Given the many and existential challenges to democracy that US President Joe Biden faces at home, it could be months, even years, before we see the contours of a strategy for Asia emerge from the administration. Yet, no matter how long it takes, America’s Asia policy cannot escape a basic truth – on the issues of gravest consequence in the region, there is no pleasing everyone.
There are, of course, some common-sense policies that will restore confidence in US competence – reinvesting in alliances, taking regional diplomacy seriously and, as Biden said, once again projecting “the power of our example” rather than what remains of American power. Biden and his team are favourably predisposed towards policies that are multilateral, institutional and pro-alliance.
Beyond this low-hanging fruit, however, there are four major issues where Biden is stuck between a rock and a hard place. On economic interdependence, China, Taiwan and North Korea, there is no way to avoid controversy while serving the American interest. This is a good thing. The inability to please everyone frees him from the straitjacket of historical expectations. It is only a question of whether he will realise it.
Washington politicians have mostly abandoned the old economic consensus favouring unfettered deregulation and trade liberalisation. Biden has a business-friendly track record and his campaign attracted a lot of corporate donors, but key constituencies in the Democratic Party, as well as self-styled “populist” parts of the Republican Party, are now hostile to free trade for its disproportionate enrichment of corporations versus harm to American workers.
There is no longer a taboo around domestic economic subsidies or industrial policy. The new-found ambivalence about neoliberal economics in Washington ensures Biden will be in no hurry to rejoin the transpacific trade deal, now called the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP).
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As Biden enters White House, world leaders express ‘relief’ and welcome ‘friend’ and ‘mate’ back
As Biden enters White House, world leaders express ‘relief’ and welcome ‘friend’ and ‘mate’ back
From China’s perspective, that is great news. The CPTPP locks in the intraregional economic interdependence that has helped keep Asia peaceful for 40 years. And, in its current form, it does so without the United States. A win-win for Beijing.
But for advocates of a rules-based regional order such as Australia, Japan and Singapore, America’s absence is a major strategic loss. Those who benefit most from the US military presence in Asia know that the best way to keep it permanently engaged is through market access, shared supply chains and joint ventures. Tie America in, don’t lock it out.
Yet, what America’s friends want in this case is incompatible with what the American people want – for now, anyway. Former president Barack Obama wasted untold political capital and bureaucratic attention on securing trade promotion authority to conclude the original version of the CPTPP and was thwarted by a domestic political scene that has only become more hostile to liberalised trade regimes.
The competing political incentives built into Biden’s choices on China are even more fraught. Gone are the days of expecting engagement to lead to China’s political transformation, but Washington liberals are, nevertheless, of two minds about China.
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US declares China has committed genocide in its treatment of Uygurs in Xinjiang
US declares China has committed genocide in its treatment of Uygurs in Xinjiang
Some champion the “great-power rivalry” paradigm, distraught over China’s oppression at home and in its periphery and fearing its expansionist ambitions abroad. Others, however, including Big Tech and Wall Street, still see the mythological attraction of the China market. Many companies, moreover, still rely on Chinese manufacturing somewhere in their supply chains.
So while Biden does not want to decouple the US and Chinese economies, according to his national security adviser Jake Sullivan, he will nevertheless “reshore supply chains so we are never again dependent on China in a crisis”. Biden disagrees with Donald Trump’s haphazard trade war, but is in no hurry to remove tariffs on China and may even add more in the coming years.
And the defence budget, for now, is on its own anti-China glide path even as Biden will need to seek Chinese cooperation on everything from climate change and anti-corruption to Iran and Afghanistan. Trying to pull off a policy of simultaneous competition and cooperation may be necessary out of political exigency, but succeeding in doing so is almost impossible.
Taiwan policy is also facing cross-pressures not seen since president Richard Nixon’s opening to China in 1972. On the one hand, Biden must be mindful of how China will respond to any overtures towards Taiwan. On the other hand, he cannot let Beijing’s preferences dictate US policy towards a fellow democracy.
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Taipei thanks Washington for ‘staunch support’ after US diplomat’s trip scrapped
Taipei thanks Washington for ‘staunch support’ after US diplomat’s trip scrapped
Taiwan has bipartisan support on Capitol Hill, and early courtesies suggest Biden and President Tsai Ing-wen will maintain close relations. But the space for the US to bolster Taiwan’s sovereignty without increasing the risks it faces from China is narrowing. Already, there are calls from Washington’s pundits to end a generation of “strategic ambiguity” towards Taiwan in favour of an unambiguous commitment to Taiwan’s defence.
And on North Korea, the most urgent issue in Asia, the situation is more dire than when Biden was last in office. Kim Jong-un’s arsenal of nuclear weapons and missiles is larger, more survivable, and capable of travelling a farther range than ever.
North Korea can plausibly strike the American homeland with nuclear-armed missiles and there is no reason to believe the old policies of sanctions or ritualistically insincere engagement will improve the situation.
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North Korea’s new ‘monster’ intercontinental ballistic missiles on show at military parade
North Korea’s new ‘monster’ intercontinental ballistic missiles on show at military parade
Yet, both hawkish and dovish departures from the status quo will inevitably disappoint. The maximum pressure of the Trump era risks both nuclear war and a fracturing of the US alliance with South Korea. Under progressive President Moon Jae-in, Seoul has redoubled its commitment to peace and reconciliation with North Korea and wants the US to do the same.
But a dovish peace gambit towards North Korea, which would require not just ending the Korean war but offering unilateral sanctions relief and pursuing arms control, is not only unpopular in Washington, it would almost certainly come at Tokyo’s expense. Japan was a fan of maximum pressure and remains worried about being left exposed to North Korean missiles in any partial arms control deal with Pyongyang.
There is no such thing as a Goldilocks policy for the US in today’s Asia. Doves will seek American restraint. Hawks will want greater military resolve. And free trade is a double-edged sword. Biden will have critics on all sides. He would therefore be well advised to follow his instinct, not for consensus-building, but for political pragmatism. That is why he was elected anyway.
Van Jackson is an American professor of international relations at Victoria University of Wellington and a distinguished fellow at the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada
