(March 27): President Xi Jinping is making China’s presence more felt across the Indo-Pacific region by testing US allies on sensitive issues, as US President Donald Trump’s attention is taken up elsewhere.

From sending warships off Australia’s coast for unprecedented shooting drills to flying a record number of “grey zone” balloons around Taiwan, and putting pressure on Thailand over human rights issues, Beijing is ramping up efforts to project power in the region. China also issued a strongly worded warning on Taiwan to Tokyo — which doesn’t officially recognise Taipei — against “colluding” with separatists.

Trump’s sudden embrace of Russia, scepticism of Nato allies and tariffs that punish friendly nations have fuelled concerns about the US as a reliable security partner in Asia, where Washington has for decades provided a buffer to Beijing. The Republican leader has asked Taiwan to pay more for its defense, questioned Washington’s security pact with Japan, saying “we have to protect them, but they don’t have to protect us”, and hit US allies South Korea and Australia with metals duties.

For Xi, the opportunity to fracture US partnerships comes at a delicate time, as China tries to shield the world’s No 2 economy from blanket levies that Trump has hiked by 20%. Echoing Beijing’s tariff response, officials are keeping new attempts to sway Asian countries to below the threshold for US retaliation, for example ramping up official rhetoric toward Taiwan while refraining from major drills around the island.

“The Chinese state is pushing in every direction and just seeing how far it can go,” said Bill Hayton, an associate fellow with the Asia-Pacific programme at Chatham House, an independent British think tank. “Beijing is occupying space because it can, but when they encounter resistance, they’ll pause to think about things.” 

China’s steps amount to a broader campaign to warn countries against siding with the US on Beijing’s red-line issues, such as its territorial claims on Taiwan and in the South China Sea, and the ability to control ethnic groups within its own borders.

As Asia braces for Trump’s next round of tariffs set to hit April 2, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is embarking this week on his official first trip to the region, visiting US security partners the Philippines and Japan. While he’ll carry a message of continued US support, Hegseth is also likely to reinforce Trump’s demand that Asian allies increase their defense spending.

"The organising principle of the Trump administration is trade policy,” according to Josh Lipsky, the senior director of the Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomics Center. “The Biden administration was different. That was a national security first approach, with China as the greatest adversary to the US.”

During his four-year term, Joe Biden bolstered US alliances in Asia as Washington tried to contain China’s rise. That campaign included a landmark summit with the leaders of South Korea and Japan, and expanded US access to military bases in the Philippines, where Beijing and Manila have competing maritime claims. 

Biden also broke with decades of deliberate US ambiguity to say he’d defend Taiwan from any invasion by China, which views the island as a breakaway province.    

So far, Asian countries adjusting to Trump’s new doctrine have responded to assertive stances from the world’s other top economic power with caution. 

When asked if Australia — which sailed through the Taiwan Strait last year — would retaliate against Beijing for sending warships to encircle his nation for nearly a month, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese replied there are “one in four Australian jobs that depend upon trade, and China is our major trading partner.” 

Thailand — a treaty ally of the US — this month defended its deportation of 40 Uyghurs to China as the “best solution” to avoid “massive repercussions” from Beijing. In a sign some parts of the Trump administration are watching, Secretary of State Marco Rubio chastised Thai officials for deporting the group that rights organisations says would face persecution.

China’s willingness to test US allies is a contrast from just before Trump won the election, when its diplomats embarked on a charm offensive. That saw Beijing warm ties with Australia and Japan and end a four-year border stand-off with India.

Warming ties, while pushing boundaries on security matters is “a contradiction that seems to undermine China’s objective of creating gaps or friction in US alliances”, said Drew Thompson, a senior fellow at the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore. 

“There are likely competing schools of thought in Beijing about the best way to achieve China’s objectives — whether it’s the use of force or diplomacy,” he added.

China’s aid agency in recent weeks announced funding for programmes in Cambodia with almost identical goals to those canceled by the US, in a sign Beijing is also extending its soft power goals.

Diplomacy tactics are shifting on both sides. When Republican US Senator Steve Daines of Montana met senior Chinese officials in Beijing last weekend to try to pave the way for a leaders’ summit, trade issues dominated the agenda. US senators have previously challenged Communist Party officials over sensitive diplomatic matters, with Chuck Schumer confronting Xi in 2023 on what he saw as Beijing’s failure to condemn Hamas’s deadly incursion into Israel.

While Trump doesn’t want to cede space to China in Asia, he is taking his foot off the pedal, said Michael Vatikiotis, a senior adviser at the Geneva-based Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, who added the US leader was more focused on issues such as wresting back control of the Panama Canal: “He’s wants the profit, he wants the deals.”

When the two sides finally hold trade talks, Trump’s ambivalence towards being Asia’s chief security guarantor could play to China’s advantage.

“My instinct is the thing Xi will demand is: Lay off on Taiwan,” Vatikiotis added. “And Trump may well go along with that.”

Uploaded by Isabelle Francis