November saw developments
that could result in Southeast Asia becoming a more prominent issue in domestic
U.S. politics in 2015 and 2016. Southeast
Asia normally is not an issue in domestic American politics. Indeed, one could
say that the last time Southeast Asia was a major domestic political issue in
America was during the Vietnam War forty years ago.
This is because, with a
couple of major exceptions, Southeast Asian countries do not have major
diasporas in the United States, unlike, say, Australia or even Canada. The two major exceptions are the Philippines
and Vietnam, but Filipino-Americans have tended to focus more on domestic
American politics (such as the
current immigration debate) and a large (but declining) portion of
Vietnamese-Americans are opposed to the current government in Vietnam. Hence the diaspora politics seen in the
Chinese, Japanese and Korean communities in the United States are not as
pronounced in the Southeast Asian communities.
However, the impending
takeover of the U.S. Senate and increased majority in the U.S. House of
Representatives by the Republican party means increased leverage by the
opposition over the last two years of the Obama Administration. The presidential election in 2016 (along with
another Congressional election) and the presumed candidacy of former U.S.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also means that foreign policy issues may
become more prominent over the next two years.
That possibly includes Southeast Asia:
South China Sea – although little understood by the general American public, increased
tensions and/or a major incident in the South China Sea could bring this issue
to the forefront. The dispute could even
motivate the Vietnamese and Filipino communities to be more active publicly. For
example, anti-China protests took place earlier this spring in
Vietnamese-American communities when the Chinese oil platform was moved into
the South China Sea.
Myanmar –
the Obama Administration has touted the political and economic reform process
in Myanmar as a major diplomatic success.
However, stalling or backtracking in that process could attract
criticism from both parties. Senate
Republican (and imminent majority) leader Mitch McConnell has historically paid
much attention to the U.S. government’s Burma policy, particularly on
religious issues. Former
Senator Jim Webb has announced that he will run for the Democratic presidential
nomination, and feels that he was not given proper credit by the Obama
Administration (and in particular Hillary Clinton) for initiating the rapprochement with the Myanmar
regime.
Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) – we are
coming to the end of 2014 with neither a completed TPP deal nor the Trade
Promotion Authority needed to finalize and pass such a deal. Nevertheless, we could be seeing the endgame
for the TPP negotiations, which will start the major political debate on the
trade agreement. Even non-trade issues
related to the four Southeast Asian countries signed up to TPP could come up,
such as the
implementation of sharia law in Brunei.
Finally there remain the
ever-present U.S. concerns about China, which can overflow to Southeast
Asia. Many in Washington are convinced
that the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) is a Chinese ploy
against the TPP (even though RCEP was largely proposed by the Japanese). Earlier this year I sat through a U.S. government trade hearing
on pipe from Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam, listening to a U.S. congressman
protesting about unfair trade from China (and claiming undue Chinese influence
on the three countries, even though that same week Vietnamese workers were
rioting against Chinese-owned companies due to the Chinese oil platform in the
South China Sea).
In any event, foreign policy
usually takes a backseat to domestic political concerns in the United States,
unless there is a major crisis abroad. I
would expect this to remain the case in 2015 and 2016. Nevertheless, at a time where Asia means more
to the United States, events in Southeast Asia could inject the region into
domestic American politics.
