Former US President Trump has in my assessment left a formidable legacy to follow on Indo Pacific Security in terms of checkmating China's unrestrained military aggresiveness rampage across the vast expanse of the Indo Pacific Region trampling on the sovereignty of its weaker ASEAN neigbours, militraily coercing Japan and Taiwan and presently engaged in headlong military confrontation with Sub-Continental sized India, a vitrual equal, in the sensitive Eastern Ladakh region bordering China Occupied Tibet.
Setting aside United States domestic political opinions of former President Trump, what needs to be strategically and objectively viewed is that former President Trump contributed greatly to the overall security template of the Indo Pacific. This centered prmarily on shedding the 'China Hedging' strategies and 'Risk Aversion' policiess of past US Presidents when it came to China's growing military assertiveness to the extent of throwing the military gauntlet at the United States as evidenced in South China Sea and against Taiwan.
Resorting to the strategy of 'War by Other Means' President Trump engaged China in a US-China Trade War and hurting China where it hurts most. The Chinese economy is noticeably on a slow-down stage and likely to cause domestic political problems. It did distract China from some of its expansionism instincts.
In the South China Sea President Trump ordered intensification of US Navy FONOPs operations besides motivating Japanese Navy also to participate in naval patrols. The United States seems to have sensitised major European Nations also to the China Threat in the Indo Pacific resluting in France and UK declaring their intentions to send French Navy and Royal Navy on South China Sea missions.
The QUAD Maritime Iitiative led by the UnitedStates and comprising Japan, Australia and India was put in a resurgent mode by President Trump after it had gone into a slumber since 2006 or so. Navies of the QUAD Nations now exrecise regularly both in the Pacific and Indian Oceans. QUAD's significance has not been lost on China which is seriously concerned as it has the potential to checkmate China's maritime ambitions of expansion.
President Trump's most significant contribution to Indo Pacific security has been to draw-in India into a more active and substantial US-India Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. It cannot be overlooked that with India on its side theUS-led informal Coalition of Democracies gets that much more weightier and as a dampner and game-changing counterweight to China's militarism. To that end, the security profile of the Coalition of Democracies against the China Threat gets that much more enhanced.
Concluding, it needs to be emphasised and over-emphasised that the China Threat is a potent and live threat to Indo Pacific Security and that the United States incoming President Joe Biden also needs to remain equally alive to the strategic reality that the China Threat is a long term threat primarily targetted at the United States and it does not matter to China as to which political dispensation US Presidents follow in the coming decades.
