Asia is a top priority for the United States

According to political experts, the Indo-Pacific will play a much larger role in US foreign policy, with Asia a top priority.

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 troops are stationed.

Last Friday, President Joe Biden virtually met with the Prime Ministers of Japan, India and Australia as part of the first leader’s summit of an informal strategic alliance – the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or Quad as it is called.

“Asia is the priority,” Angela Mancini, a partner at Control Risks, said on CNBC’s “Capital Connection” Monday. She explained that based on last week’s Quad meeting and the overall diplomacy taking place with the current administration, the US makes it very clear that the Indo-Pacific region is important to Washington – compared to the transactional approach of the previous one. government.

“In addition to strengthening alliances to counteract possibly China, there are also some specific bilateral issues that need to be addressed,” Mancini said, adding that it also includes the presence of US forces in the region.

Building on the framework left by the Trump administration on Indo-Pacific strategy, the Biden administration is developing a coalition of partners to work with, said Akhil Bery, South Asia analyst with political risk consultancy Eurasia Group.

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

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

The group will play a much more important role in the region and could potentially become “ a core of a larger regional security architecture in the future, ” said Harsh Pant, head of the strategic study program at the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi.

For more than a decade, the Quad has had a mediocre existence, even after geopolitical tensions between the US and China worsened from 2017, followed by a deterioration in relations between India and China, Pant said Monday on CNBC’s “Street Signs Asia.” The group’s profile has risen in recent months, he said.

Last year, India invited Australia to participate in the Malabar exercises at sea along with the US and Japan. For years, New Delhi opposed Canberra’s participation by reckoning that the move would provoke Beijing.

Pant said India appears to be re-evaluating its policy towards China after being a “fencer” in the greater balance of power in the region. New Delhi “is now making very clear why he is joining certain platforms,” ​​he added.

The Quad’s joint statement last Friday avoided any direct mention of China and its foreign policy in the region and instead focused on areas such as the distribution of Covid-19 vaccines.

That agreement is already a “significant step forward, showing the group’s ability to deliver tangible results, rather than just talking about the China challenge,” Eurasia Group’s Bery told CNBC by email. .

While it remains to be seen to what extent the Biden administration can induce allies to approach developments in the region from a multilateral perspective, Beijing is likely to push back, Control Risks’ Mancini said.

“China feels that they are surrounded by the US and that feeling is real and growing, and so they are going to cut back with their own investment in technology spending and their own focus on the domestic economy,” she said.