Trump team turns to overlooked countries to blunt China’s cruise missile threat

That might sound like flattery, but it’s not. China’s emergence as a major rival has heightened the importance of U.S. allies around the world, including those with capital cities the size of a small town in rural America. Pompeo’s visit highlighted the administration’s effort to prevent China from gaining the ability to win a shootout with the United States in a critical part of the world.

“Right now, we are in some sort of Cold War 2.0 with China, whatever you want to call it,” Patrick Buchan, a former Australian defense adviser who directs the U.S. Alliances Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, told the Washington Examiner. “It doesn’t matter if you’re a couple of rocks in the middle of the Pacific or you’re Mongolia — you want those countries in your column.”

Buchan wasn’t kidding about Mongolia. Defense Secretary Mark Esper made Mongolia the final stop on his first trip overseas as Pentagon chief, a four-country tour through the Indo-Pacific that started in Australia and continued through New Zealand and Japan. He crossed paths with Pompeo in Sydney, where they attended an annual Australia-America ministerial. Esper helped set the tone for the forum by confirming that the U.S. wants to deploy intermediate-range cruise missiles in Asia to counter China’s growing arsenal.

“Mongolia is squeezed between two major powers, China and Russia, and, more importantly, it hugs Inner Mongolia, where the Chinese have been increasing their missile deployments,” Patrick Cronin, the Hudson Institute’s Asia-Pacific Security Chair, told the Washington Examiner. “Who knows how far Mongolia can go without provoking China, but it could be a very useful relationship.”

The Trump administration has been showering Mongolia and the Pacific Islands with an extraordinary amount of attention this summer. Esper’s visit to Mongolia took place just days after Mongolian President Khaltmaa Battulga traveled to Washington to meet with President Trump, which came after White House national security adviser John Bolton visited Mongolia in late June.

Similarly, Pompeo huddled with Micronesia President David Panuelo, Marshall Islands President David Panuelo, and Palau Vice President Raynold Oilouch three months after Trump hosted the leaders of those countries, known collectively as the Freely Associated States, at the White House. Chinese President Xi Jinping rolled out the red carpet for Panuelo’s predecessor in 2017, which helped persuade Micronesia to join the Belt and Road Initiative that experts regard as a scheme for China to use “predatory” loans to purchase sovereignty over strategically significant ports and other infrastructure.

“Beijing likely believes the FAS are critical strategic locations for U.S. power projection into Asia,” U.S. analysts at RAND wrote in a new report. “Therefore, China is likely to seek ways to challenge American dominance there by floating economic incentives to the FAS in exchange for loosened ties to Washington.”

Pompeo used the trip to jump-start negotiations to extend a set of agreements, known formally as compacts of free association, that allow the U.S. to veto any foreign military access to the Pacific Islands in exchange for security guarantees and economic assistance.

“Just as we did during World War II, we will oppose any larger nation’s attempt to turn the Pacific Islands into footholds for regional dominance,” Pompeo said.

The attention seems to be paying off. “Our relationship with China is purely on economic and technical cooperation,” Panuelo told reporters. “I want to make that clear in this context and for U.S. providing the peace and stability in the region.”

Esper was vague about his goals for the stop in Mongolia, telling reporters he was “just building the relationship at a more senior level.”

“It’s my deep privilege to be here, to be with you and to have the opportunity to look at different ways we can further strengthen the ties between our two countries,” Esper told his Mongolian counterpart, Nyamaagiin Enkhbold, as their meeting began.

But U.S. officials doubtless are eager to keep a close watch on the ballistic missiles that Chinese media have dubbed the “Guam Killer.”

That ominous nickname is a clue to how Pompeo’s meetings in those far-flung islands and Esper’s trek to a landlocked former Soviet satellite state are part of the same project. If China ever gains control of a port in Micronesia or on other Pacific Islands, Cronin and other analysts suggest, the People’s Liberation Army might be able to “sever the lines of communications” that connect this vital U.S. territory to Australia and Hawaii.

“If we were going to get into a major altercation with China and we didn’t have the capacity to resupply [Guam], then we would have no effective deterrence,” Cronin said. “We would have no effective ability to shape the region and would be essentially spending resources and money for an indefensible objective. And China would love for us to come to that realization and then just dominate the region.”

That kind of tactical military advantage in the region that holds some of the world’s most important shipping lines would empower China in other controversies with the U.S.

“If the United States can’t project its power, it cannot ensure that global maritime trade continues,” Buchan, the former Australian defense adviser, warned. “If you’re in the Midwest and you’re selling wheat, it’s pretty important that your wheat can get to ports around the world.”

The competition for influence in Micronesia and Mongolia can be expected to play out around the globe, as long as rivalry between the U.S. and China deepens.

“These are relatively minor actors in the world of great power politics, but they’re reminders that even minor actors have important contributions to make,” Cronin said.