What will an Indo-Pacific strategy look like under Biden?
What will an Indo-Pacific strategy look like under Biden?
WRITTEN BY JAMES KRASKA
12 October 2020
Over the past few years, not only the Republicans but also the Democrats have stiffened their resolve to counter China. Although previous policies may no longer serve as a guide to the future, and it is impossible to foresee the precise contours of a Biden Administration’s Indo-Pacific Strategy, his foreign policy record, especially during the Obama administration, and statements from likely surrogates suggest an outline of what to expect. We may anticipate a Biden approach to China and the South China Sea to be firmer than in the past, yet it will be significantly different in style and somewhat in substance from Trump’s approach.
Confronting the China problem
The South China Sea remains the epicentre for any Indo-Pacific strategy by either party and relations with China are the key to understanding US regional policy for any administration. Biden’s reputation as a moderate politician with a more genial temperament will contrast with Trump’s acerbic and unpredictable manner. Yet, the substance of the current approach may largely persist under a Biden administration. This is because American politicians on both sides of the aisle now realise that the US understanding of the economic and military challenges posed by China has lagged behind reality. However, both political parties have struggled with how to effectively dissuade Beijing’s expansionism without unnecessarily antagonising it.
While Biden downplayed the challenge of Beijing in 2019 stating China was “not competition”, he has since toughened his stance, signalling to China that he would be tougher than before. Indeed, there is a bipartisan consensus in the US that China has emerged as a growing, if not grave, threat to the US and its allies and partners.
The George W. Bush administration, absorbed in Iraq and Afghanistan, largely continued the Clinton-era policy of constructive engagement in the hope that China would become more liberal as it became more powerful. The first Obama administration continued this policy of engagement, emphasising cooperation on the Paris Climate Accord over checking China’s moves in the South China Sea. When it became clear that a stronger China was becoming less responsible and more belligerent, the Obama administration “pivoted”. As a first step toward containing China’s advance, the Obama administration led a “rebalance” of US military forces toward East Asia by bolstering US air and naval forces in the region and building up Guam as a strategic redoubt of American power projection. But this rebalancing was implemented along with a scrupulously neutral position on the numerous overlapping maritime claims between China and its neighbours.
Beginning in 2012, the US and regional states were unable to effectively counter China’s use of fishing vessels, Coast Guard vessels, and warships, to maintain pressure and claim rights and maritime “territory” from Japan to Indonesia. The Obama administration reacted only tepidly when the Philippines filed an arbitration case against China under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. China continued to make advances in the South China Sea, most notoriously by constructing seven massive artificial islands — three of which have become military bases – and seizing Scarborough Shoal from the Philippines in 2012. The Obama administration sortied A-10 aircraft over the feature for the first time since US forces vacated their bases from the Philippines in the early-1990s. However, the lack of any major US pushback emboldened China, demoralised regional states who felt abandoned and made the United States look ineffectual, with eventual Chinese hegemony appearing inevitable.
Trump’s response has been to initiate a trade war that weakens China’s economy but not without costs to the US. Economic power underpins China’s meteoric rise and sense of confidence. Trump also focused on strengthening military alliances and increasing military presence operations through greater naval and air deployments from the Taiwan Strait to the South China Sea. We may expect that a Biden administration would continue a variation of these policies, focusing more on building regional relationships with allies and perhaps less on tangible military presence operations.
Re-oriented military policy
In nearly five decades in public service in foreign policy, Biden frequently shifted his positions, displaying flexibility to navigate contending US interests without (depending on one’s view) the benefits or baggage of a preexisting strategic vision. In effect, we can expect a middle course from Biden that values diplomacy that seeks positive-sum outcomes and is responsive to the issues important to the American electorate.
While Biden downplayed the challenge of Beijing in 2019 stating China was “not competition”, he has since toughened his stance, signalling to China that he would be tougher than before. Indeed, there is a bipartisan consensus in the US that China has emerged as a growing, if not grave, threat to the US and its allies and partners. This perception arises from China’s unfriendly mercantilism, cyberattacks against US economic and government targets, lavish maritime claims, and coercion against its neighbours in the South China Sea. Beijing’s bungling of the coronavirus response has exacerbated these fears.
A Biden administration is likely to acknowledge that the days of US hegemony and naval domination in East Asia are gone. The new reality will require the US to abandon legacy instruments of gunboat diplomacy, such as aircraft carriers, as the centrepiece of strategy, and instead, focus on asymmetric advantages that are on the right side of the cost equation. This view means meeting China’s burgeoning naval power not with an expensive shipbuilding program, but with forward-deployed missiles, including intermediate-range ballistic missiles and hypersonic cruise missiles.
Recognising the practical limits of American power makes it clear that America needs allies now more than ever. Japan’s Ryukyu Islands, for example, may be sites for pre-positioned US Army missiles to dominate the sea-lanes of East Asia, although China has warned that it will impose countermeasures on any Asian nation that allows the US to deploy missiles on its territory. This struggle for influence in Asia between the US and China means that a Biden administration may be expected to embark on a program to repair US alliances. Trump’s exhausting and pointless feuds with allies over burden-sharing, and insistence on unprincipled, tactical, and transactional demands at the expense of strategic relationships and emphasis on core values of human rights, have contributed to a fraying of the US’s regional relationships.
Reclaiming America’s seat at the table
These military realities do not mean that a Biden administration would believe a cold war is inevitable. While some observers suggest that China and the US are already embroiled in a cold war, Biden advisers are likely to seek a more balanced relationship with China. Biden’s team is almost certain to place greater value on reaching negotiated “win-win” solutions, as it may reenter the Paris Climate Accord and Iran nuclear deal. However, this road will not be easy. The Paris Climate Accord is closely linked with economic costs and prosperity for both major powers and there are fundamental differences between the US and China over sacrifices to be made to reduce greenhouse gases.
A Biden administration might also adopt the European acceptance of the Iran deal once again. If the Senate supports it, a new administration may finally join the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, which would be welcome in the region. Any negotiations with China would underscore that it is a daunting task to extract meaningful concessions from the communist leadership. In 2014 for example, the Obama administration signed three bilateral memoranda of understanding with China on “Rules of Behaviour” to avoid naval ship and aircraft incidents. These rules committed both sides to uphold the international law of the sea and airspace to help avoid confrontations that might escalate tensions.
However, the agreements provide a cautionary tale. Soon after they were signed, a Chinese fighter jet harassed a US P-8 maritime patrol aircraft, coming within thirty feet. Since then, Beijing’s aggressive interceptions of US naval ships and aircraft in the region have not abated. The Obama administration conducted just a handful of freedom of navigation (FON) operations in the South China Sea. Trump greatly expanded this program, conducting about twenty to date. While it is unclear whether a Biden administration would maintain the current naval pace, there is no doubt that a bipartisan consensus on the necessity of such operations means they will continue at some level.
Reviving trade partnerships
While US military alliances endure turnovers in administration with often little material change, a Biden administration could make major changes to US trade policy. In 2016, the US signed the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) free-trade agreement with Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam, only to have the Trump administration trash it the following year. The other member states adopted their own trade pact in 2018 without the United States.
While Biden will have to be sensitive to blue-collar concerns over foreign trade successfully championed by Trump, the TPP presented a golden opportunity to diminish China’s regional dominance in trade. With the new talk about diversifying supply chains brought on by the coronavirus pandemic, the US under Biden may be expected to re-engage with the TPP bloc, fashioning a new network of economies that are committed to reducing tariffs and respecting intellectual property. China will be the odd man out. This positive approach to circumventing and isolating rather than confronting Beijing may find willing partners in East Asia interested in closer connections with the US and reducing their reliance on China.
A more congenial approach
Although both Trump and Biden consider China a vexing and long-term issue for the United States, they diverge on how to address it. A Biden administration would certainly continue building credible deterrence through asymmetric military power and enduring relationships among like-minded states, but with a less belligerent tone than the Trump administration. A bombastic Trump will be followed by a restrained Biden. In a departure from ‘America First’, which sometimes grates US allies, Biden is likely to place greater value on alliances and partnerships to broaden burden-sharing and reduce China’s influence. As the editorial board of the New York Times put it, “the solution isn’t flashy, but it could work”. The greatest impact of a Biden administration may be in knitting together closer partnerships with states already threatened by Beijing rather than challenging China directly.
DISCLAIMER: All views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent that of the 9DASHLINE.com platform.
Author biography
James Kraska is the Chair and Charles H. Stockton Professor of International Maritime Law in the Stockton Center for International Law at the U.S. Naval War College. He is also a Visiting Professor of Law and John Harvey Gregory Lecturer on World Organization at Harvard Law School, where he teaches International Law of the Sea. Image Credit: Gage Skidmore/Flickr.