Roger Cohen

OCT. 16, 2014

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SINGAPORE — Outside China, there is a consistent theme in Asia. It is concern that declining American power, credibility and commitment will leave the way open for Beijing to exercise dominance over the region. President Obama’s “pivot to Asia” has been dismissed as hot air. American objectives announced without consequence betray a weak presidency; Asians have drawn their conclusions.

A new Chinese assertiveness in the South China Sea and elsewhere is palpable. By contrast, the United States seems less focused on the region since former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton left office. That, at least, is the perception here in Singapore, one of the world’s global cities and a small island-state whose extraordinary economic success is dependent on stability in Asia. That is inconceivable without America as counterbalance to China. But the feeling here, if anything, is that the Obama administration has pivoted away.

Singapore, like much of Asia, is intrigued by the new all-change leadership of Narendra Modi in India. It is doubly intrigued because it sees in Modi the Lee Kuan Yew of India, a man with a near Singaporean commitment to modernity, efficiency and open trade. It is triply intrigued because it seeks a balance of power in Asia and the only possible long-term regional counterbalance to China is India.

That scenario is, however, a distant one. In all aspects but its freedom, a not inconsequential matter, India lags China by a great distance. As Asia waits for the fruits of the magical Modi makeover, the presence of the United States as a Pacific power retains all its importance. India is inwardly focused. Its global reach is the last concern of the average Indian. A perception of American retreat from its ordering global role has led the smaller nations of Asia to feel more vulnerable to China’s systematic push outward in search of resources and control.

Singapore’s success has depended on its ability to leapfrog geography, but it could only do that because the geography was not hostile. It could depend on the fact that the foreign territorial waters at its door remained open. Japan has been restrained from going nuclear by the assurance of America’s treaty commitment to its defense. From north to south Asia, such assumptions appear a little shakier.

Razeen Sally, a visiting associate professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, wrote this year in Singapore’s Straits Times that: “A global city is where truly global services cluster. Business — in finance, the professions, transport and communications — is done in several languages and currencies, and across several time zones and jurisdictions. Such creations face a unique set of challenges in the early 21st century. Today, there appear to be only five global cities. London and New York are at the top, followed by Hong Kong and Singapore, Asia’s two service hubs. Dubai, the Middle East hub, is the newest and smallest kid on the block. Shanghai has global-city aspirations, but it is held back by China’s economic restrictions — the vestiges of an ex-command economy — and its Leninist political system. Tokyo remains too Japan-centric, a far cry from a global city.”

No global city can prosper in an environment where stability appears less certain and freedom in danger of curtailment. That is one reason why America’s commitment to Asia matters as China rises — and doubts about America stir unease.

It is not just that the Obama administration’s commitment to concluding the Trans-Pacific Partnership, an ambitious free-trade agreement that would include Singapore, Vietnam and Japan among others, has appeared underwhelming. It is not merely that the United States, by some distance, is no longer the main trading partner of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, known as Asean. It is not simply that Chinese maritime bullying in an attempt to assert its right to natural resources in the South China Sea has proceeded unabated.

It is not just that Obama, during his last visit to Asia, gave a very evasive answer to a question about whether by saying the United States would protect the Japanese-administered Senkaku Islands (claimed by China) he risked drawing another “red line.” The president said he thought the implication of the question was “that each and every time a country violates one of those norms the United States should go to war, or stand prepared to engage militarily, and if it doesn’t then somehow we’re not serious about those norms. Well, that’s not the case.” Try cashing that one at the bank.

It is all of these things, plus an uneasy general feeling. The “pivot to Asia,” like the Syrian “red line,” like “Assad must go,” betrayed a common theme: words without meaning from an American president, commitments without follow-up, phrases without plans. In Asia as in Europe, these things get noted.

The American idea is still strong in Asia. Look no further than the brave pro-democracy demonstrators in Hong Kong. But ideas require commitment to back them.