Trump Went Back Home

Having enjoyed golf play with his partner fell back into a bunker, shrimp from disputed Takeshima Island and boasting his granddaughter’s singing of Chinese song, President of the United States Donald Trump left Asia on Tuesday. Insisting on unilateral interest of America in international trade, US looked like leaving aside its traditional standpoint of value-based diplomacy, which was democracy or human rights. Trump’s first visit to Asia indicated diminishing American presence in the region along with emergence of China.

Nikkei Shimbun raised a headline of “Poor Resonance on America First” for an article of reviewing Trump’s visit to Asia. The article criticized the attitude of Trump putting the first priority on internal logic of US, quoting his words from the speech about comprehensive strategy toward Asia on Sunday in which he rejected major agreement against US sovereignty. Nikkei interpreted Trump’s argument to be defying international effort to establish multilateral trade rules and seeking trade convenient to US interest.

The article also introduced a comment of a spokesman of Philippine, “While he had been supposed to say something on the statement of ASEAN on the issue of North Korea or South China Sea, there was no comment. It was all about trade.” Trump offered Vietnamese Head of State US role as an arbitrator in the issue of South China Sea, retreating from the status of one of the parties involved in. He did not referred to human rights in the meeting with highly authoritarian President of Philippine Rodrigo Duterte. “Could not be seen the figure of super power leader whose words on principles shared by Western developed countries generated centripetal force,” the article concluded.

In the article of anonymous discussion by the writers, Nikkei quoted words of a diplomatic source that dubbed Trump as “a small business dude,” who was delighted with warm welcome by host nations. One writer remembered China’s evaluation of Trump as a man easy to deal with, looking down on him as tamable with practical benefit. As a matter of fact, Trump ignored expectation of the countries in Southeast Asia to take initiative to deter unilateral advance of China in the region.

Former Japanese Ambassador to US, Ryozo Kato, analyzed in an article of Yomiuri Shimbun that Japan was United Kingdom in Asia for US and China was Soviet Union. “Although Soviet Union preferred to military, China is a big power both in economy and military. It was a behavior of emperor for Xi Jinping to invite Trump to Forbidden City. While Trump would not approve Xi’s value, it was possible for him to be impressed on that governance,” told Kato. Trump might have gotten back home with fundamental misunderstandings about China.