A Trump victory divides the East Asian triangle

This article also appears in a collection of essays, Harris versus Trumpwritten by experts from the Lowy Institute on the implications of the US presidential election for Australia.

Of course, China wants Trump to win.

This is something I've heard often in recent months in Australia, the United States and Europe about the idea that Chinese leaders see political advantage in a Donald Trump victory in November.

The same logic applied to Japan and South Korea, the Americas' most important allies in North Asia, leads to the opposite result: the assumption that Tokyo and Seoul will barrack for the Democratic Party candidate, Vice President Kamala Harris.

But speaking with officials and academics on the ground in China, Japan and South Korea, a different picture emerges.

Many advantages for Beijing

The reasoning that pushes the Chinese to prefer Trump is strong enough. A Trump victory represents decline, decay and chaos in the world's most powerful democracy, and therefore theoretically helps Beijing in two ways.

First, it would turn the United States inward and diminish its ability to project power and support its allies at a time when Beijing is challenging Washington head-on, particularly in Asia.

Second, Trumpian chaos undermines democracy in general and strengthens China's case for an alternative to the US-built and US-led global order.

Chinese officials and scholars, in private conversations over several months, have been largely wary of a Trump victory.

In China, it is true that there is no single opinion on the US elections, even as leaders eagerly await the outcome. As for what Xi Jinping himself thinks, that's a mystery. But Chinese officials and scholars, in private conversations over several months, have been particularly wary of a Trump victory.

The Chinese view Trump as corrupt and transactional, qualities they thought they could exploit and indeed did at the start of his first presidency after his election in late 2016. But the Chinese approach has not worked long term.

But China fears Trump's unpredictability

In office, Trump ultimately transformed U.S. policy toward China because he did not hesitate to do things his predecessors would not have done. The most notable announcements concerned trade and the imposition of customs duties. But he also let his national security team, along with Mike Pompeo (Secretary of State) and Matt Pottinger (National Security Council), implement their own tough anti-China policies.

More than anything else, Trump is unpredictable and independent of political precedents or commitments he may have made in the past, even days, hours or minutes before. Trump's secretaries of defense and chiefs of staff often had no idea what decisions he might make. How could the Chinese know?

Beijing is implementing a very deliberate salami-cutting strategy to gain the upper hand in the region, around Taiwan, in the South China Sea and near the Senkaku Islands, or Diaoyu Islands, where its navy and coast guard are challenging the Japan.

Trump’s boisterous unpredictability is anathema to China’s ambitions in this regard. The idea of ​​a grand deal between the United States and China, negotiated by Trump as the self-proclaimed master negotiator, seems more distant than ever. Trump tried this in his first term with North Korea and failed.

There is no reason to think he could succeed with China, even if he wanted to try.

Japan receptive to Trump's return while South Korea ambivalent

But what about Japan, South Korea and a second Trump presidency? For very different reasons, surely they fear a Trump victory?

Trump has made no secret of his disdain for traditional allies who he says benefit from American power and military spending.

After all, Trump has made no secret of his disdain for traditional allies who he believes profit from American power and military spending. Trump's first policy statements in the 1980s attacked Japan, which was then running huge trade surpluses with the United States and competing head-on with major American industries.

Tokyo and Seoul already contribute large sums of money to pay the costs of U.S. troops stationed in their countries, and they have resented Trump's authoritarian threats during his first term to force them to pay more. But at the same time, the Japanese in particular, for all their resentment toward the United States, know that they cannot handle China without support from Washington.

In this regard, they like to see the United States display its power. What some foreigners see as a hawkish act, many senior Japanese officials applaud as a deterrent. On top of that, the Japanese have generally favored Republicans over Democrats in the White House in recent decades because they view them as more focused on the kind of hard power that can keep China at bay.

Such attitudes are pushing people like Kurt Campbell, now a deputy secretary of state and a longtime hardline Democratic national security official, to turn the corner. Figures like Campbell can point to the record of Joe Biden's administration, which has taken a hard line on China and worked hand-in-hand with the Japanese to strengthen deterrence.

As far as we can tell, Kamala Harris, if she wins the election, would represent a continuation of this harsh foreign policy towards China, at least in the short term. But on a recent trip to Tokyo, I was surprised to hear Japanese officials still muttering about the possible pitfalls of a Democratic victory. They are too intellectual, a senior Japanese official told me.

South Koreans do not necessarily align with Japanese policy toward the United States. Their technology companies are less willing than the Japanese to comply with US sanctions against Beijing. Seoul's foreign policy also still largely revolves around North Korea.

Any preference for Trump in Tokyo and Seoul, such as it exists, is heavily qualified by the former president's indulgence toward Russia and his infatuation with Vladimir Putin. Russia's close ties with China and North Korea, both of which provide critical support for Moscow's war in Ukraine, are warning signals in Tokyo and Seoul.

Whatever value they may see in Trump, they clearly understand that the downsides are also precipitated.