Trump ‘angling for deal’ with Xi – Asian Media Report

Donald Trump was soft on China in his inauguration day speeches, prompting suggestions he might want to do a deal with Xi Jinping.

Singapore’s The Straits Times said Trump held off unveiling China tariffs on his first day in office. Instead, he ordered his administration to address unfair trade practices globally and investigate whether Beijing had complied with a deal signed during his previous term. 

The paper reported Trump said he would have meetings and calls with Xi.

It said a person familiar with the decision to go softer on Beijing believed it reflects a shift by Trump into negotiation mode – that he was eager to cut another deal with Xi.

On Tuesday, Trump said he was considering imposing a 10 percent tariff on Chinese goods and might act in February. Bangkok Post reported China’s CSI 300 Index fell by as much as 1.3 percent. But the proposed 10 percent levies were much lower than the 60 percent tariffs Trump had threatened previously.

Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post also noted Trump had treated China lightly. The paper carried a long interview with Da Wei, director of Tsinghua University’s Centre for International Security and Strategy, who said Trump's domestic agenda was his early priority.

“He postponed the imposition of the tariff… to give room to, on the one hand, his own government and, on the other hand, other countries, including China, for some negotiation,” he said.

“Of course, we don’t know that President Xi and President Trump talked about during their phone call three days ago. But I think that China and the United States are now in a quite good communication process.”

SCMP noted the only mention of China in Trump’s inaugural address
concerned his stated ambition for the US to regain control of the canal. He asserted China had a degree of ownership of the waterway.

In a long historical feature, the paper said China had left a mark on the waterway but not in the way Trump had claimed. 

Chinese workers had started arriving in the 1850s to help build the Panama railway and later the canal. “For over six decades they shed sweat and blood – and thousands paid with their lives,” the paper said.

Problems for US security network, country by country

Jake Sullivan, national security adviser to former president Joe Biden, said this month the US position in the Indo-Pacific is incredibly strong right now.

The US now has a latticework of mutually reinforcing coalitions to bolster its position – the US-Japan alliance, the AUKUS partnership, the Japan-US-South Korea arrangement, the Japan-US-Philippines alignment and the Quad (India, the US, Japan and Australia).

Brad Glosserman, an international affairs commentator for The Japan Times, says the key words in Sullivan’s assessment are “right now”. Glosserman, an author and academic at Tokyo’s Tama University, says: “There are a number of ways this position of strength could deteriorate.”

Possible acts by Donald Trump – such as punishing allies for perceived economic transgressions or doing deals with China’s Xi Jinping or North Korea’s Kim Jung Un – could damage America’s standing in the region.

But developments in allied states also gave cause for worry.

In Tokyo, the absence of strong leadership is a problem and Shigeru Ishiba’s government is struggling to establish strong communications with the new US administration.

South Korea’s government is in chaos, with the impeachment of President Yoon Suk Yeol likely to be confirmed, leading to the election of a progressive leader. The US-Japan-South Korea security arrangement could collapse, given the longstanding suspicion among the left of closer ties to Japan.

In The Philippines, President Ferdinand Marco Jr is battling with his Number 2, Sara Duterte, the daughter of his predecessor. The conflict, Glosserman says, could shift thinking in Manila about the security triangle with Japan and the US.

In Australia, both sides of politics are committed to the AUKUS deal. But Elbridge Colby, Trump’s nominee for undersecretary for defence for policy, has said the agreement’s timeline is crazy, as the US needs to keep its nuclear submarines.

“A rejiggering of that deal could cause real heartburn in the alliance,” Glosserman says.

And Taiwan could be a problem. Polls show doubts about the people’ willingness to defend their democracy, while Trump has suggested Taiwan should pay more for US support.

“My catalogue of concerns is hypothetical,” Glosserman says. “Unfortunately, there is good reason to believe that stresses will occur.”

Japan’s shipbuilders learn from failed submarine bid

Japanese shipbuilders bidding for the contract to build Australia’s next fleet of RAN frigates are trying to learn from Tokyo’s failed submarine bid in 2016.

They believe the weakness of the submarine bid was not the quality of the vessel but the overall construction package – including the transfer of key technologies and the scope for local construction and employment.

The submarine contract was awarded to the French Naval Group but it was later scrapped and replaced by the AUKUS nuclear-powered submarine deal.

Japan has set up a joint public-private committee to promote the frigate bid, The Japan Times reported. The committee included representatives of the defence, foreign affairs, industry, finance and infrastructure ministries and such big companies as Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Hitachi, Mitsubishi Electric and NEC. This was an unprecedented move, the paper said.

The report also named Australia as Japan's closest security partner, after the US.

Under the frigate programme, called Project Sea 3000, Australia wants to acquire seven-to-11 general purpose frigates, to replace the RAN’s Anzac class ships. The first three vessels would be built in the yard of the designer and the remainder at the Austal shipyard in Henderson, Western Australia. The contract would be worth between $A 7billion and $A 11 billion.

In November, the Australian Government reduced the candidates to two: Germany’s Meko A-200 frigate, built by Thyssenkrupp Marine Systems, and an upgraded version of Japan’s Mogami-class vessels, built by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.

Japan’s National Security Council has approved the joint development and production of the frigates, to allay concerns about potential transfer restrictions under the country’s arms-export controls.

The paper quoted Peter Dean, from Sydney University’s US Studies Centre, as saying important factors in the partnership proposal would include cost, build times, intellectual property transfer and co-development of the vessels. 

“If this is an attractive package, then Japan’s chances would be very high,” Dean said.

Some resistance groups protect online fraud gangs

Last week 32 Indonesians escaped from an area known as Scam City, a vast compound in Myanmar notorious for using human trafficking to operate online and telephone fraud scams. 

They scrambled across the border into Thailand – where authorities arrested them for entering the country illegally.

Bangkok Post said their treatment was appalling. “The authorities have sent a chilling message to others in captivity: There is no refuge for them in Thailand,” the paper said in an editorial.

Yet Scam City was thriving at least in part because of the support it got from within Thailand.

The city was infamous for its global scams, for human trafficking, torture and extortion, the paper said. More than 7,000 victims were trapped there – more than half of them Chinese.

Organised crime gangs running the scam relied on support from Thai soil. They freely transported victims across the Thai-Myanmar border, used Thai telecommunications services and got food supplies and construction materials from Thailand.

“The authorities’ failure to act decisively suggests more than negligence,” the editorial said. “It hints at an entrenched system of corruption. The government is not powerless. It has plenty of intelligence about these organised criminal outfits.”

Global Times, an official Chinese newspaper, this week reported on an investigation into the fraud centre. It quoted a rescued victim as saying the facility was a formidable prison, with towering walls topped by tangled barbed wire and with watchtowers where armed guards scanned the grounds.

Legal academic Jian Kunyi, from the Yunnan University of Finance and Economics, said some armed resistance groups in Myanmar collaborated with organised criminals to fund their fight against the ruling junta forces. “As long as this demand exists,” Jian said, “organised crimes will find their ‘protectors’.”

Despite intensified law enforcement efforts, the flow of capital and personnel across the border, via the Thai city of Mae Sot, had become more frequent. “Victims from around the world continue to disappear into the shadows of Mae Sot,” the paper said.

Online gaming plays part in Digital Silk Road strategy

While TikTok, the social media platform, is attracting immense attention as a digital pawn in the world’s superpower rivalry, China is quietly increasing its soft power through a surprising online tool – video games.

Soft power – spreading influence through persuasion rather than coercion – has traditionally been dominated by Western cultural forces, such as movies, TV programmes and music. But an article in The Diplomat, the Asia online newsmagazine, says China is moving into this space through its rapidly growing gaming industry.

At the centre of this strategy is Tencent, China’s biggest tech conglomerate and a global leader in the gaming industry. The article, written by Rutgers University academic Shaoyu Yuan, says Tencent has built a gaming empire that spans the globe. 

“Tencent’s strategy is simple yet powerful: invest in games that captivate international audiences while integrating elements of Chinese culture into the gaming experience,” Yuan says. “What sets China’s gaming soft power apart is its subtlety. Games are not didactic tools but are immersive experiences that allow players to engage with Chinese culture on their own terms.”

Yuan says China’s embrace of gaming as a soft power tool fits in with its Digital Silk Road policy – the digital arm of the Belt and Road Initiative. China is positioning its digital platforms, and their narratives, at the heart of global digital culture.

The strategy, he says, helps China move away from its now-abandoned posture of “wolf-warrior diplomacy”.

He also makes the point that Tencent, like other Chinese tech giants, maintains close links with the Chinese Communist Party.

Police use 30-strong team on one child’s abuse case

Police in the Indian state of Kerala have arrested 57 people over the abuse of a schoolgirl.

The survivor, now 18 years old, was a minor at the time of the alleged offences. She is a member of the marginalised Dalit caste.

A report in The Hindu newspaper said two accused remained at large as they were reportedly abroad.

An earlier report said the victim disclosed the abuse to the Child Welfare Committee in Pathanamthitta district. She said she had been sexually abused by several persons from the age of 13.

Police said they had identified at least 62 potential perpetrators.

The report described the young woman as a sportsperson and said among the alleged abusers were coaches who had trained her.

The Hindu reported in a separate story the victim had received counselling after teachers told the welfare panel of noticeable changes in her behaviour

The story said police had set up a special team of more than 30 officers to conduct a comprehensive investigation.

David Armstrong has worked in Asia for more than 20 years. He is a former chief editor of The Bulletin, the Canberra Times, The Australian and the South China Morning Post. He is a former president of the Bangkok Post company and lives in Bangkok. 

This article first appeared in Pearls and Irritations.