As Biden Courts Xi, He Should Also Reassure Asia-Pacific Allies
Picture: Doug Mills/The New York Times via AP, Pool
In an article by The Hill, Nicholas Sargen highlights Biden administration’s protectionist policies against export-oriented East Asian economies, and the need for the US to serve as a reliable option to the Southeast Asian countries against China’s rising power.
The original goal of the APEC summit was to announce the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework that Biden launched in May 2022. It aims to fill a void after President Trump withdrew from the Trans-Pacific Partnership in January 2017. While the new framework does not seek to lower tariffs or improve market access, it represents the Biden administration’s main attempt to provide countries in the region with an alternative to deepening their economic ties with China. Instead, a recent decision by the Biden administration to halt discussions on digital trade has blocked an important part of the pending framework.
Professor Ann Marie Murphy, director of foreign studies at Seton Hall University, contends that Southeast Asia has emerged as the key focal point of U.S.-China strategic competition. As countries in the region find themselves in the midst of the competition between the two superpowers, their mantra has been that they don’t want to choose sides.
Murphy goes on to say that, until recently, strategic competition and economic integration in the region “were relatively siloed, as illustrated by the old dictum that Southeast Asians looked to the United States for security and to China for prosperity.” She points out that for the first time, the annual “State of Southeast Asia Survey” in 2023 included “fears of Sino-U.S. decoupling” among the top threats facing the region.
Amid this, what is clear is that attempts to negotiate multilateral trade deals have become extremely complex politically, and U.S. policy in Asia is increasingly focused on bilateral deals that are limited in scope. While few Asian governments started with high hopes for the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, The Economist concludes that “the agreement, whenever it comes, will now fall short of the low bar it faced.”
