US President Joe Biden began his presidency with the Asia-Pacific region as a focal point of his foreign policy. Yet almost two-and-a-half years later, the invasion of Ukraine has dramatically recast his international priorities.
About 450 days into that conflict, Biden initiated what could become his biggest international legacy as president, especially if he fails to win a second term, with his determined defense of Ukraine.
His wider statecraft has also seen the rebuilding of the fragile Western alliance after former US president Donald Trump’s administration.
However, he has not lost sight of a longer-term ambition to intensify the US “pivot” toward the Asia-Pacific region.
While Russia remains the major immediate threat to Washington’s security interests, this has done little to alter the Biden administration’s view that China remains the paramount long-term challenge.
SETBACK
This is why the reported curtailing of his trip to the region — which would be headlined by the G7, hosted by Japan, but is no longer to include the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) meeting, hosted by Australia — is so galling for him. It would also badly disappoint regional allies.
His trip has been cut short because of continuing US domestic political brinkmanship over the debt ceiling, meaning Biden is supposedly to return to Washington on Sunday. This closes a rare window of opportunity to reset the regional balance in US foreign policy.
Biden’s Asia-Pacific trip had been intended to double down on US attention on the region. It would re-emphasize the US pivot primarily focused on balancing China’s rise to power, including by increasing US military presence and forming security alliances.
However, this goal has been set back by the cancelation of Biden’s attendance at the Quad summit. Although the Quad was initiated in 2007, it has come into much greater focus in the past few years.
Some have dismissed the importance of the group, but its relevance as an emerging anti-China alliance has been buttressed by the UK, the US and Australian trilateral security partnership to defend shared interests in the Indo-Pacific region, with China the unmentioned focal point.
The main goal of the Quad meeting is to advance a shared vision for a free and open Asia-Pacific region with the four nations in agreement about the threat from Beijing.
The emerging fault lines in this growing challenge are often cited as being Taiwan, or the continuing tensions in the South China Sea, where not only Japan and the US, but also Brunei, Malaysia, Philippines and Vietnam are in disputes with China over the waters through which US$5 trillion in trade passes each year.
However, the broader problem for the US and its allies was to be shown on Biden’s previously planned visit to Papua New Guinea, which would have taken place between his stops in Japan and Australia.
Biden would have signed defense and surveillance agreements with Papua New Guinea, the South Pacific’s most populous nation, which would benefit from a doubling of US development assistance.
The US’ goal is seeking to deter Pacific island nations — which span 40 million kilometers of ocean — from forming deeper security ties with China. This would include a proposed US$800 million economic assistance package from Washington.
EFFORTS ON G7
Disappointed as Biden would be about the cancelation of the Australian and Papua New Guinean legs of his trip, he can instead put extra emphasis on the G7 in Japan.
At the summit from today to Sunday, measures relevant to China are to be announced.
This includes plans for the Western club for the first time to issue a statement on economic security alongside the main summit communique, including a commitment to “collectively deter, respond to and counter economic coercion” from authoritarian powers.
An example sometimes cited is China’s increasing tariffs on key Australian imports after the latter’s government pushed for an international inquiry into the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic.
DEEPER PARTNERSHIPS
The Japanese hosts would also discuss with Biden whether he might look to reopen US participation in the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership. This is the trade and investment deal originally intended to lock Washington into deeper partnerships with US allies in the region, including Singapore.
It is plausible that Biden could eventually bring the US into this pact, which accounts for about 13 percent of global trade and a combined population of about 500 million.
However, any such move would likely happen in the next presidential term, as Biden would be conscious of the political unpopularity of international trade in some key US states as he begins his campaign for re-election.
Andrew Hammond is an associate at LSE IDEAS at the London School of Economics and Political Science.
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