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Biden on a trip to Asia in Tokyo and Seoul - even without a visit to Beijing, the focus is on China because of new plans

2022-05-19T08:46:03.744Z


Biden on a trip to Asia in Tokyo and Seoul - even without a visit to Beijing, the focus is on China because of new plans Created: 05/19/2022, 10:38 am By: Christiane Kuehl Asean-USA Summit at the White House: President Joe Biden poses with the heads of state and government of the Southeast Asian confederation © Michael Reynolds / Pool via CNP /MediaPunch / Imago Joe Biden is traveling to Asia


Biden on a trip to Asia in Tokyo and Seoul - even without a visit to Beijing, the focus is on China because of new plans

Created: 05/19/2022, 10:38 am

By: Christiane Kuehl

Asean-USA Summit at the White House: President Joe Biden poses with the heads of state and government of the Southeast Asian confederation © Michael Reynolds / Pool via CNP /MediaPunch / Imago

Joe Biden is traveling to Asia for the first time as US President.

He visits the allies Japan and South Korea.

But the focus is once again on the struggle for power in the Far East with the People's Republic of China.

WASHINGTON/MUNICH – The struggle for power and influence with China is one of the US government's priorities.

15 months after his inauguration, President Joe Biden is traveling to Asia for the first time this week (May 20-24).

The corona pandemic and the Ukraine war have prevented an earlier point in time;

previously only ministers or congressmen had traveled to the region.

As usual for a US president's first trip to Asia, Biden flies first to allies South Korea and Japan.

Security issues aside, he is expected to present a new economic agenda for the Indo-Pacific region.

For the first time in a long time, May will be dominated by Asia policy for Biden.

His trip follows immediately after a summit meeting between the President and the heads of state and government of the Southeast Asian confederation Asean in Washington.

There, Biden had proclaimed a "new era" of cooperation and announced a few new initiatives worth $150 million.

In addition to the USA, China is also courting the favor of the Asean countries.

Southeast Asia is therefore trying to strike a balance between the USA and its huge neighbor.

They don't want to have to choose between the two rivals.

With the exception of Singapore, the Asean states are therefore neutral in the Ukraine conflict, much to Biden's chagrin.

It is therefore no secret that Biden's diplomatic forays into the region will always involve China.

China's head of state Xi Jinping should therefore keep a close eye on the US presidents in Japan and Korea.

China and the US: strategies with many gaps

Currently, both countries are striving to fill in "blind spots" in their respective strategies, writes James Crabtree, executive director of the International Institute for Strategic Studies-Asia.

The USA is ahead in the area of ​​security and alliances - while China can score with growing economic integration, for example through the new Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP).

In addition to China and many Asean countries, RCEP also includes Australia, Japan and Korea – but not the USA.

Washington currently lacks a platform for economic cooperation with the region.

Conversely, Beijing has not yet had a convincing answer to the network of overlapping security alliances that Washington is forging in the Indo-Pacific - like Quad or AUKUS.

On the contrary: China is worrying its neighboring countries with rapidly growing military spending and the expansion of naval bases on artificial islands - and that in regions of the South China Sea, which many of the Asean countries also claim.

There is also concern about a possible military presence in the Solomon Islands, with which China recently concluded a security agreement.

USA: New economic initiative for Asia ex-China

So while the US is showing a strong presence on security issues, it has been largely bare-bones when it comes to economic cooperation since the US, under ex-President Donald Trump, withdrew from the Trans-Pacific Trade Pact (TPP).

A first attempt to resume regional cooperation is the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF), which Biden presented in October.

IPEF will include trade, digital standards, labor issues, clean energy and infrastructure.

However, US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo recently announced that it will not be a "traditional trade agreement".

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For domestic political reasons, Biden does not want or can offer any real market opening.

Trade agreements must be ratified by the US Congress;

and Biden has promised to protect domestic jobs.

But how attractive is a program like IPEF without expanded access to the US market?

IPEF includes anti-corruption, tax and trade rules, writes Crabtree.

"Traditionally, emerging countries like those in the Asean alliance only sign such conditions if they receive tariff reductions and market access in return." But what if these are not even on offer?

In any case, the ASEAN countries reacted cautiously to IPEF at the summit in Washington.

The developed partners South Korea and Japan are more likely to be considered for IPEF, as they already meet many of the standards.

The US security guarantees also play a greater role for Seoul and Tokyo than for Asean.

In both countries, the US maintains a robust military presence.

China: New security initiative for the region and the whole world

China doesn't like the US military presence and lack of allies in its backyard.

And so it now wants to expand its role in security policy.

Xi Jinping announced plans for a so-called Global Security Initiative (GSI) in April.

This should help "build a balanced, effective and sustainable security architecture" and "reject the Cold War mentality, oppose unilateralism and say 'no' to group politics and bloc confrontation," Xi said at the Bo. ao Forum for Asia, a kind of Davos for Asia on China's tropical island of Hainan.

However, details are scarce so far.

"It's easy to see why China decided it needed such a plan," Crabtree said.

Beijing is "seriously concerned about the direction of the world order as a result of the Ukraine crisis." Given its own rivalry with the US, Beijing saw no other option than to support Russia.

"And after Washington recently developed a new Indo-Pacific strategy to counter Beijing, Beijing now believes it needs a new global strategy of its own to counter Washington in turn."

Vice Foreign Minister Le Yucheng said recently that China will soon "take active steps to operationalize the GSI."

GSI will be directed against "unilateral sanctions" - an allusion to the sanctions of the West against Russia, which Beijing rejected but have so far probably not circumvented.

"This suggests that China will position the GSI to combine diverse efforts to win global friends - while countering US attempts to attack China via groups like Quad," writes Crabtree.

Some experts are already seeing a decline in American influence.

"Overall, the US is continuing to lose influence to China in Southeast Asia," said Susannah Patton of Australia's Lowy Institute after the US-Asean summit.

Its mediocre results indicated "that the US is underestimating how quickly they are losing in this competition." The mix of smaller US initiatives at the meeting is a sign "that the US lacks a vision for its partnership with Asean."

For the time being, however, it is unlikely that China will be able to replace the USA as a security guarantor in the world or in Asia with the help of the GSI.

Despite all the economic advances and fine words from Beijing, the distrust of the countries bordering the South China Sea runs deep.

China and the US: at the center of each other's politics

For both Washington and Beijing, the other always seems to be at the center of their foreign policy activities.

For the United States, this is probably true in the long term, despite the Ukraine war.

In China, meanwhile, there is growing concern about Washington's containment policy.

Beijing sees the Russian campaign in Ukraine primarily under the magnifying glass of its conflict with the USA: Beijing's foreign ministry spokesman never tires of blaming the USA and NATO for the Ukraine war.

In Washington, China's authoritarian system is increasingly being perceived as a threat to world order.

"Chinese statements about the country's global ambitions are notoriously vague, forcing US politicians to interpret them as hints at Beijing's strategy," says Columbia University's prominent China scholar Andrew J. Nathan.

According to Nathan, there is no doubt that China is trying to challenge the privileged position of the United States in Asia.

"But does China intend to go further -- replacing the United States as the global hegemon, reshaping the liberal international order, and threatening freedom and democracy everywhere -- and if so, does Beijing have the means to do so?" Of the response to this one Questions depend on the future US strategy towards China and the entire region.

For now, Biden is coming to Asia to reassure allies, as his spokeswoman Jen Psaki says, of "the rock-solid US commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific and to alliances with the Republic of Korea and Japan."

(ck)

Source: merkur

All news articles on 2022-05-19

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