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28-07-2022, 09:19 AM
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https://www.ft.com/content/82c13d3b-5b05...3ba075db4f
Admiral John Aquilino, the top US military commander in the Indo-Pacific, recently held an unusual meeting with the head of US Space Command and deputy head of US Cyber Command — in a remote part of the Australian outback.
Aquilino and his colleagues, General James Dickinson and Lieutenant General Charles Moore, had flown all the way to Alice Springs, a dusty town in central Australia for sensitive talks on China with top Australian officials at Pine Gap, a spy satellite facility run by the CIA and the Australian government.
Speaking before their meetings, Aquilino and his colleagues stressed that their visit to Australia was part of a strategy US president Joe Biden has made central to his foreign policy: working more closely with allies and partners to counter China.
“We’ve a few targets,” Aquilino, a former Navy “Top Gun” fighter pilot, said in an interview with the Financial Times. “Number one is highlight the strength of allies and partners to deliver integrated deterrence and prevent conflict here in the Indo-Pacific.”
Washington may be completely immersed in the war in Ukraine, but the Biden administration is also focused on what it sees as its biggest long-term objective — developing a coherent strategy to deal with China.
After the turbulence of the Trump years, when the administration’s hawkish tone on China was consistently undermined by spats with allies, the Biden team is going out of its way to ensure that the US and its partners are closely aligned on China.
As part of that effort, Aquilino spent six days in Australia. Over the past 15 months, the president has reinforced alliances with Japan, South Korea, New Zealand as well as Australia; worked hard to involve India more in China policy; boosted co-operation with European nations from Britain and France to Germany and ratcheted up support for Taiwan.
Yet while Biden has won praise from allies for the security component of his Indo-Pacific strategy, many have been frustrated at what they see as a gaping hole: the lack of a trade and economic agenda. For some critics, an appealing economic strategy is essential to bolstering US leverage in Asia and making sure countries are not too economically reliant on China.
“There has been a real vacuum in American trade policy towards Asia,” says Sheena Greitens, a China expert at the University of Texas in Austin. “Asia is moving ahead on regional trade integration, with some willingness to include China, while the US has been largely absent.”
Biden is hoping to shrink that gap this summer with the launch of an Indo-Pacific economic framework (IPEF). The plan will contain include elements that range from fair trade — including labour and environmental issues — to secure supply chains, infrastructure, clean energy and digital trade.
According to an official from a country in the Indo-Pacific, some Asean countries are very interested, for example, in a digital trade agreement that would set rules for the road.
Admiral John Aquilino, left, head of the US Indo-Pacific Command, looks at videos of Chinese structures and buildings on board a P-8A Poseidon reconnaissance plane flying over the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea in March this year © Aaron Favila/AP
However, it will crucially not include any new access to the US market for products from Asian countries — a reflection of the increasingly tough politics surrounding traditional trade agreements that became so ingrained during the Trump years and which Biden remains sensitive to, particularly ahead of November’s congressional midterm elections.
Critics say that without a strong trade policy, the US risks ending up with a lopsided approach, heavy on military presence but light on economic engagement, which leaves its allies hesitant about its genuine commitment to the long-term future of the region.
Another Indo-Pacific official says countries in the region appreciate that Biden is finally engaging on trade, but adds that the lack of market access is a significant setback.
“It is like a fried egg without the yolk,” he says.
A troubled relationship
Biden has struck a more hawkish tone on China than allies had expected. He has taken Beijing to task over everything from its repression of Uyghurs to its military activity near Taiwan. China in return accuses the US of being a fading hegemonic power and says the days of it being bullied are over.
While Biden and Xi Jinping, his Chinese counterpart, have boosted their personal engagement in recent months, US-China relations are mired at their lowest level since the nations normalised diplomatic relations in 1979.
Biden’s China policy has several goals. He wants to shape the international landscape to raise the cost to China of engaging in coercive behaviour. He also hopes that showing a united front with allies such as Japan and Australia will send a strong signal about deterrence to China and make Xi think twice about invading Taiwan. And he wants to establish what his team describes as “guardrails” to avoid competition veering into conflict.
During his visit to Australia, Aquilino visited US marines who are stationed in Darwin as part of the push to position more US military resources in the region. At Amberley air force base, he greeted a B-2 stealth bomber that had flown from the US in a move that was partly aimed at reminding China about the potency of American military force.
In another example of co-operation, the White House recently said it was expanding Aukus — a security pact the US, UK and Australia agreed last year — to work together on hypersonic missiles. China reacted angrily to Aukus, which will help Australia get nuclear-powered submarines. It views the pact in a similar vein to the “Quad” — the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue grouping of the US, Japan, Australia and India — which Biden has also reinvigorated.
Biden has also had success persuading European nations, particularly Germany, which were previously wary about upsetting Beijing to take a tougher stance on China.
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Yet despite his efforts to deepen relations with allies, Biden has not yet persuaded Xi to reduce coercive activity in Asia. Paul Haenle, director of Carnegie China, a think-tank, says the focus on allies is critical but China is “not playing ball”.
“They do not buy the notion that the change in China’s policies, behaviour, actions and rhetoric under Xi Jinping is contributing in any way to the downturn in US-China relations,” says Haenle, who stresses, however, that Biden should continue to set the table for strategic negotiations in the future and that trade is a critical component.
“The risk is that the optics in the region become the US coming to the table with guns and ammunition and China dealing with the bread and butter issues of trade and economics.”
An alternative framework
Over the next few months, the Biden administration will make its pitch to revert that impression with the launch of its new economic framework.
A third official from the Indo-Pacific says IPEF is a start that may lead to something more substantive. “They need to stretch their muscles a little and get match fit before they can do something serious,” the official says. “It’s sort of like a no-contact pre-season game.”
In an ideal world, allies would like the US to re-join the Trans-Pacific Partnership — a 12-nation trade deal signed in 2016 that Donald Trump left in 2017. But they recognise that big trade deals are now political kryptonite in America. Even before Trump pulled out of TPP, Hillary Clinton, his Democratic rival in the 2016 presidential race, had withdrawn her support.
China in January signed a trade agreement — the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership — with the 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations along with Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand © Cui Liu/VCG/Getty Images
Yet the stakes have become higher since Beijing last year applied to join “TPP-11” — the revamped successor to TPP, which the US had championed to counter China’s growing economic clout. In another example of that influence, China in January signed a trade agreement — the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership — with the 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations along with Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand.
Matthew Goodman, a trade expert at CSIS, a think-tank, says Biden hopes his new framework will make up for the US not being in TPP-11. “The administration has put forward this framework as an alternative it thinks countries in the region will be drawn to and there’s reason to believe they will,” says Goodman, referring to elements such as the digital component.
A US official dismisses suggestions from experts that some countries are less interested in the framework. “There was sort of an assumption in the Washington policy community that if you didn’t do TPP, everyone would just sort of scoff at it,” says the US official. “We’ve been very pleasantly surprised at how much interest there is.”
https://www.ft.com/content/82c13d3b-5b05...3ba075db4f
Admiral John Aquilino, the top US military commander in the Indo-Pacific, recently held an unusual meeting with the head of US Space Command and deputy head of US Cyber Command — in a remote part of the Australian outback.
Aquilino and his colleagues, General James Dickinson and Lieutenant General Charles Moore, had flown all the way to Alice Springs, a dusty town in central Australia for sensitive talks on China with top Australian officials at Pine Gap, a spy satellite facility run by the CIA and the Australian government.
Speaking before their meetings, Aquilino and his colleagues stressed that their visit to Australia was part of a strategy US president Joe Biden has made central to his foreign policy: working more closely with allies and partners to counter China.
“We’ve a few targets,” Aquilino, a former Navy “Top Gun” fighter pilot, said in an interview with the Financial Times. “Number one is highlight the strength of allies and partners to deliver integrated deterrence and prevent conflict here in the Indo-Pacific.”
Washington may be completely immersed in the war in Ukraine, but the Biden administration is also focused on what it sees as its biggest long-term objective — developing a coherent strategy to deal with China.
After the turbulence of the Trump years, when the administration’s hawkish tone on China was consistently undermined by spats with allies, the Biden team is going out of its way to ensure that the US and its partners are closely aligned on China.
As part of that effort, Aquilino spent six days in Australia. Over the past 15 months, the president has reinforced alliances with Japan, South Korea, New Zealand as well as Australia; worked hard to involve India more in China policy; boosted co-operation with European nations from Britain and France to Germany and ratcheted up support for Taiwan.
Yet while Biden has won praise from allies for the security component of his Indo-Pacific strategy, many have been frustrated at what they see as a gaping hole: the lack of a trade and economic agenda. For some critics, an appealing economic strategy is essential to bolstering US leverage in Asia and making sure countries are not too economically reliant on China.
“There has been a real vacuum in American trade policy towards Asia,” says Sheena Greitens, a China expert at the University of Texas in Austin. “Asia is moving ahead on regional trade integration, with some willingness to include China, while the US has been largely absent.”
Biden is hoping to shrink that gap this summer with the launch of an Indo-Pacific economic framework (IPEF). The plan will contain include elements that range from fair trade — including labour and environmental issues — to secure supply chains, infrastructure, clean energy and digital trade.
According to an official from a country in the Indo-Pacific, some Asean countries are very interested, for example, in a digital trade agreement that would set rules for the road.
Admiral John Aquilino, left, head of the US Indo-Pacific Command, looks at videos of Chinese structures and buildings on board a P-8A Poseidon reconnaissance plane flying over the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea in March this year © Aaron Favila/AP
However, it will crucially not include any new access to the US market for products from Asian countries — a reflection of the increasingly tough politics surrounding traditional trade agreements that became so ingrained during the Trump years and which Biden remains sensitive to, particularly ahead of November’s congressional midterm elections.
Critics say that without a strong trade policy, the US risks ending up with a lopsided approach, heavy on military presence but light on economic engagement, which leaves its allies hesitant about its genuine commitment to the long-term future of the region.
Another Indo-Pacific official says countries in the region appreciate that Biden is finally engaging on trade, but adds that the lack of market access is a significant setback.
“It is like a fried egg without the yolk,” he says.
A troubled relationship
Biden has struck a more hawkish tone on China than allies had expected. He has taken Beijing to task over everything from its repression of Uyghurs to its military activity near Taiwan. China in return accuses the US of being a fading hegemonic power and says the days of it being bullied are over.
While Biden and Xi Jinping, his Chinese counterpart, have boosted their personal engagement in recent months, US-China relations are mired at their lowest level since the nations normalised diplomatic relations in 1979.
Biden’s China policy has several goals. He wants to shape the international landscape to raise the cost to China of engaging in coercive behaviour. He also hopes that showing a united front with allies such as Japan and Australia will send a strong signal about deterrence to China and make Xi think twice about invading Taiwan. And he wants to establish what his team describes as “guardrails” to avoid competition veering into conflict.
During his visit to Australia, Aquilino visited US marines who are stationed in Darwin as part of the push to position more US military resources in the region. At Amberley air force base, he greeted a B-2 stealth bomber that had flown from the US in a move that was partly aimed at reminding China about the potency of American military force.
In another example of co-operation, the White House recently said it was expanding Aukus — a security pact the US, UK and Australia agreed last year — to work together on hypersonic missiles. China reacted angrily to Aukus, which will help Australia get nuclear-powered submarines. It views the pact in a similar vein to the “Quad” — the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue grouping of the US, Japan, Australia and India — which Biden has also reinvigorated.
Biden has also had success persuading European nations, particularly Germany, which were previously wary about upsetting Beijing to take a tougher stance on China.
Recommended
The Big Read
The Chinese companies trying to buy strategic islands
Yet despite his efforts to deepen relations with allies, Biden has not yet persuaded Xi to reduce coercive activity in Asia. Paul Haenle, director of Carnegie China, a think-tank, says the focus on allies is critical but China is “not playing ball”.
“They do not buy the notion that the change in China’s policies, behaviour, actions and rhetoric under Xi Jinping is contributing in any way to the downturn in US-China relations,” says Haenle, who stresses, however, that Biden should continue to set the table for strategic negotiations in the future and that trade is a critical component.
“The risk is that the optics in the region become the US coming to the table with guns and ammunition and China dealing with the bread and butter issues of trade and economics.”
An alternative framework
Over the next few months, the Biden administration will make its pitch to revert that impression with the launch of its new economic framework.
A third official from the Indo-Pacific says IPEF is a start that may lead to something more substantive. “They need to stretch their muscles a little and get match fit before they can do something serious,” the official says. “It’s sort of like a no-contact pre-season game.”
In an ideal world, allies would like the US to re-join the Trans-Pacific Partnership — a 12-nation trade deal signed in 2016 that Donald Trump left in 2017. But they recognise that big trade deals are now political kryptonite in America. Even before Trump pulled out of TPP, Hillary Clinton, his Democratic rival in the 2016 presidential race, had withdrawn her support.
China in January signed a trade agreement — the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership — with the 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations along with Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand © Cui Liu/VCG/Getty Images
Yet the stakes have become higher since Beijing last year applied to join “TPP-11” — the revamped successor to TPP, which the US had championed to counter China’s growing economic clout. In another example of that influence, China in January signed a trade agreement — the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership — with the 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations along with Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand.
Matthew Goodman, a trade expert at CSIS, a think-tank, says Biden hopes his new framework will make up for the US not being in TPP-11. “The administration has put forward this framework as an alternative it thinks countries in the region will be drawn to and there’s reason to believe they will,” says Goodman, referring to elements such as the digital component.
A US official dismisses suggestions from experts that some countries are less interested in the framework. “There was sort of an assumption in the Washington policy community that if you didn’t do TPP, everyone would just sort of scoff at it,” says the US official. “We’ve been very pleasantly surprised at how much interest there is.”
