The future of Indo-Pacific strategy under Biden
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US President-elect Joe Biden has inherited a politically polarized, racially divided, debt-ridden and economically weakened America. After his swearing-in on January 20, particularly after what transpired at Capitol Hill, Biden’s immediate focus would be to put the domestic front in order. The most daunting task, in this regard, would be to manage the administration of the Covid-19 vaccine to the American populace.
With the chaos and mayhem that ensued in the wake of President Donald Trump’s reluctance to concede defeat and challenge election results using all legal and illegal means, America needs healing. Amid this situation, political pundits and policy gurus have been conjecturing about the Indo-Pacific Strategy’s future under a domestically over-occupied Biden administration.
In a much-analyzed op-ed for The Atlantic, Biden interchangeably used Asia-Pacific and Indo-Pacific monikers while detailing his rationale for picking the former CENTCOM commander Lloyd James Austin as his defense secretary. China was a significant omission in the piece, which had multiple mentions of Austin’s Middle East experience. Austin played a critical role in the US pullout from Iraq in 2011. He was also instrumental in cobbling together the global coalition against Daesh in 2014.
Choosing Austin over the former favorite and Under Secretary for Defense Michèle Flournoy, known for her bold views on dealing with a militarily assertive China, surprised many. Likewise, Biden’s selection of Jack Sullivan as the US National Security Adviser strengthens the impression that Biden has an eye on the Iran nuclear deal and the challenge of nuclear proliferation vis-à-vis North Korea.
Biden identified climate change, the refugee crisis, nuclear proliferation and the pandemics as the four main threats to US national security in the same op-ed. Once again, there was no mention of China. Arguably, Biden views China as a geo-strategic and economic competitor, rather than an enemy or a threat. Hence, under Biden, the US-China competition would be economic and technological, not military.
Biden’s interchangeable use of the Indo-Pacific and Asia-Pacific monikers hints at his attempt to accommodate China without alienating his QUAD allies, Australia, Japan and India. Biden aims to seek Chinese cooperation on common challenges such as a globally coordinated response against the Covid-19 pandemic, nuclear proliferation, climate change and global warming.
Abdul Basit Khan
At the same time, Biden will not be soft on China. His goals will be the same as that of the Trump administration, i.e., containing China. However, his strategy toward China will be less gung-ho as compared to the Trump administration. Biden’s China policy will be anchored in diplomacy and multilateralism rather than the security-driven unilateralism witnessed under Trump. For instance, Biden may dial down the trade war with China. Still, there will be greater scrutiny of the Chinese investment in the US market, human rights violations in the Xinjiang province, Hong Kong and opportunities for the American firms to invest in China.
Biden’s interchangeable use of the Indo-Pacific and Asia-Pacific monikers hints at his attempt to accommodate China without alienating his QUAD allies, Australia, Japan and India. Biden aims to seek Chinese cooperation on common challenges such as a globally coordinated response against the Covid-19 pandemic, nuclear proliferation, climate change and global warming.
Biden has also moderated the Indo-Pacific strategy’s goal from “free and open” to a “secure and prosperous” region from Chinese belligerence. In his recent telephonic conversations with his Indian, Australian, Japanese and South Korean counterparts, Biden used the “secure and prosperous” phrase.
Biden has selected Kurt Campbell to be his senior official for Asia, including relations with China. Campbell is an Obama administration veteran who served as the US top diplomat for Asia. He was the principal architect of the US “pivot to Asia” strategy. In a recent Foreign Affairs article, Campbell emphasized strengthening Washington’s allies in Asia and re-engaging in the region to save the US-led democratic order. If Campbell’s book The Pivot is any guide, Biden will opt for less costly and asymmetric capabilities like cruise and ballistic missiles, unmanned carrier-based aircraft, submarines and high-speed strike weapons instead of expensive and vulnerable military platforms such as air-carat carriers.
While some policy gurus have brushed aside Biden’s interchangeable use of the Indo-Pacific and Asia-Pacific merely as an issue of semantics, the pivot to Asia-Pacific will limit the geographical scope of areas where allies’ cooperation is required to contain China. The Indo-Pacific strategy included South Asia and the Indian Ocean region, in addition to the Asia-Pacific region.
Indeed, if Biden pivots to Asia-Pacific and limits its aims, as outlined above, it will have far-reaching consequences for India. Since the border dispute with China in the Himalayan region in 2019, Indian decisively moved closer to QUAD and invested in the Indo-Pacific strategy to court the US alliance against a militarily superior China. If the Biden administration focuses only on the Asia-Pacific and excludes South Asia and the Indian Ocean region, New Delhi would be left alone to fend against China in the Himalayan region. If this happened, India might find its political capital falling in Washington DC. In this scenario, the Biden administration will have to devise a separate South Asia policy accommodating India’s China-centric concerns.
For the smaller South Asian nations, such as Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan, which have linked their future economic developments with China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), this will be good news. Though the US diplomatic pressure would remain to avoid China’s so-called debt-trap diplomacy, they will not be pressured to roll back the BRI-related economic projects.
In the context of America’s position as a global leader, which was in retreat under Trump’s America first policy, the Asia-Pacific/Indo-Pacific strategy is of immense importance. How the US under Biden deals with China will be critical in his endeavors to resurrect the American global leadership.
*The author is a research fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Singapore. Twitter: @basitresearcher.
