A military agreement with the Philippines and easing an arms embargo against Vietnam show that US President Barack Obama’s administration wants deeper security ties with Asia, even as turmoil in the Middle East has undermined its hope of making Asia the heart of its foreign policy.
The “pivot” was intended to be Obama’s signature push in foreign affairs. As the US disengaged from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, it would devote more attention to the Asia-Pacific region and US economic interests there.
However, it has not turned out as planned. Washington is grappling with the fallout of the Arab Spring, a growing rivalry with Russia and the rise of the Islamic State.
Against this chaotic backdrop, the growing tensions in the South and East China seas and US efforts to counter the rise of an increasingly assertive China appear peripheral concerns — the pivot gets few people in Washington excited these days.
Obama did not even mention it in a sweeping foreign policy speech in May and negotiations on the Trans-Pacific Partnership — the main economic prong in the pivot — have been mired by differences between the US and Japan over agriculture and auto market access, as well as by opposition to the pact among many of Obama’s fellow Democrats.
Yet the administration is still chipping away at its grand plan for a rebalance to Asia that began within months of Obama taking office in 2009, when the US signed a cooperation treaty with ASEAN.
The US has since ended its decades-long isolation of Myanmar, in response to democratic reforms there. It has taken a more strident diplomatic stance against Chinese aggression in the South China Sea and some concrete steps to shore up its allies’ ability to respond. In April, Washington signed a 10-year agreement to allow thousands of US troops to be temporarily based in the Philippines.
Like the Philippines, Vietnam has been engaged in standoffs with China over disputed reefs and islands. Tensions spiked from May to July after China deployed a deep-sea oil rig near the Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島), which Taiwan also claims.
Chris Brose, who is Republican Senator John McCain’s foreign policy adviser, said that the US still has to convince Asia that the rhetoric of the pivot can become reality.
“The question is not whether America is doing something. Clearly America is,” Brose told a Washington think tank on Friday. “The question is whether what America is doing adds up to a set of actions that’s fundamentally impacting China’s calculus.”
Super Typhoon Kong-rey is the largest cyclone to impact Taiwan in 27 years, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said today. Kong-rey’s radius of maximum wind (RMW) — the distance between the center of a cyclone and its band of strongest winds — has expanded to 320km, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. The last time a typhoon of comparable strength with an RMW larger than 300km made landfall in Taiwan was Typhoon Herb in 1996, he said. Herb made landfall between Keelung and Suao (蘇澳) in Yilan County with an RMW of 350km, Chang said. The weather station in Alishan (阿里山) recorded 1.09m of
NO WORK, CLASS: President William Lai urged people in the eastern, southern and northern parts of the country to be on alert, with Typhoon Kong-rey approaching Typhoon Kong-rey is expected to make landfall on Taiwan’s east coast today, with work and classes canceled nationwide. Packing gusts of nearly 300kph, the storm yesterday intensified into a typhoon and was expected to gain even more strength before hitting Taitung County, the US Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center said. The storm is forecast to cross Taiwan’s south, enter the Taiwan Strait and head toward China, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The CWA labeled the storm a “strong typhoon,” the most powerful on its scale. Up to 1.2m of rainfall was expected in mountainous areas of eastern Taiwan and destructive winds are likely
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday at 5:30pm issued a sea warning for Typhoon Kong-rey as the storm drew closer to the east coast. As of 8pm yesterday, the storm was 670km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻) and traveling northwest at 12kph to 16kph. It was packing maximum sustained winds of 162kph and gusts of up to 198kph, the CWA said. A land warning might be issued this morning for the storm, which is expected to have the strongest impact on Taiwan from tonight to early Friday morning, the agency said. Orchid Island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼) and Green Island (綠島) canceled classes and work
KONG-REY: A woman was killed in a vehicle hit by a tree, while 205 people were injured as the storm moved across the nation and entered the Taiwan Strait Typhoon Kong-rey slammed into Taiwan yesterday as one of the biggest storms to hit the nation in decades, whipping up 10m waves, triggering floods and claiming at least one life. Kong-rey made landfall in Taitung County’s Chenggong Township (成功) at 1:40pm, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The typhoon — the first in Taiwan’s history to make landfall after mid-October — was moving north-northwest at 21kph when it hit land, CWA data showed. The fast-moving storm was packing maximum sustained winds of 184kph, with gusts of up to 227kph, CWA data showed. It was the same strength as Typhoon Gaemi, which was the most
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