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Macroscope | Biden’s Indo-Pacific economic plan is yet another example of ‘with us or against us’ oversimplification
- The latest Western attempt to counter Chinese geoeconomic strategy is nebulous to the point of meaninglessness and has little hope of success
- Until the US and its allies are prepared to accept China as an equal, any attempts at ‘engagement’ will only come through a lens of conflict
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Defensive, inadequate or even mean are words that could describe Western reactions to the rise of China. The Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) which the Biden administration is currently promoting around Asia fits all of these descriptions well.
The IPEF is nebulous to the point of being meaningless, as the Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) suggested in a recent commentary. Others might describe it less politely as an attempt by the United States and its allies to rally behind a tattered flag.
It seems that every time China has come up with a geoeconomic initiative in recent years – such as the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), the Belt and Road Initiative or the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) – Western reactions have been negative.
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The latest example of this behaviour is the IPEF, which US President Joe Biden is pushing during his visits to South Korea and Japan while also taking in meetings with leaders from Australia and India. But he will have a hard time selling such a half-baked and opportunistic initiative.
It has all the hallmarks of being a rushed job, cobbled together so that Biden can go into US midterm elections with an Indo-Pacific feather in his cap to add to the laurels he has garnered from bringing Nato countries onside in dealing with Russia, and perhaps indirectly against China.
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As Robert Ward, Japan chair and director of geoeconomics and strategy at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said last week at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan in Tokyo, “In terms of economic statecraft in the Indo-Pacific, the Biden administration is lacking and China’s making a lot of the running.”
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