Asians have nothing to cheer in the dysfunctional politics of America and Europe

FOR many in Asia, resentful of the constant lecturing about the superiority, nay, the historical inevitability, of Western forms of government, it must seem like vindication. The European Union, which once held itself up as a model of regional integration and shared sovereignty, faces stagnation, uncontrollable migration, the rise of xenophobic political movements and a British referendum on whether to leave the union. As for America, its government is often gridlocked thanks to partisan animosity, while the campaign for November’s presidential election has plumbed depths of personal abuse, mendacity and barely disguised racism and sexism.

Small wonder that a commentary published by China’s official news agency to celebrate the current sessions of that country’s toothless parliament and its gumless consultative body should lament that “many Western countries are split by elitism and populism”, smirking that “China’s unique ‘check and balance’ system could teach them a thing or two.”

Other Chinese commentators have taken wry pleasure in the discomfort within America’s political establishment over the emergence of Donald Trump, a self-promoting tycoon with flexible but mostly obnoxious ideas, as the leading contender for the Republican presidential nomination. If this is what Western democracy produces, the logic runs, maybe China’s illiberal form of self-proclaimed meritocracy is not so bad. Or conversely: what is wrong with Donald Trump? Curiously, he seems to have many fans in China’s cordoned-off sector of cyberspace. Writing in the Diplomat, an online journal, Dingding Chen of the University of Macau reports that many Chinese netizens like his brash, outsider image and his questioning of America’s military alliances with Japan and South Korea. Some even think that, as a dealmaker, China might negotiate with him more easily than with Hillary Clinton, the Democratic front-runner, who has a habit of talking about human rights (as long ago as 1995 she riled her hosts with a fiery speech at a UN women’s conference in Beijing). China also blames her for, as secretary of state, firmly asserting America’s interest in the disputed South China Sea in 2010.  

As for the EU’s travails, they might be expected to provoke some Schadenfreude among the ten members of the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN). Asia’s most far-reaching attempt at regional integration, ASEAN is nonetheless often criticised for its failure to go further. Sure enough, Munir Majid, a leading Malaysian intellectual and banker, has observed “some self-satisfaction” within the club that the “ASEAN Way” does not envisage “ever-closer union”—in other words the group is spared some of the stresses afflicting the EU. Yet he notes that ASEAN suffers its own strains over the pace and direction of integration. It cannot afford to be smug at the faltering of the European project.
Nor for that matter is ASEAN really in a position to criticise Europe for its difficulties in tackling unprecedented waves of distressed refugees and migrants. ASEAN members have struggled to cope with far smaller numbers of boat people from the Muslim Rohingya minority fleeing Myanmar. And its solution to the question of labour mobility between ASEAN states is basically not to allow it at all, except for a few skilled professionals.
As with the EU’s predicament, America’s election campaign may provoke some Asian gloating, along with amusement, bafflement and disgust. A more pervasive emotion, however, is worry. In California last month at a summit Barack Obama held with ASEAN leaders, Singapore’s prime minister, Lee Hsien Loong, noted that the election was being followed with concern. The most obvious worry is the possibility of a President Trump. Asians can only assume that most of his threats and promises would splinter when they collided with the reality of office. But it would still be alarming to see him win. He has said he wants to slap punitive tariffs on Chinese imports (risking a trade war); renegotiate defence treaties that have underpinned regional security for decades; and curb immigration, including banning Muslims from entering America. Most of the world’s Muslims live in Asia.
Whoever wins, however, Asia may miss Mr Obama. The California summit capped his hallmark foreign policy, America’s so-called “pivot” or “rebalancing” to Asia. None of those vying to succeed him has such a personal stake in American policy in Asia—not even Mrs Clinton, who, at the state department, was present at the creation of the pivot. Indeed, she has turned against one of its most important aspects—the negotiation, pending ratification, of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a free-trade area including America, Japan and ten other Pacific Rim countries. In fact not one of the leading presidential candidates likes the TPP. Free-trade agreements are electoral poison. Its proponents insist TPP will be ratified but they have trouble explaining how. By a lame-duck Republican-majority Congress right after the election? Under Mrs Clinton as president, after a cosmetic renegotiation?

Three no-trumps

The same forces roiling American and European politics are also present in most of Asia: internal ethnic and communal tensions; protectionist fears about globalisation and job losses; and angry, assertive nationalism. India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, seems unwilling or unable to control the extreme Hindu-nationalist wing of his own party; Shinzo Abe in Japan is similarly loth to distance himself definitively from his party’s right-wing historical revisionists; China’s Xi Jinping is encouraging a resurgence of national pride which can take ugly, xenophobic forms. All three play variations of Mr Trump’s rallying cry: “Make our country great again!” The rise of nationalism at a time of economic gloom and geostrategic uncertainty is alarming for the region’s security. Europe, preoccupied with its own problems, has long forsaken any serious role in Asia. Now some Asians worry that America, needed more than ever to balance China and ensure the long peace, will start looking the other way.

From the print edition: Asia by Banyan for The Economist