WASHINGTON (AP) – Threats from China and North Korea will be great during the Biden administration’s first cabinet-level trip abroad, part of a larger effort to reinforce US influence and calm concerns over the role of the United States. in Asia.
A senior government official said on Saturday that US officials had tried to contact North Korea through various channels since last month, but have yet to receive a response. This makes consultations with the neighbors of the secluded country, Japan, South Korea and China, even more critical.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin are going to Japan and South Korea for four days of negotiations starting on Monday, while the new government is trying to partner with the two main regional allies. Blinken and Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, will meet Chinese officials in Anchorage, Alaska, on Thursday.
The trip aims to restore what Biden hopes to be a calm and balanced approach to ties with Tokyo and Seoul, after four years of transactional and often temperamental relations under Donald Trump. He had reversed diplomatic rules by meeting not once, but three times, with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
Blinken and Austin also plan virtual meetings with journalists, members of civil society and others. After reassuring the US’s commitments to the security of Japan and South Korea, they plan to focus on an increasingly assertive China, North Korea’s nuclear challenge and the coronavirus pandemic.
In his first months in office, Biden signaled his desire to return Asia-Pacific to the top of the US foreign policy agenda. In keeping with his broader diplomatic theme “America is back”, Biden pledged to maintain stability in the region at the center of his international initiatives.
On Friday, Biden attended a virtual summit with leaders from India, Japan and Australia. “A free and open Indo-Pacific is essential,” said Biden. “The United States is committed to working with you, our partners and all of our allies in the region to achieve stability.”
As part of that effort and “to reduce the risk of escalation”, the senior official said that efforts have been made to connect with North Koreans since mid-February, including through what is known as the “New York Canal”. So far, the official said, “we have received no response from Pyongyang.” The official was not allowed to publicly discuss the diplomatic scope and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Meanwhile, North American and South Korean negotiators have overcome years of contentious discussions under Trump to reach an interim agreement on paying for the presence of American troops in South Korea. This agreement, along with a similar one for the Japan, will be at the front and center of the Blinken and Austin meetings.
As he had done with allies in Europe, Trump threatened to reduce security cooperation unless host countries paid more. This has raised fears of withdrawing troops at a time of particular uncertainty as China intensifies efforts to dominate the region and North Korea’s nuclear weapons remain a major source of distress.
“Diplomacy is back at the heart of our foreign policy and we are working to strengthen America’s relations with our allies, as well as relations between them,” said Sung Kim, who is the top US diplomat for Asia. He served in the Philippines and Indonesia during the Trump administration and was also a special envoy to North Korea.
Despite all of Biden’s suggestions that he will reverse Trump’s open hostility to China, Biden has not yet revoked any of his predecessor’s policies. In fact, he reaffirmed several of them, including maintaining sanctions in response to human rights abuses in western Xinjiang and Hong Kong and reaffirming a Trump-era decision to openly reject almost all of China’s maritime claims in the South China Sea. .
Many of China’s policies that the United States considers questionable – including the Hong Kong crackdown, intensified rhetoric against Taiwan and actions in the South China Sea – began during the Obama administration. The previous Democratic government took office promising a “pivot for Asia” after a period that many saw as American neglect of the region during the presidency of George W. Bush, which was consumed by the outbreak of wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
In fact, although some obvious circumstances have changed since 2009, Blinken and Austin’s trip in many ways mirrors the initial trip abroad by President Barack Obama’s first secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, when she traveled to Japan, South Korea. , Indonesia and China in an attempt to reaffirm US interests in Asia Pacific. Obama’s involvement with China, however, has not produced the desired results, and the North Korean threat has grown.
Although China is not on Blinken’s itinerary, after ending the stop in Seoul, he will fly back to Washington via Anchorage, Alaska, where he and Sullivan will meet with Chinese officials. Austin will travel from Seoul to New Delhi for meetings with Indian leaders.
Still, the government is convinced that its domestic efforts to revitalize the United States’ economy and intensify the fight against COVID-19 have put it in a better position to directly neutralize Chinese ambitions and leverage its partnerships to do the same.
“After the work of the past 50 days, Secretary Blinken and I will enter the meeting with senior Chinese representatives in a position of strength,” said Sulllivan on Friday.