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SINGAPORE – When world leaders gather in this city-state and Papua New Guinea for regional summits this week, there will be a conspicuous absence: President Trump.
It is a summit of Asia, with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) meetings due to start this Tuesday in Singapore. The 10-member bloc hosts world leaders at the East Asia Summit, a chance for regional leaders to strengthen with global powers. Papua New Guinea for Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meetings, held this year in Papua New Guinea, the poorest member of a 21-country bloc of Pacific economies.
Russian President Vladimir Putin will be visiting Singapore for the first time, meeting leaders in a region that is looking for Moscow for arms purchases and diplomatic protection. Chinese President Xi Jinping will be in Port Moresby for the APEC summit over the weekend, underscoring Beijing's strategic play in the South Pacific, and will be deploying Chinese Premier Li Keqiang to Singapore to expand a free-trade agreement with the city-state upgrade its relationship "with Southeast Asian countries.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan and President Moon Jae-in of South Korea will also be at the regional summits.
Trump, however, will be skipping them altogether, leaving Vice President Pence and national security adviser John Bolton to lead the US delegation – which analysts say it is a lost opportunity and miscalculation at a time when Washington and Beijing are locked in a battle for influence over a region that is China's backyard.
The U.S. president's decision is "a major problem with really bad optics," said Brian Harding, deputy director of the Southeast Asia program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
"Every country in Southeast Asia is trying to forge a close relationship with the U.S. – they do not want to live in a region that's dominated by China. They want options and they want balance, "he said. "It does not send a good signal [of U.S. commitment] the president does not want to wait for the summit in Southeast Asia. "
Trump's predecessor, Barack Obama, was the first US president to attend the ASEAN-hosted East Asia Summit, in 2011, and made the trip every year thereafter except during a government shutdown in 2013. The appearances were part of a general pivot to Asia, a region where Obama believed the United States could forge deeper ties and find new allies.
Last year, Trump was in Manila for meetings related to the regional bloc, but left early and missed the summit itself.
[A more assertive Beijing raises new questions for U.S.-China relations]
U.S. officials insist that Trump's absence does not signal a lack of focus on the region. Pence said the US is committed to the Indo-Pacific, "steadfast and enduring," and "some nations of undermining" of the "foundation" of sovereignty and free trade flows in the region – a thinly veiled reference to China, which has been pushing sovereignty claims and expanding its military presence in the South China Sea.
Beijing also sees Southeast Asia as its front and center of its Belt and Road Initiative, a trillion-dollar-global investment plan that countries have begun to look at.
In a statement, the vice president's press secretary, Alyssa Farah, said that Pence is "honored to represent President Donald Trump" and that he will "highlight American leadership in the region."
"He will also deliver the message that authoritarianism, aggression, and the disregard for other nations' sovereignty by any nation in the Indo-Pacific will not be tolerated by the United States," she added.
Trump drew criticism for failing to show off a tour of a military cemetery, citing the weather. Analysts from the United States under the influence of the European Union.
Southeast Asia, however, is a region where leaders of the United States have taken a leading position in the field of "America First" rhetoric, especially in the United States. Countries here continue to clamor for greater U.S. involvement and leadership, and want an alternative to China's billion-dollar investment promises that Malaysian prime minister and ASEAN elder statesman Mahathir Mohamad recently criticized a "new version of colonialism."
The Trump administration has announced a plan to support U.S.-style infrastructure development in the region, led by the private sector. Still, analysts say that the plan is not fully fleshed out, and for now, does not present the region with a clear alternative. Beijing, meanwhile, has promised trillions in the Philippines, courting President Rodrigo Duterte in a bid to gain influence in a country that has been among America's closest regional allies. It is also developing economic corridors in countries like Myanmar and Thailand.
"China thinks they can have their political relations in Southeast Asia with greater economic partnership," said CSIS's Harding. "The U.S. is not coming to the table with anything, so it is an easier card to play."
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