By Humeyra Pamuk and David Brunnstrom
WASHINGTON, Oct 3 (Reuters) - A warm welcome and expressions
of solidarity against China likely await U.S. Secretary of State
Mike Pompeo next week when he visits East Asia for the first
time in over a year, but the looming U.S. election means Asian
allies will think twice before making concrete promises to
Washington.
Pompeo heads for Japan, Mongolia and South Korea on Sunday
at a time when U.S. ties with Beijing are at their worst in
decades in the face of the coronavirus, which originated in
China and has now infected President Donald Trump, his wife
Melania and millions of other Americans.
An Oct. 6 gathering of Pompeo and his counterparts from
Australia, Japan and India, dubbed the "Quad," will likely be
the highlight of the trip, even though the top U.S. diplomat for
East Asia, David Stilwell, conceded on Friday that the meeting
would probably not produce a joint statement of intent, despite
shared worries about China.
Trump, who tested positive for COVID-19 on Thursday night,
has blamed China for unleashing the virus that has killed more
than a million people around the world, and has made a hard line
against Beijing a central part of his Nov. 3 re-election bid.
Most Asian allies have been pleased with Washington's
toughness toward their regional rival, but have not so eagerly
welcomed Trump and Pompeo's highly charged recent rhetoric and
remain wary of going too far in openly antagonizing China.
"Everyone knows that the U.S. is the number-one security
partner, but China is their number-one trading partner," said
Miyeon Oh, an Asia security specialist at the Atlantic Council.
"The U.S. government is telling Asian countries, 'We are not
asking you to make a choice,' but in the end, they are asking
them to make a choice."
The U.S. election is another factor. Trump could lose to
Democrat Joe Biden, or win re-election and potentially harden
his stance on China. Until the results are in, Asian leaders are
unlikely to make any significant moves.
Both Japan and South Korea will attempt a balancing act
during Pompeo's trip, Oh said, careful not to stick their necks
out too far to upset China, while also expressing support for
the United States, in case Trump wins.
Pompeo may, however, be asked in private to dial down the
tone.
"There are very, very powerful political leaders, business
leaders who do not trust China, who want the U.S. to work with
Japan and India and Australia to counter China, but they want to
keep making money off China and they don't want such a
confrontational approach," said Mike Green, an Asia expert at
Washington's Center for Strategic and International Studies.
"I think with Pompeo behind the scenes they're going to say,
basically 'Speak softly; carry a big stick, but speak softly.'"
BALANCING ACT
Pompeo has led the rhetorical assault on China, accusing
Beijing of covering up the COVID-19 outbreak and of using
nefarious means to attempt to displace the United States as the
world's leading power, while brutally oppressing religious
minorities and political opponents.
He has also infuriated Beijing, which has been an important
player in U.S.-led attempts to persuade North Korea to
denuclearize, by increasing U.S. engagement with Taiwan, which
Beijing considers a renegade province that it has vowed to
reunite with the mainland, by force if necessary.
Rising tensions over Taiwan have led some analysts to
speculate China might be tempted to take advantage of a
contested U.S. election to realize this goal and have also
generated suggestions that Pompeo should consider an unannounced
stop in Taipei to underline U.S. support.
If he did, he would be the most senior U.S. official to
visit the island since Washington switched recognition to
Beijing from Taipei in 1979. China would see such a move as an
enormous provocation.
Asked about such rumors on Friday, Stilwell did not
specifically dismiss them, but said U.S. policy toward Taiwan
had not changed and he had no additional travel to announce.
Randall Schriver, until last year the top Pentagon official
dealing with East Asia, said the fact there was bipartisan
support in Washington for a tougher line on Beijing that would
also prevail in the case of a Biden administration meant Pompeo
could have more robust conversations.
The United States has accelerated efforts to cut back
reliance on China for medical and security-related supply chains
and lobbied hard to get allies to cut cooperation with telecoms
giant Huawei and other Chinese technology firms.
While the Quad meeting may not yield a specific action plan,
the very fact of its meeting would serve as a warning to China
and play to its fears that it might one day grow into a
formalized grouping as NATO had to contain the Soviet Union,
Green at CSIS said.
Japan, which is embroiled in a dispute with China over
ownership of islands in the East China Sea, has a new prime
minister, Yoshihide Suga, who took office this month and has
little diplomatic experience.
He has to contend with maintaining working ties with Japan's
bigger neighbor and U.S. demands for a tougher stance.
"If Japan takes a total confrontation approach ... there
would be an uproar in Japan - Japanese public opinion is divided
and it would shake the basis of the new Suga government," said
Akio Takahara, a China specialist at the University of Tokyo.
South Korea, another U.S. ally engaged in bruising talks
with the Trump administration over shared defense costs, has
been skeptical of the Quad. It has responded coolly to the idea
of South Korea joining the grouping or a more formal alliance.
"We are willing to engage in discussions on specific issues,
but if that's a structured alliance, we will certainly think
very hard about whether it serves our security interest," its
foreign minister, Kang Kyung-wha, said this month.