Biden's Indo-Pacific strategy

By Cho Byung-jae

On Jan. 20, Joseph Biden will be sworn in as the 46th President of the United States of America. However, thinking of the enormous tasks ahead, it is difficult for me to simply congratulate the new administration on taking office.

Top priorities of the new administration will be controlling COVID-19, which is taking away thousands of lives every day, and normalizing the economy. Along with that is the task of alleviating the divisions in American society and healing the wounds of last November's election. While Biden won a historic number of 81 million votes, 74 million others who chanted "make America great again" chose Trump. Moreover, midterm elections are approaching in just two years.

Although domestic affairs demand the immediate attention of the new administration, issues of foreign policy cannot be left waiting for too long. The U.S. and the world have undergone much change over the past several years. Also, the liberal international order of the past 70 years is no longer taken for granted. The U.S., formerly set on serving the public good, is now perceived to be a country that prioritizes its own interests. Biden has pledged to change this perception as the world watches what next steps the U.S. will take.

The world abounds with challenges, but it is Asia that will determine the success and failure of the Biden administration's foreign policy. The whole region awaits to see how the U.S. defines and implements its policy in the region.

On the occasion of his phone conversations with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, President-elect Biden emphasized cooperation for a "secure and prosperous Indo-Pacific," which appears to be the signature phrase of his Asia policy.

I welcome Biden's choice of language, which appears to embrace the geographic scope of Trump's "Indo-Pacific Strategy" rather than a return to Obama's "pivot to Asia." This is a reasonable decision. Abruptly terminating a policy that has been advocated over the years would undermine the consistency of U.S. diplomacy. In diplomacy, a lack of consistency means a loss of trust.

Meanwhile, it is notable that Biden chose to describe the Indo-Pacific region as "secure and prosperous." In my view, "free and open" lay at the heart of Trump's Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP) policy. This is why FOIP was often perceived as a strategy to contain China.

As Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong once said, countries in the region do not want to be forced to choose between the U.S. and China. ASEAN, India, Australia and even non-Asian countries such as France and Germany have called for "inclusivity" in Indo-Pacific cooperation.

The new administration now has the task of strengthening two important foreign policy pillars in the region: security and prosperity.

Firstly, the U.S. needs to reaffirm its commitment to security in Asia. It has become clear that President Trump's "America first" was not an appropriate blueprint for U.S. foreign policy. Trump's transactional approach toward alliances, and hints at the possibility of a unilateral withdrawal, have raised doubts about U.S. security commitments to Asia.

If the U.S. needs to readjust its forward deployment in the region, I would suggest it refer to the successful roadmap of the 1989 "East Asia Strategic Initiative (EASI)," which was put together with a bipartisan mandate from Congress and after close consultations with allies in the region.

Secondly, the U.S. will need to reinforce its current Indo-Pacific strategy on the economic front. The Obama administration's push for a Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) as part of the broader "pivot to Asia" policy was a sound judgment. President Trump's withdrawal from the partnership was a huge misstep. It may not be politically feasible for the U.S. to rejoin the TPP immediately, but there is no question that this region needs a high-level framework for an inclusive economic partnership.

If the U.S. emphasizes economy and trade in its efforts to build a "rules-based international order," it will be easier to gain positive responses from allies and partners alike. What the U.S. should focus on is not "decoupling," but sharpening its own competitive edge. Building a competitive economy will pave the way for more job creations in the U.S., which will be one of the top priorities of the new administration.

We, in the region, are noticing that President-elect Biden is organizing his administration around a team of experts who know how to get things done. The appointment of Lloyd Austin, who, in Biden's own words, "understands that the military is only one instrument of [our] national security," is a good example.

With that said, hopeful that the next four years will be far better than the past four years, I sincerely congratulate the upcoming inauguration of the new administration in the United States.

Cho Byung-jae (bjcho81@gmail.com) is the secretary-general of the International Conference of Asian Political Parties (ICAPP) and also a visiting professor emeritus at the Institute for Far Eastern Studies of Kyungnam University. Cho was a career diplomat and his last position at the Foreign Ministry was the chancellor of the Korean National Diplomatic Academy.