David Adelman

Opinion | The US needs to get back into Asia and be a stable counter to China’s influence

America is taking its eyes off Asia when it should be deepening its presence and broadening its ties, as China’s growing influence puts pressure on its smaller neighbours

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The US Navy’s guided-missile destroyer USS McCampbell sails through the Philippine Sea. Photo: Reuters

David Adelman

Published: 1:00am, 4 May 2019Updated: 3:27am, 4 May 2019

With Washington preoccupied with the fallout from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report and focused on the beginning of the 2020 presidential campaign, US engagements across the Pacific have slipped precipitously down its national priority list.

The political chaos at home has sown doubts about America’s Asia strategy, when Washington’s dependability is more important than at any time since the cold war.

Contrast America’s current posture in Asia with developments over the preceding 70 years. In the aftermath of the second world war, the US set out to establish bilateral relationships.

The San Francisco system (named for the 1951 Treaty of San Francisco that ended the American-led occupation of post-war Japan) strengthened American influence by building formal alliances with South Korea, the Philippines, Taiwan and Australia. It also reintegrated Japan into the world as a US ally.

On September 8, 1951, Japan’s then prime minister Shigeru Yoshida signed a security treaty in San Francisco, giving the US the right to maintain sea, air and land military bases in and around Japan. Photo: AP

America provided security and economic support to its friends in Asia, who had been weakened from the effects of war, in exchange for cooperation in the American effort to contain the spread of communism.