Biden’s China ‘pivot’ complicated by Russia’s war in Ukraine

Name: Faces of the exodus: fear and anguish as more than 3 million Ukrainians flee Russian invasion
Uploaded: 2022-03-17T07:22:54.000Z
Duration: 1 min 26 s
Description: Faces of the exodus: fear and anguish as more than 3 million Ukrainians flee Russian invasion

US president deeply invested in rallying Nato and Western allies on sanctioning Russia and helping Ukraine militarily

But White House also watching to see how Xi Jinping plays his hand on Vladimir Putin’s war

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US President Joe Biden in a virtual meeting with China’s Xi Jinping on November 15 last year. Photo: AP

Associated Press

Published: 3:22pm, 17 Mar 2022Updated: 5:31pm, 17 Mar 2022

President Joe Biden had set out to finally complete the “pivot to Asia,” a long sought adjustment of US foreign policy to better reflect the rise of America’s most significant military and economic competitor – China.

But Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine has made that vexing move even more complicated. Beijing has vacillated between full embrace and more measured responses as Russian President Vladimir Putin pursues his war, making the decisions for Biden far more layered.

“It’s difficult. It’s expensive,” Kurt Campbell, the coordinator for Indo-Pacific Affairs on the White House National Security Council, said during a recent forum on maintaining a high-level US focus in two regions. “But it’s also essential, and I believe we’re entering a period where that’s what will be required of the United States and of this generation of Americans.”

That leaves the Biden administration needing to focus on the East and West at the same time, balancing not simply economic imperatives but military ones as well.

The US president has been deeply invested in rallying Nato and Western allies to respond to Russia with crippling sanctions, supplying an overmatched Ukraine military with US$2 billion in military assistance – including US$800 million in new aid announced Wednesday – and addressing a growing humanitarian crisis.

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Faces of the exodus: fear and anguish as more than 3 million Ukrainians flee Russian invasion

Eastern flank Nato allies, including Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Romania, have made clear to the Biden administration that they want the US to increase its military presence in the region and do more to address the worst humanitarian crisis in Europe since World War II that has created more than 3 million Ukrainian refugees in recent weeks.

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