Mattis to Asia: Rest Assured, and Bear With Us

Defense Secretary Mattis took the stage in Singapore this weekend for a highly-anticipated speech at the Shangri-La Summit to articulate the Trump administration’s vision for the Asia-Pacific. North Korea and China were high on the agenda, as Reuters reports:

“The Trump administration is encouraged by China’s renewed commitment to work with the international community toward denuclearization,” Mattis said.

“Ultimately, we believe China will come to recognize North Korea as a strategic liability, not an asset.”

However, Mattis said seeking China’s cooperation on North Korea did not mean Washington would not challenge Beijing’s activities in the South China Sea.

Mattis sent three clear messages here that align with Trump’s early moves in Asia. First, North Korea is clearly the top priority. In Singapore, Mattis explicitly echoed Vice President Pence in calling Pyongyang “the most urgent and dangerous threat to peace and security in the Asia-Pacific.” Second, the Administration is exploring ways to peel China away from North Korea, a hope that has long been central to Trump’s posture toward Beijing. And third, soliciting China’s cooperation against Pyongyang does not mean allowing Beijing a free hand in the South China Sea, a message underlined by the Navy’s recent freedom-of-navigation operation there. On those three counts, then—and in his later emphasis on counter-terrorism and allied burden-sharing—Mattis convincingly articulated the contours of Trump’s emerging Asia policy.

Elsewhere, though, Mattis’s talking points ran up against both Trump’s own instincts and a skeptical audience. The speech was peppered with paeans to the “international rules-based order,” affirmations of allies, a call for deeper engagement with institutions like ASEAN, and even an encouragement for Thailand to return to democracy. The tension between Mattis’s rhetoric and Trump’s comparatively transactional views was not lost on the audience, who expressed doubts about Trump’s commitment to those same principles. At times, Mattis’s responses seemed to implicitly rebuke his own boss. “Like it or not, we are a part of the world,” he said when asked whether Trump’s actions would destabilize the U.S.-led global order. Soon after, he invoked Winston Churchill: “Bear with us, once we’ve exhausted all possible alternatives, the Americans will do the right thing.”

It may be that the tension between Trump and Mattis is more rhetorical than practical. The Defense Department, after all, has been given a long leash to operate under Trump, and its recent moves in the South China Sea and Sea of Japan certainly counter the narrative of disengagement. But the skeptical reception to Mattis’s speech suggests that allies still question whether he can speak for a president known for routinely undercutting his own subordinates and indulging his deeply-held transactional instincts. From his abrupt withdrawals from Paris and TPP to his grandstanding over THAAD payments with Seoul, Trump has given allies plenty of reason to question his commitment. It will take more than one skillful speech to dispel the doubts.