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The flight of Air Force
One across the Pacific marks a historic return to realism for an American
Presidency focused again on the national interest in foreign affairs instead
of deluded globalist idealism. President Donald Trump’s tour of Asia is
reminiscent of that high point for U.S. diplomacy, the Nixon visit to
China in 1972, which kick-started the American disengagement from the
Vietnam War.
In decisive rejection of the siren song of military expansionism and
financial globalization, Richard Nixon opposed the interventionism
of the Lyndon Johnson administration that led to the disastrous
quagmire throughout Indochina, including the Vietnam War, the
Cambodia conflict and Secret War in Laos. By giving recognition to
the People’s Republic of China as a legitimate government, Nixon
urged Beijing that in return for his ending aid to the increasingly
isolated Saigon regime, and also to the CIA-run Tibetan guerrillas,
that China would cease its militant adventurism abroad, especially
through proxy guerrilla movements in Southeast Asia. Since that
bilateral understanding, Southeast Asia has realized an
ever-widening peace that enabled its drive toward regional
prosperity as reflected in the 10-member ASEAN economic community
(AEC).
Now 45 years on, Donald Trump presented a similar message that
Asians must act as responsible and reciprocal players instead of
relying on U.S. military power to keep the peace, while slyly
becoming prosperous though an unfair advantage from a one-way flow
of exports into the U.S. market. As today’s senior statesman in the
Pacific Basin who saw first-hand the lessons of the Vietnam War era,
Trump has the experience and honesty to reestablish mutual respect
and self-restraint among nations rather than their engaging in
economic aggression.
Trump is, as was Nixon, much maligned by the U.S. news media and
congress for his realism abroad and plans to revitalize domestic
industry. On his triumphant return to Washington D.C., the President
must be wary of the snares set by his devious globalist foes, who
lack a shred of concern for the basic economic interests of their
financially beleaguered constituents. The obsessive Nixon fell into
the trap of a shadowy “Deep Throat”, which turned out to be an
fictive “composite” character, a classic case of fake news cut and
pasted by a disturbingly unethical Washington Post, which remains a
source of disinformation. Trump must now rise above his foes.
Major Achievements
Over those 10 days in East Asia, Trump firmly set U.S. foreign
policy on a realistic course that will help remedy America’s
economic ills and encourage other countries to act like good
neighbors.
- Trump affirmed that Pyongyang must face the fact that hysterical
threats with nuclear warheads will lead directly its own destruction
by a U.S. that prefers to maintain an uneasy peace rather than
destroy a smaller weaker nation. After its reckless rhetoric and
nuclear tests appalled the few remaining voices of reasonableness,
including myself, the ball is now in North Korea’s court with the
proviso that a single misstep will end disastrously for the regime.
Notably, the DPRK leader kept out of the public eye to avoid
arousing regional disdain and avert a tempting preemptive hit. After
violent threats and absurd antics, Pyongyang has disgusted all its
reluctant allies in the region, and the United States is starting to
look good again, especially to Guamanians. In the battle for hearts
and minds, Trump is the clear winner over the foolhardy boastful
Kim.
- The President sent the message that the United States cannot and
should not intervene in every disturbance that roils the East Asian
region. His message was that other nations must take responsibility
for their own local affairs and regional issues instead of always
seeking American aid and intervention. Notably, in the Philippines
and Vietnam, he did not raise human rights, the worn-out pretext for
a self-righteous State Department to selectively target other
governments, which led to the murderous Arab Spring catastrophe that
unleashed far worse rights violations than ever was done by the
deposed regimes.
- in Tokyo, Seoul, Beijing and at the APEC summit in Danang, the
U.S. President stressed that trade practices must be reciprocal and
not for one-sided gain. For a half-century, the U.S. has opened its
markets, while export-oriented Asian economies have erected trade
barriers along with unofficial obstacles against imports. Now that
nearly all of East Asia is no longer part of the developing world,
the same old excuses for unfair trade policies to foster development
are simply invalid.
- Trump was adamant in opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership
(TPP) that began as an attempt to maintain the momentum of the WTO
Doha Round, which however failed two years ago. The president
correctly noted that multilateral trade pacts tend to provide
convenient shelter for unfair trading practices, for example
allowing aggressive vehicle exporters Japan and Korea to protect
their own auto industries against imports of foreign vehicles.
Bilateral negotiations, in contrast, provide a level playing field
to directly address specific items of trade, rather than just broad
categories, and thereby reduce the trade imbalance.
Leader-to-Leader Encounters
The more subtle aspects of the Trump visit included his growing
distance from the empty showmanship the glib Shinzo Abe, whose use
of Japanese cultural curiosities as delay tactics culminated in
Trump dumping a box of fish food, to say: “You’re not going to feed
me crumbs as if I’m a koi carp in your pond.” That was followed up
by ordering a hamburger instead of pretty little delicacies. Japan’s
executives and even local managers of American brands also use
“quality” or cultural trappings to reject foreign goods or modify
U.S. products to the point of non-recognition, for instance, how
7-Eleven and McDonald’s “turned Japanese” with its bento box lunches
and McDonalds’ samurai rice burgers. This domestication process
occurs as a form of social control despite the fact that millions of
Japanese consumers are just dying for an untamed “cowboy” style or
reckless “Yankee” life, a taste of freedom.
In contrast, the personal bonding with Chinese leader Xi Jinping
showed proper restraint and respect without gushing praise or undue
influence. The China appetite for the abundant American way of life
is a much easier sell for American suppliers, since the problem is
one of quantity, that is, the consumers want more. GM is the biggest
auto manufacturer inside China because of astute investment
decisions but also due to the fact that buyers would rather own a
big American car instead of a tiny Chinese vehicle. A classic
Mustang or Corvette is a rarity in China, and also in Japan, only
because Ford and Chevrolet don’t make the effort to design and build
Retro muscle cars (with more efficient engines than the gas-guzzlers
of that halcyon era). The USA, now addicted to Sony style and
Samsung slickness and eco-friendly “small is beautiful” hype, needs
to remember that brash and populist American culture is its
strongest selling point in China and the emerging markets of
Southeast Asia, Vietnam being the case in point , where anything LA
and NYC or Texas are idolized.
Trump broke with the Obama administration’s flailing of the
Philippines and its tough-guy President Rodrigo Duterte for his
determined campaign to defeat the Islamist insurgency in the south
while also stamping out the scourge of drug trafficking (the effects
of which have radically worsened due to the increasing addictive
power of synthetic opiods combined with heroin, a problem spreading
due to the anonymity of e-commerce and the popularity of hiphop
lyrics). The Philippines is an extreme Wild West culture with a love
of guns, cowboy hats, jeeps and everything American. Despite the
weak national economy, Filipino families flock to Disneyland Hong
Kong where most of the entertainers are Filipino as well, so why
isn’t Disneyland and Universal Studios building theme parks in
populous Asian countries with high birth rates? OK, Disney is
setting up one in Shanghai, but one city alone isn’t going to solve
the current account deficit.
Basketball Thievery
Notably, President Trump urged his Chinese hosts to suppress the
manufacture and export of highly addictive synthetic opiods to the
USA. Meanwhile, Trump wisely did not make any fuss over the three
UCLA basketball players arrested for shoplifting in Hangzhou prior
to the Alibaba-sponsored NCAA season opener, which is linked to that
e-trading empire’s purchase of the Brooklyn Nets in a record-setting
NBA deal with the current team owner, a notorious Russian oligarch.
To enter the USA sports market, Alibaba had to pull its ads for
direct shipments from fentanyl opiod distributors in China.
Cleverly, behind a façade of drug-testing kits, it still facilitates
sneak sales by connecting with “third party” sellers ready to
express-mail “sports medicine” patches for soreness and pain.
Trump graciously avoided mention of would-be Democrat presidential
candidate Mark Zuckerberg’s preemptive visit to the Great Hall of
the People just 11 days prior to the incumbent’s arrival. Although
Facebook is excluded from China, its immature ego-driven CEO used
his Beijing stopover to upstage the Trump state visit by videotaping
an installment of Facebook’s “Ball in the Family”. FB’s first
reality show features the arrested LiAngelo and his father Lavar,
CEO of Big Baller sporting goods, who attended sports-business
meetings at Alibaba headquarters in Hangzhou prior to its actively
sponsored NCAA opener at Baoshan Stadium in Shanghai. The reason for
the three arrested players to be stuck in that expensive tourist
city instead of on the ball court in Shanghai was to attend Alibaba
business seminars.
Melania Storms the Great Wall
The impeccably stylish First Lady and the delightful younger members
of the Trump family impressed Asians wherever they went, while the
President’s candid forthrightness combined with politeness and humor
were a welcome break from the stiff aloofness of prior presidential
delegations.
Across East Asia, the Trump family made millions of friends and
admirers, especially among the youth, but now the President faces a
rabidly snarling press at home, which has tried to misrepresent his
Asian tour as an “America First” expedition. The media is wrong
again, since Trump did not project demands for economic domination
or threaten military intervention in disputed waters, other than a
stern warning to nuclear rogue Pyongyang. His message was one of
fairness and equal rights in friendly trade. The U.S. media’s
hostility toward the President is well-known in Asia, which accounts
for why the host nations kept press contact and news conferences to
a sub-minimum to prevent fake news and an editorial agenda of
nattering negativity. An unbalanced U.S. media found itself locked
outside the inner sanctums of Asian capitals and it’s all the fault
of their own biased publishers.
Nixon Shock and the Watergate Trap
Following the first historic summit in Beijing that spelled an end
to the Vietnam War, Richard Nixon returned to a hostile press goaded
by bankers and his conservative allies due to his earlier decision
to take the dollar off the gold standard. The dollar crisis,
however, was rooted in Democrat LBJ’s over-ambitious policy of
launching the Great Society entitlement program and, at the same
time, escalating the war in Vietnam. Instead of debasing the dollar
at a vulnerable moment before the Vietnam War’s end, Nixon should
have authorized gold mining on federal lands as a stop-gap, a
psychological boost to buy time for his economic restraints to take
hold.
Likewise, Donald Trump inherits a similar situation from the massive
trade deficit left by previous administrations and overspending on
defense and intelligence for the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and
dozens of other conflict zones. The speculation-driven stock market
is riding on inherently worthless shares in social media firms and
app developer.
Before cooling down the stock market, Trump therefore needs to
quickly push for infrastructure development, with China’s help with
funding and technology, while focusing the suppression stock
speculation in the tech sector (with FBI, SEC and IRS
investigations). Trump needs to focus his public appeals on the
reindustrialization of America and ignore his media critics.
What’s needed now is rapid investment in manufacturing and
infrastructure, instead of Bitcoin’s crime-catering speculation and
the dubious foreign takeover of sports teams. Trump needs to tame an
increasingly parasitic data-driven “tech” sector, especially prime
offenders, a politicized Facebook and relentless exporter Alibaba,
which has already been implicated in illegal sales of fenatyl and
drug-making lab equipment shipments to the U.S. Just as the British
“taipans” (drug lords) waged the Opium Wars against a China that was
the world’s most powerful and wealthiest nation in the 19th
century, American society is facing economic disaster and moral
destruction from Asian crime syndicates (Chinese-Vietnamese triad /
Japanese-Korean yakuza) running a War of Opiods, which are far more
addictive and lethal than heroin. Property seizures from drug lords
for public auction, as was depicted in the Miami Vice TV series, can
boost voter morale and rally opposition to the corrupt drug-linked
politicians in the Democratic Party leadership.
One final point: It is ludicrous that the U.S. president was
discouraged from his planned meeting with Russian leader Vladimir
Putin, especially given the chaotic situation in the Middle East. On
his return, an executive order needs to be issued to suspend the
politically motivated Mueller grand jury, a sick farce orchestrated
by a corrupt Democrat leadership, who were exposed in Donna
Brazile’s recent book. What needs to be investigated instead are the
Clinton Foundation machine and Obama’s sordid pro-Islamist
connections, along with their financial ties with unsavory foreign
characters.
Nixon in China, and now Trump in Asia, the world has witnessed
history in the making. By focusing on solid progress while avoiding
pitfalls and opposition ploys, the standing President should be able
to surpass the long-ignored positive achievements of his much-abused
predecessor of the Vietnam era, to complete the task of making
America great again.
Science journalist Yoichi Shimatsu, former editor with The Japan Times,
was a colleague at Pacific News Service of its founder, the late Franz
Schurmann, a leading expert on modern China and chronicler of the Nixon
mission to Beijing.
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