around the Senkakus.
Chinese aggression is on the rise for several reasons: our failure to act elsewhere (see: Syria red line); major cuts in US Navy budgets; and Xi’s imperialism and ultra-nationalism.
Moreover, expansionist China aims to replace America as the dominant naval force in some of the world’s most sensitive commercial passages. And no, Beijing won’t defend open navigation on the high seas, as America has done since the late 19th century. Instead, Xi just throws his weight around.
So unless we seriously confront aggression — and do so pretty soon — expect increased volatility in the world’s most economically vital sea lanes. Allies will suffer and our commercial interests will depend on Beijing’s whims.
Oh, and lest we forget the apple of Obama’s eye: In the lead-up to the trip, Chinese officials announced that in the margin of the G-20 meeting, Obama and Xi will “ratify” the Paris Agreement, a universal anti-climate change pact signed by 195 countries last December.
Beijing’s Foreign Ministry says Xi is ready to ratify it, adding, “We have also learned that the US is pushing the agreement through [Congress].”
Huh? Obama well knows there’s no way in ever-warming hell Congress will ratify the global pact. Too many Americans suspect it goes easy on major polluters like India and China while seriously hampering the US economy.
Note: To formally join the Paris Agreement, countries must sign up with a UN treaty oversight body known as the “treaty section.” Yet Obama says it isn’t a treaty at all. Why? The US Constitution says the president can sign international treaties only once “two-thirds of the Senators present concur.”
No Senate approval? No problem. Obama will sign an “executive agreement” instead — even though it’s clearly a treaty. (A trick he pulled with his Iran deal.) His aides hint he may use his famous pen as soon as this weekend, while in China.
A future president can simply ignore this unilateral “ratification,” of course, and future legislators can decline to approve whatever purse-string requirements it entails. So yes, Obama and Xi are likely to bask in environmental pomp, but one of Obama’s top issues will remain in limbo, awaiting his successor’s action.
The “pivot to Asia” was a good idea in theory. Alas, it remained a theory — while a region in turmoil eagerly awaits a new president who might actually follow through.
But hey, next week, Obama will become the first American president to visit Laos, underlining his penchant for making “history” by being first to embrace reclusive dictatorial regimes. That, sadly, looks to be his only real global legacy.