U.S. Policy in Asia — Perspectives for the Future

Climate Change

• Climate change and clean energy have been powerful, unifying issues in the U.S.–China bilateral relationship. There may be no other issue where both countries have more interests in common, in terms of their concerns about mitigating the economic impacts facing both climate-vulnerable communities and domestic coal communities and their desires to diversify their energy mix.
• The Paris Agreement on climate change was the centerpiece of U.S.–China cooperation, but Asian countries will continue to implement ambitious domestic climate policy goals even if the United States were to back away from its Paris commitments.

Trade

• The rise of Asian innovation will likely create new opportunities for increased U.S.–Asia cooperation in the realm of intellectual property, an area hitherto characterized by significant friction between the two regions.
• A promising trend is the increase in U.S. patents granted to co-inventions that resulted from collaboration between U.S. and Asian researchers.

National Security

• The Trump administration might focus more narrowly than did earlier administrations on addressing a shorter list of threats that directly affect U.S. interests in the Asia-Pacific. These chiefly include a rising China, a nuclear North Korea, and a lurking Islamic State in Southeast Asia.

Human Rights

• A few countries, including the United States, have quietly indicated their dismay at China's human rights record to Chinese authorities, but no country has yet sought to prosecute that conduct. The dilemma is that China classifies its actions as protecting its national security, making it difficult for the United States and other countries to try to prevent such behavior.