Biden in the Asia Pacific

By Deauwand Myers

The terms of Korean presidents are an oddity in advanced democracies. To curb the faux-presidential dictatorships of past presidents ― like Park Chung-hee ― the Korean Constitution only allows for one five-year fixed term.

Now that President Moon Jae-in is near the end of his tenure, his administration still faces the challenges of an ascendant China and an aggressive North Korea.

Being the strongest ally to Korea, the United States' role in dealing with both countries is paramount, and oddly, we still don't know how President Joe Biden will deal with North Korea.

Biden has made it pretty clear how he feels about the Chinese government. Biden has already taken executive actions to change and secure supply lines and enhance security for sensitive and advanced technologies originating from the United States.

His executive call to President Xi Jinping was long and tense, wherein Biden expressed the American government's displeasure with China's flagrant abuse of human rights, not least of which is the cultural genocide of the minority Muslim population (Uighurs) in the northwest of China (Xinjiang) and the crushing of free speech in Hong Kong.

Previously, I have written about the unenviable position facing President Moon and the geopolitics of North Korea and China. Biden faces those same challenges, but with different tools at his disposal.

All roads do lead to China, as it is the biggest benefactor to the Kim Jong-un regime in North Korea. But unlike past American presidential administrations, Biden faces a North Korea greatly crippled by the COVID-19 pandemic. This may lead to negotiations with the Kim regime about its nuclear proliferation.

Biden could at least put a pause on North Korea's nuclear arsenal research and development. Maybe. It depends on the mood of Kim and the governmental elite within his country.

President Moon, now in the twilight of his career, has a legacy to burnish. When he does have a summit with President Biden, he should convey the importance of engaging North Korea in a fashion that is conducive to tangible outcomes, not the ridiculous displays of the Trump administration.

President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris both have foreign policy experience, having served in the U.S. Senate. Obviously, having been a senior senator for decades and vice president for eight years, Biden has a lot of knowledge on geopolitical affairs, more so than Harris. Unfortunately, not all of Biden's foreign policy decisions have been correct.

Biden had a hand in launching former President George W. Bush's Iraq War, a disastrous affair costing trillions of dollars and thousands of Iraqi and American lives, and with no link to terrorism or an active weapons of mass destruction program found within the Saddam Hussein regime upon the war's conclusion to show for it.

President Biden was also against the capture or killing of Osama bin Laden, a policy President Barack Obama executed anyway, which proved to be successful, perhaps the most successful foreign policy achievement during the Obama-Biden administration.

Biden and President Obama were in sync, as far as analysts can tell, in the more liberal use of drone strikes, which many on the left of the Democratic Party consider a war crime. Why?

The collateral damage from these strikes killed and maimed innocent civilians, many of them women and children, and there has never been full congressional oversight or an accurate accounting of the number of deaths and veracity of these drone strikes, not to mention the moral and legal implications therein.

But President Biden's foreign policy is not xenophobic, pro-totalitarian, and seeks multilateral consensus, from rejoining the Paris Accords on climate change to strengthening the United Nations and NATO, the polar of opposite of former President Donald Trump. This means his administration will seek cooperation on dealing with North Korea from China, and dealing with China from Japan, Australia and New Zealand.

Speaking of the dragon in the room, China presents the Biden-Harris administration with the most implacable of enemies. Besides all the aforementioned challenges with China, the Chinese Communist Party has increased the nation's military by factors of 10 over the last 20 years, and has been modernizing its military at an increased pace under President Xi.

President Xi has already said in speeches that Taiwan's existence as a democratic country is an intolerable affront to the stability and geographic "homogeny" in the region, and wants to bring it into China's domain, at whatever cost.

Taiwan has a good military, and it would definitely be a costly and bloody conflict for China to pursue, but even with help from the United States (which is required by law to defend Taiwan in the case of an attack) American military simulations have shown America may not fair too well in a hot war over Taiwan. In fact, America lost that engagement each time the simulation was ran.

As COVID-19 dissipates from the Biden-Harris agenda, here's hoping they start to keep that pivot to Asia on a firm footing.

Deauwand Myers (deauwand@hotmail.com) holds a master's degree in English literature and literary theory, and is an English professor outside Seoul. The views expressed in the above article are the author's own and do not reflect the editorial direction of The Korea Times.