The dramatic win of the Donald Trump in the American elections carried shivers across the nerves of the allies and adversaries due to his election rhetoric of isolationism, warmongering and his slogan of making America great again. This fear transformed into reality when he ordered the complete ban of immigration from seven Muslims countries and the construction of Mexican wall. His antagonistic behavior on the phone call with Australian Prime Minister, his unjustified criticism of German Chancellor for her country’s intake of Syrian refugees, his outcry for war on ISLAMIC terrorism and his threat to take on Iran were also received with negative skepticism along with increasing tensions with China on several issues. This prompted several allies to look for better alternatives and alliances in the wake of American isolationism and adversaries to forge closer cooperation to take on the Trump war-mongering. Trump’s future policies are yet to be unfolded but his election promises and his earlier announcements have given rise to some new alliances on the Asian Horizon.

 Here in this article, I will discuss the evolving regional dynamics in the different regions of Asia in brief after Trump’s arrival on the scene. Though Asia is divided into five major reasons but in my opinion, it is better to discuss it by combining East Asia and Southeast Asia into one collective arrangement. Thus we are discussing the following four major regions of Asia: South Asia, Middle East, Central Asia and East-southeast Asia.

South Asia

South Asian politics is mainly dominated by the two arch-rivals, Pakistan and India. Pakistan’s historic relations with America against the now disbanded Soviet Union and the recent warmth of America towards India at the expense of Pakistan to counter China’s increasing political, economic and military might has created some complications in the region. Pakistan upon seeing this regional imbalance approached its ally, China, to use its relations as deterrence against the expanding Indian influence. China has also its own strategic and economic interests in Pakistan and is investing some 55$ billion in Pakistan to operationalize the Gwadar deep sea port, which according to the analysts will take the GDP of Pakistan up to a minimum of 6 percent.  Similarly, India’s memorandum of logistic exchange with America has not been received well in the Kremlin and this compelled Russia to approach Pakistan to have better relations between the two countries. The recent meeting between Pakistan, China, and Russia on the Afghan crisis in the Russian capital suggests towards a new realignment in the region.

Middle East

Obama’s policy of not using American troops on the frontline though saved America from loss of troops but it created a new sort of anarchic situation in the Middle East. Syrian civil war took a shape which one would never imagine with many parties fighting each other in a complex battle. On one side is the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria and Syrian opposition who are fighting the Assad regime and on the other hands, there are Kurds who are fighting for their own state. Then there is a huge internal struggle between the opposition groups with Islamic state fighting against all the opposition rebels and rebels fighting among themselves too.

The Syrian Kurds are fighting both the government, ISIS and the rebels and now a new factor has been added in the form of Turkish troops advancing towards Raqqa after taking Al-Bab from ISIS. Under Obama, the Americans supported the SDP (dominated by Kurds) against ISIS but this antagonized Erdogan who views YPG as a terrorist organization. This forced Erdogan to forge a closer alliance with Russia at the expense of American and NATO interests.

Now the main dominating entities in the Syrian war are the Russians and Iranians supporting the Assad regime and Turkey supporting the rebels. Iraq is now better than Syria where government troops and allied militias are trying to retake Mosul from the ISIS. The Yemen war is raging on and Gulf powers and Iran are involved in a proxy battle in the region. The Gulf countries viewed the Obama policy of restraint and reconciliation with suspicion and now expecting some radical change under the Trump administration.

Central Asia

Central Asia is a region full of natural resources and thus regional powers and America are trying to have influence there. This region has experienced relative peace in wake of strong governments but the recent escalation of tensions between Azerbaijan and Armenia threatens the peace prospects. The situation of Afghanistan is itself a threat to the peace of Central Asian and the Caucasus region of Russia and thus Russia is taking the Afghan situation very seriously. Similarly, China is deeply worried about the danger of the spillover of militancy from the Afghan border into China and thus has initiated many peace rounds between Kabul and Taliban to find a lasting solution to the problem.

East-southeast Asia

Both of these regions are at the center stage of world politics mainly due to the disputes of South and the East China Sea. About 5$ trillion of the world trade passes through this region and is a source of oil and natural gas, along with this it offers huge economic profits in the form of fishing. China claims major portions of both the seas under the 9-dash line but this claim has been rejected by the rival claimants like Philippine, Brunei, Taiwan etc. The construction of artificial islands and reefs caused a huge outcry from the regional countries and America but Philippines’ overtures to have peaceful relations and pacification of tensions brought normalcy to the region. Though the situation has seen several ups and down in this region with tensions going high again due to the recent patrolling movements of America Aircraft yet we it is hoped that parties will find the middle point because war is in no one’s interests.