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The U.S. administration of President Joe Biden on Friday vowed to strengthen its role in advancing a free and open Indo-Pacific in areas ranging from security to the economy, as it unveiled a strategy for the region facing China’s assertiveness.
Among actions to be taken in the next 12 to 24 months, the Biden administration said it will reinforce deterrence against military aggression targeting the United States, allies and partners, including across the Taiwan Strait, while expanding its Coast Guard presence and cooperation in areas of Southeast Asia and elsewhere.
It also called for “unprecedented cooperation” with like-minded countries to achieve the strategy, saying collective efforts over the next decade will determine whether China “succeeds in transforming the rules and norms that have benefitted the Indo-Pacific and the world.”
U.S. President Joe Biden delivers a speech in Culpeper, Virginia, on Feb. 10, 2022. (Kyodo) ==Kyodo
The release of the Indo-Pacific Strategy can be seen as part of the Biden administration’s efforts to highlight the significance it places on the region, even while much attention is devoted to tensions in Europe over Russia’s possible invasion of Ukraine.
“Under President Biden, the United States is determined to strengthen our long-term position in and commitment to the Indo-Pacific,” the 12-page document said. “We will focus on every corner of the region, from Northeast Asia and Southeast Asia, to South Asia and Oceania, including the Pacific Islands.”
It said the intensifying American focus on the region is driven in part by China, which is “combining its economic, diplomatic, military, and technological might as it pursues a sphere of influence in the Indo-Pacific and seeks to become the world’s most influential power.”
China’s “harmful behavior” includes leveling economic threats against Australia, increasing its military and diplomatic pressure on Taiwan, a self-ruled island which Beijing views as its own, and “bullying” its neighbors in the East and South China seas, the document said.
To build “collective capacity” with allies and partners to tackle the challenges in the region, the Biden administration said it will deepen five regional treaty alliances with Australia, Japan, South Korea, the Philippines and Thailand while reinforcing ties with key regional partners including Taiwan.
The ties among the so-called Quad — the United States, Australia, India and Japan — will be strengthened as a “premier” regional grouping to deliver on issues that matter to the Indo-Pacific, such as the coronavirus pandemic response and supply-chain cooperation, the strategy said.
The Biden administration will also expand U.S. Coast Guard presence and cooperation to the Pacific Islands in addition to Southeast and South Asia, with a focus on advising, training, deployment and capacity-building.
On the economic front, the Biden administration said it will launch in early 2022 an Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, which it describes as a partnership that will promote high standards of trade, govern digital economy, improve supply-chain resiliency and catalyze investment in high-standards infrastructure.
The administration, meanwhile, said the objective of the strategy is not to change China, but to “shape the strategic environment in which it operates,” and “building a balance of influence in the world that is maximally favorable” to the United States, its allies and the interests and values they share.
On North Korea, which has recently been increasing the frequency of its ballistic missile tests, the strategy reaffirmed the Biden administration’s stance to seek “serious and sustained dialogue” toward the goal of a complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
At the same time, the United States is strengthening its extended nuclear deterrence and coordination with Japan and South Korea to respond to North Korea’s provocations, according to the strategy.
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