An Asian Perspective

On The US Elections
Rodger Baker/November 18, 2016
Manila Times

I watched the final days of the US presidential campaign from

South Korea and Hong Kong two democracies in upheaval.
While I was there, tens of thousands of Koreans marched through
the streets of Seoul, demanding the resignation of their president,
whose popularity has fallen to the low single digits after a string
of scandals.
And hundreds to thousands of Hong Kong residents clashed with
police to protest Chinas interference in Hong Kong law and its
attempt to bar several opposition politicians from taking their
seats in parliament.
Despite the political chaos, or perhaps because of it, in each city I
visited I was asked about the US election: asked to explain what
was happening, how two unpopular candidates could be
dominating and what the election of Donald Trump would mean.
The biggest concern from the questioners point of view was the
global uncertainty such an outcome would produce. In South
Korea, where the leadership is losing legitimacy and the
economic and security environment is unstable, locals feared that
a Trump victory would only add to the confusion. In Hong Kong,
where the one country, two systems is steadily eroding into
one country, one system, the question posed was whether the
underlying ideology of US foreign policy would remain the same
and whether the country would continue to support democracy in
Hong Kong.
An unpredictable behemoth
The United States is incredibly influential across the globe,
economically, politically, socially and in terms of national and
regional security. In many ways, an unpredictable United States
seems more menacing than a hostile United States. The latter
can be countered, adapted to, understood; the former is like
being trapped in a room with a wild gorilla no one knows just
what it will do, but whatever it does, even if nothing, it will have
an effect. That may be a poor analogy, but the point stands: The

United States appears to be entering a phase of unpredictability,

and the importance of that uncertainty is hard to overstate.
I spent my last day in South Korea in Incheon, site of the US
amphibious landing that altered the course of the Korean War.
When I left my hotel midmorning, the breathless announcers on
US cable television were outlining victory for Hillary Clinton. After
visiting the Incheon Landing Memorial Hall and logging back on to
a wifi network, it was clear there had been a massive reversal
and that Donald Trump was now projected to win. The South
Korean press reported that its government would hold an
emergency National Security Council meeting to discuss what a
Trump victory would mean for the US-Korea alliance.
The possibilities
During his campaign, Trump averred that US allies needed to pay
a greater share of the costs of US protection and suggested that
it wouldnt be so bad if South Korea and Japan considered
developing nuclear weapons of their own as part of a regional
deterrent strategy. That would be a major change in the way the
United States currently views East Asian security, and for a small
country like South Korea surrounded by large powers and a
hostile neighbor, it could significantly alter its own sense of
national security. Since that time, Trump has reportedly reassured
the South Koreans that there will be no rapid change in relations.
Nevertheless, there are clearly going to be alterations to how the
United States deals with its allies and competitors abroad.
Any US president operates under tight constraints, not only
because of relatively short term limits and the balance of power
inherent in the US system but also because of the nature of the
international system. The US president is just as often responding
to global events as trying to shape them proactively, if not more
so. But that does not mean that different administrations dont
have different priorities. Asian countries expected Hillary Clinton
to double down on the United States current poorly defined pivot
to Asia policy. A Trump administration might go a different
direction, creating a more protectionist model of economic and
trade policy. This would dash hopes for the Trans-Pacific
Partnership (TPP) deal and may open up the US-South Korea free
trade agreement to renegotiation. Moreover, any disruption in

economic activity between China and the United States will

necessarily affect other Asian economies, which are closely tied
to Chinas.
Hong Kong would be particularly affected by a change in USChina relations. If US foreign policy shifts from an ideological
model based on the promotion of democracy to a more
isolationist model with a hint of mercantilism, the country may be
less inclined to intervene in the affairs of emerging democracies,
such as Hong Kong.
Though the Peoples Republic of China may welcome this change
in part, it could also mean that the United States will be more
willing to target Chinas currency and to actively counter Chinese
efforts to create an alternative banking and finance system. Hong
Kongs concern is that in the absence of US pressure to
democratize, China will assert more complete control over the
Hong Kong political system, particularly as China relies less and
less on Hong Kong economically.
For South Korea, Hong Kong and China, Trumps election is
unnerving not because of any clear policy changes it portends
but rather because of the uncertainty it has created. It is easier to
adapt and adjust to a known than an unknown, and given the size
and international role of the United States, this unknown could
have substantial consequences. At a time when South Koreans
are unsure whether their president will even serve the rest of her
term and when Hong Kong is unsure whether China will allow its
elected legislators to take their seats, the confusion stirred by the
US election seems particularly troubling. For the next few months,
these governments will furiously try to defog the future of the
global order, including by considering worse-case scenarios but
with the partisan divide in the United States more clear than
ever, finding objective and impartial information on which to base
their assumptions will not be easy.