The US' original plans for the Pivot to Asia have largely been reversed in favor of China, though Washington still has a few tricks up its sleeve through Hybrid War and the "Lead From Behind" stratagem in making up for its recent setbacks.
The Pivot To Asia Reversal
Lost amidst the headline-grabbing news of the year over Syria, Brexit, and Trump, most international observers have failed to notice how the US' Pivot to Asia has experienced a series of staggering reversals which play to the ultimate benefit of China. The most profound of these has undoubtedly been the election of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, which the author forecast right before it happened. This firebrand politician is a fierce patriot of Philippine interests and completely understands how disadvantageous his country's neo-colonial relationship with the US has been for Manila, which explains why he confidently began a series of steps designed to break this arrangement and free his country from Washington's indirect rule.
The regional geostrategic consequence of this has been that Duterte has put the South China Sea dispute aside and is focusing on pragmatic win-win cooperation with China in every single sphere, be it military, infrastructural investment, and even in a broader sense, the political one. As it relates to the US' hegemonic intentions, the expansion of China's New Silk Road/One Belt One Road network to the Philippines has dealt a massive blow to Washington's unipolar vision, one which has been so profound and attractive to the region that Malaysia also recently decided to jump aboard too. As the final and most dramatic hit for Obama's Asia-Pacific legacy, President-elect Trump declared that he will abandon his predecessor's Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), thus enabling China to present its interconnected Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) and Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP) projects as relevant alternatives in inclusively filling the institutional vacuum left by the demise of the US' exclusionary scheme.
Hybrid War Hijinks
Despite the US indisputably being on the strategic retreat in ASEAN as a result of the dual 'defections' of the Philippines and Malaysia from its envisioned regional order of the "China Containment Coalition" and the unexpected suicide of the TPP, Washington still has a few opportunities to reverse the dynamics and turn the tables against China. As always, these methods are underhanded and not something which the US would ever publicly own up to, no matter how proud its "deep state" (permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies) might be if they succeed. By and large, the US could realistically exacerbate three Hybrid War scenarios in the region:
Myanmar: The author wrote in summer 2015 about how the US might seek to engineer a "South Asian 'Kosovo'" in Myanmar's northern Rakhine State, swapping out the Albanians for the Muslim Bengalis and then copying and pasting this tried-and-tested tactic. The events of the past month give extra credence to that forecast, as it appears as though this Hybrid War vulnerability is once more being exploited by the US, per the destabilization template that the author set out in his book-length analysis about Myanmar for Oriental Review. The reason why the US might be interested in reigniting unrest among the "Rohingya" is because presumably pro-American Suu Kyi, the de-facto leader of the country during its ongoing "democratization" phase, has been pragmatically engaging with China and even going as far as renewing discussion about the revival of a high-speed rail network through the country. If actualized in any shape or form, then this would represent a "second CPEC" in the sense that it would be China's second infrastructural trade outlet to the Indian Ocean and a Myanmar Silk Road. The US understands the enormous strategic stakes that are at play and is thus taking preemptive asymmetrical moves to preclude this development, though it remains to be seen exactly how far it's willing to go with this and whether or not it'll try to undermine the country's fledgling "federalization" process in resolving the world's longest-running civil conflict.
Thailand: The next prospective Hybrid War battleground is Thailand, which is the epicenter of mainland ASEAN's regional infrastructure connectivity projects. The author explained the most likely scenarios and reasons behind them in his Oriental Review country analysis on the Kingdom, but it essentially comes down to the pro-Chinese military junta having pivoted away from the US since coming to power in 2014, mostly to rebuff the US' "Red Shirt" regime change "NGO" proxies controlled by the Thaksin clan. Thailand is so important in the ASEAN strategic calculus because it's the intersection point for China's ASEAN Silk Road, Japan's East-West Railway, and India's Trilateral Highway (which could eventually have a railroad running parallel to it). Exerting a strong degree of influence over Thailand is thus pivotal for the US to have indirect control over these routes, which in turn would prolong Washington's regional dominance and "contain" China. It would also allow the US to more assuredly pressure its "Lead From Behind" Indian and Japanese allies. If worst came to worst, however, and the US "deep state" determined that Thailand was "irredeemable" as an American ally, then it might take the fateful step towards instigating a civil war there in spite of the collateral damage that this might entail to New Delhi and Tokyo's regional projects. The diverse Kingdom has an array of regional, ethnic, and religious identities which could be exploited per various preconditioning and provocations to come to blows with one another, thus making this scenario frighteningly plausible if enough resources were devoted to executing it.
Philippines: The last Hybrid War scenario that the US could predictably craft in ASEAN is obviously in the Philippines. The specifics of which way this could go were expostulated on at length for Oriental Review and in a brief summary for The Duran, with the general idea being to use Daesh-affiliate Abu Sayyaf's island strongholds in the southern Philippine island of Mindanao to foment a transnational crisis between Manila, Kuala Lumpur, and Jakarta. This disturbing scenario has a very real chance at panning out because of the existing terrorism that's plagued the region and the irresistible temptation that the US has to destabilize Duterte's government. As part of this plot, it's also possible for the US to attempt to gather together a wide coalition of "NGOs" in opposing the President's bloody War on Drugs on the grounds that it's violating "human rights", "democracy", and resulting in an "unacceptable" amount of "civilian" killings. This latter angle of the prospective Hybrid War might not resonate too much in a country where the vast majority of the population stand behind their leader, but it could still be sufficient for attracting extra Mainstream Media attention as part of the wider campaign to "delegitimize" Duterte and prepare the global audience for accepting the emergence of "resistance" to his "regime", which of course would manifest itself through Daesh disguising itself and its affiliate operatives as "moderate rebels".
"Lead From Behind"
The stunning reversals that the US has suffered to its Pivot to Asia policy can't just be overturned solely through Hybrid War, as this method mostly only destroys the targeted country/region and doesn't allow the US to exert "constructive" dominance. However, the US is strapped for resources - both physical and financial - in controlling each and every corner of the globe, hence why it's recently taken to "outsourcing" its "leadership" agenda to regional allies who have a shared interest in accomplishing similar tasks, as was explained in the author's January 2015 Sputnik analysis about "Lead From Behind: How Unipolarity Is Adapting To Multipolarity". In this instance, Japan and India are the two most important and relevant out-of-regional players which have a deep desire to expand their influence into ASEAN, and the US is encouraging them to cultivate positive bilateral and multilateral full-spectrum partnerships (both on their own and in concert with one another) in order to complicate matters for China and complement the US' own outreaches.
At the end of the day, however, the US' "Lead From Behind" stratagem in ASEAN is largely contingent on whether or not it can "recruit" Indonesia to its efforts and form a "China Containment Coalition" of exclusively Great Powers (the US, Japan, India, and Indonesia). The author also intricately explored the finer strategic dynamics relating to Indonesia in his Meaning of Multipolarity piece about the country and the concluding article about "Managing The 'Contested' Countries", but to summarize, Indonesia is truly at a crossroads over its geostrategic allegiances, and for as much as it would like to pragmatically stay on the sidelines, it's being forced against its will by the US' bullying (which includes low-intensity Hybrid War threats) into taking sides. If Jakarta manages to resist the multipronged pressure against it and reassert its strategic independence, then it can prosper as the ultimate "non-aligned" (or "contested", to use the parlance popularized in the aforementioned Meaning of Multipolarity series) state, though if it strays from its principles and tilts towards the US, then it would immeasurably strengthen the "China Containment Coalition" noose and intensify the New Cold War competition in ASEAN.
East Asia
Summary
The Russian-Japanese detente will incrementally continue, but the future of Northeast Asia is contingent on what happens with the two Koreas, as this could either lead to the formation of a Regional Quartet or two separate blocs.
The Russian-Japanese Rapprochement
The author accurately forecast at the end of 2015 that Russia and Japan would enter into an historic rapprochement with one another, and also got it right in the sense that a limited form of the more broadly proposed Northern Islands Socio-Economic Condominium (NISEC) would be agreed upon during Putin's landmark visit to the islands earlier this month. For more information about the dynamics of this evolving partnership, the reader is encouraged to peruse the author's earlier work about how "Russia's Diplomatic Balancing Act In Asia Is To The Benefit Of Its Chinese Ally", but in sum, Moscow and Tokyo are mutually engaging one another in order to promote their respective grand strategic interests. Russia wants to diversify its own Pivot to Asia, while Japan is eager to invest in Russia's Far East and gain enhanced access to the Trans-Siberian Railway in order to partially compete with China's New Silk Roads to Europe. Additionally, both countries want to put their lingering World War II-era dispute behind them in order to belatedly commence a forward-looking mutually beneficial partnership. The less that Russia has to worry about Japan and vice-versa, the more that each country can concentrate on more constructive issues such as infrastructural development and the like.
There's no telling how long it'll take for Russia and Japan to put a formal end to what Tokyo calls the "Kuril Islands dispute", and President Putin said that both sides have only just begun what will probably be a long process towards this end, though one which will likely culminate in the contentious territory becoming a "unifying element" in their bilateral relations. Moscow's main concern is that if it proceeds with the Soviet-era 1956 proposed settlement and hands over some of the 'outer' islands/rocks to Tokyo (Shikotan and the Habomai Islands), that Washington will be quick to symbolically seize upon this by victoriously forcing Japan to host American troops on these territories, which would be an audacious move that would rile the Russians and destroy the trust which they thought they had gained with the Japanese. Technically speaking, Russian security wouldn't be jeopardized in the sense that some alarmists suspect that it would be because it's really Kunashir and Iturup which matter in terms of protecting the Sea of Okhotsk and keeping it "closed" to foreign military vessels, and the US could more effectively confront Russia if it deployed assets to the much larger northern island of Hokkaido anyhow, but the symbolic stab in the back by Japan would be too much for Russia to handle and would instantly destroy their détente, just as the US would want it to.
The Korea Conditionals
Accepting that Russia and Japan will most likely continue along the positive trajectory that they've historically set out on this year and advance their incipient partnership with one another, the next major regional factor that must be looked at in terms of forecasting the future of Northeast Asia is the situation in the two Koreas. North Korea conducted two nuclear tests in 2016 and was even put under UNSC sanctions because of them, signifying that both Russia and importantly China had enough of its antics and sought to symbolically bring it in line. The author wrote more about this in a Sputnik piece from earlier this year, in which it was remarked that North Korea's security concerns are entirely legitimate, but that it is playing the role of a "useful idiot" in predictably responding to each and every one of the US' provocations just like Washington expects it to.
This in turn has inadvertently given the US the 'justification' to continue with its heightened militarization in the region under the guise of "defending against the North Korean threat", which in practice just translates to more "missile defense" systems which can one day be used as the precedent for building up a more formidable "deterrence" system aimed at negating Russia and China's nuclear second-strike capabilities. It's for this latter reason of maximum strategic importance and relevance to global stability that both Eurasian Great Powers have joined forces in condemning North Korea for its behavior (however justified it is in terms of its sovereign rights) and announced that they will be working together in crafting their own retaliatory missile defense shield if the US keeps up its strategic aggression.
Should North Korea's nuclear testing and missile diplomacy continue, then it's unlikely that relations with South Korea would ever improve, but the coming year will be extremely important in possibly ushering in a breakthrough for peninsular affairs. This is because President Park's de-facto (not yet de-jure) impeachment has created a situation whereby the interim government in Seoul and its potential successor might be much more amenable to Russia and China's urgings that it drop the prior administration's controversial decision to host the US' THAAD "missile defense" system. If South Korea opts for peace and turns away from its strategic sabre rattling, then it would rejuvenate Seoul's relations with Moscow and Beijing and make it much easier for them all to cooperate in dealing with Pyongyang, as a pragmatic government in the South's "Blue House" could potentially see the error in blindly siding with the US' bellicosity and instead choose to be much more professional and nuanced with its policies.
Regional Quartet Or Two Blocs?
The future geostrategic makeup of Northeast Asia is conditional on the situation with the two Koreas, and either of them could spoil the optimal scenario of a Regional Quartet. To begin with, this vision spells out a future whereby Russia, China, Japan, and South Korea shun the US' diplomatic-strategic interventionism and decide amongst themselves how to best handle North Korea. Without Washington's disruptive provocations, there's a much higher likelihood that a sustainable solution can be reached which mitigates the "threat" by uprooting it from its source, namely by convincing Tokyo and Seoul of the need to refrain from enabling the aggressive actions of their US military occupiers. It's of course much easier said than done, and the possibility of this scenario unfolding isn't too high, but the reason why it's being discussed is because of the exciting opportunities that are opening up as a result of the Russian-Japanese rapprochement, which if successful, would allow Moscow to serve as a trusted intermediary balancer between Beijing and its Tokyo rival. This in turn might facilitate the two coming to an implicit agreement with one another at least as it relates to the Koreas (the East China Sea and ASEAN are much less likely), which could go a long way in positively pressuring Seoul to "jump onboard" and give the Regional Quartet framework a try.
Pretty much, what's being proposed for Northeast Asia is the same game-changing diplomacy being applied in the Mideast with the Tripartite, but it's dependent on whatever the two Koreas end up doing in the near future. South Korea could spoil it all by going forward with THAAD, which is a distinct possibility, and thus preclude any realistic chance that Russia and China could make the pragmatic strategic inroads with it which would be necessary for bringing Seoul into the Regional Quartet. Moreover, if North Korea refuses to listen to the guidance of its multipolar Great Power partners and continues to unilaterally respond to the US' provocations however it sees fit, then it would contribute to an atmosphere of regional tensions and mistrust that would severely impede the Quartet's consolidation. Relatedly, a good amount of trust between Russia and Japan is also a necessary precondition for this scenario in order that the two neighbors feel comfortable with one another to the point of mildly coordinating their regional policies. Moscow knows that Tokyo and Seoul are still at odds with one another over the legacy of World War II and the Japanese colonial occupation of the Koreas, so it's betting that the US' envisioned designs of uniting the two into a "Lead From Behind" security system will never fully materialize.
On the other hand, if the multipolar plan for a Regional Quartet (the Northeast Asian application of the game-changing Tripartite framework in the Mideast) doesn't enter into fruition, then the most likely alternative is the gradual shaping of two distinct blocs of forces, which is actually already occurring right now. On the one side stand Russia and China, both of which are obligated out of grand strategic concerns to "support" (but not necessarily ally with or condone) North Korea, while the opposite bloc is composed of Japan, South Korea, and the US. Both formations aren't multilaterally integrated with one another and probably never will be, with the Russian-Chinese Strategic Partnership representing the core of the former while a dual system of bilateral American-Japanese and American-South Korean partnerships comprises the latter.
South Korea has positive economic relations with Russia and China, but has yet to translate those into workably close political ones, and the THAAD decision doesn't help at all, so it's unlikely that it could be the necessary bridge to link the two blocs together and hopefully defuse tensions if they ever got too hot. This role, however, could importantly be played by Russia, seeing as how it's expected to continue incrementally moving forward with its rapprochement with Japan, thus giving Moscow a minor say and mild sway over the US' "unsinkable aircraft carrier". Although relatively unimpressive in and of itself, in the context of Northeast Asian relations and the visible drift towards to separate blocs, this position could serve to be invaluable in the future and a role of considerable significance during times of heated crisis. Therefore, although the Regional Quartet is the most ideal of the two scenarios, it's much more likely that the Two Bloc one will end up happening instead, though it doesn't necessarily have to result in a deadlock so long as Russia can successfully leverage its incipient partnership with Japan in order to keep tensions to their most realistic minimum and relatively counteract the US' provocative intentions in stirring up more regional unrest.
Interesting article, well worth reading.