Asia is one of the top priorities of the United States

The Indo-Pacific is expected to play a much larger role in US foreign policy, with Asia being a top priority, according to political experts.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin are in Japan and South Korea this week, visiting Washington’s two main military allies in Asia, where tens of thousands of soldiers are parked.

Last Friday, President Joe Biden virtually met the prime ministers of Japan, India and Australia as part of the first summit of leaders of an informal strategic alliance – the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or Quad, as he is known.

“Asia is the priority,” said Angela Mancini, a partner at Control Risks, on CNBC’s “Capital Connection” program on Monday. She explained that, based on last week’s Quad meeting, as well as the general diplomacy going on with the current government, the US is making it very clear that the Indo-Pacific region is important to Washington – compared to the transactional approach from the previous government.

“In addition to strengthening alliances to potentially contain China, there are some specific bilateral issues to address,” said Mancini, adding that this includes the presence of American troops in the region.

The Biden administration is building on the framework that the Trump administration has left in relation to the Indo-Pacific strategy and is developing a coalition of partners to collaborate, according to Akhil Bery, a South Asian analyst at political risk consultancy Eurasia Group.

The flurry of diplomatic activities in Asia by US officials comes before Blinken’s meeting with Chinese officials Yang Jiechi and Wang Yi on March 18 in Alaska.

The informal Quad alliance positions itself as committed to a free, open and inclusive Indo-Pacific.

The group is expected to take on a much more important role in the region and could potentially become “a core of a larger regional security architecture” going forward, according to Harsh Pant, head of the strategic studies program at the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi .

For more than a decade, the Quad has had a lackluster existence, even after geopolitical tensions between the U.S. and China have worsened since 2017, followed by a deterioration in relations between India and China, said Pant on Monday. fair on CNBC’s “Street Signs Asia” program. The group’s profile has increased in recent months, he said.

Last year, India invited Australia to participate in Malabar naval exercises alongside the United States and Japan. For years, New Delhi resisted Canberra’s participation, considering that the change would provoke Beijing.

Pant said that India appears to be reevaluating its policy towards China after being a “defender of the siege” in the greater balance of power in the region. New Delhi is now “making the reasons for joining certain platforms very clear,” he added.

Quad’s joint statement last Friday avoided any direct mention of China and its foreign policies in the region and focused on areas such as efforts to distribute the Covid-19 vaccine.

This agreement is already a “significant step and shows that the group is capable of delivering tangible results, rather than just talking about the challenge from China,” Bery of the Eurasia Group told CNBC via email.

While it remains to be seen how far the Biden government can get allies to approach events in the region from a multilateral perspective, Beijing is likely to back down, said Control Risks’ Mancini.

“China is feeling that it is being surrounded by the United States and that feeling is real and growing, so they are going to back down with their own investments in technology spending and their own focus on the domestic economy,” she said.