Countries in Asia are hedging against China’s regional ambitions and against the uncertainty projected by the Trump administration. Australia is part of this process.

In Australian foreign policy, there has long been a tension between those who place preponderant weight on our alliance relationship with the United States and those who argue for drawing a greater sense of security from within the region. For almost a generation, the former view has prevailed. We may now be witnessing some rebalancing towards the latter.

Stimulated by Chinese regional ambitions and President Trump’s tomfoolery, our regional friends are developing agency.

In the neighbourhood, concerns about China’s regional ambitions have run high for years, particularly in Japan and the Philippines. Vietnam is cautiously watchful.

China’s recent missile test directed towards the South Pacific is the sort of thing big powers do. It did not win friends.

Self-evidently, the impact on the region of the shift in US international conduct during Trump’s second term has been severe. American tariffs hit most of the region hard. Trump’s war on Iran has inflated fuel costs.

Trump has left American alliance structures in East Asia alone. However, worries exist that Trump’s scorn for NATO could be replicated towards allies in this region or that he could be attracted towards some form of power-sharing arrangement with China.

Any such sense of American commitment that exists in East Asia is lacking elsewhere in the Indo-Pacific, namely India and Southeast........

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