WASHINGTON (AP) – Threats from China and North Korea will loom large during the Biden administration’s maiden trip abroad, part of a larger effort to bolster American influence and address concerns about America’s role in Asia. to calm down.
A senior government official said Saturday that US officials have been trying to contact North Korea through multiple channels since last month but have not yet received a response. That makes consultations with the neighboring countries of the withdrawn country, Japan, South Korea and China, all the more critical.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin will head to Japan and South Korea from Monday for four days of talks as the new government seeks to strengthen partnerships with the two main regional allies. Blinken and Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan will meet with Chinese officials in Anchorage, Alaska on Thursday.
The journey aims to restore, what Biden hopes, a calming and balanced approach to ties with Tokyo and Seoul after four years of transactional and often temperamental relationships under Donald Trump. He had overthrown diplomatic norms by meeting not once but three times with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
Blinken and Austin are also planning virtual meetings with journalists, civil society members and others. After reassuring their counterparts of US pledges to Japanese and South Korean security, 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 has indicated that he wants to put the Asia-Pacific back at the top of the US foreign policy agenda. In keeping with his broader diplomatic theme “America is back”, Biden has pledged to keep stability in the region at the heart of his international initiatives.
On Friday, Biden took part in a virtual summit with the leaders of 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 our allies in the region to achieve stability.”
As part of that effort and “to mitigate the risks of escalation,” the senior official said attempts have been made since mid-February to contact the North Koreans, including through what is known as the “New Channel.” York “. To date, the official said, “We have not received a response from Pyongyang.” The officer was not authorized to publicly discuss diplomatic reach and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Meanwhile, US and South Korean negotiators have overcome years of controversial discussions under Trump to reach a preliminary agreement on paying for the US troop presence in South Korea. That agreement, along with a similar agreement for Japan, will be central to the Blinken and Austin meetings.
As he had done with allies in Europe, Trump threatened to cut security cooperation unless the host nations paid more. This sparked fears of troop withdrawal 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 fear.
“Diplomacy is once again at the heart of our foreign policy and we are working to strengthen relations between America and our allies,” said Sung Kim, the best US diplomat for Asia. He served in the Philippines and Indonesia during the Trump administration and was also previously the special envoy to North Korea.
Despite all of Biden’s suggestions that he will reverse Trump’s open hostility to China, Biden has yet to thwart a few of his predecessor’s policies. He has, in fact, reaffirmed a number of them, including maintaining sanctions in response to human rights violations in western Xinjiang and Hong Kong and reiterating a Trump-era decision to dismiss nearly all of China’s maritime claims in the South. China Sea outright reject.
Much of China’s policies that the US finds reprehensible – including the crackdown in Hong Kong, heightened rhetoric against Taiwan, and actions in the South China Sea – began during the Obama administration. The previous Democratic administration took office and promised a “hub to Asia” after a period of what many saw as US neglect for the region during George W. Bush’s presidency, consumed by the onset of wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
While some obvious circumstances have changed since 2009, Blinken and Austin’s trip in many ways mirrors the first foreign trip of President Barack Obama’s First Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, when she went to Japan, South Korea, Indonesia and then China traveled. an attempt to reassert US interests in the Asia-Pacific. However, Obama’s engagement with China did not yield the desired results, and the North Korean threat grew.
While China is not on Blinken’s itinerary, after completing the stop in Seoul, he will fly back to Washington via Anchorage, Alaska, where he and Sullivan will meet senior Chinese officials. Austin will travel from Seoul to New Delhi to meet with Indian leaders.
Still, the government is confident that its domestic efforts to revitalize the US and its economy and step up the fight against COVID-19 have put it in a better position to directly deflect China’s ambitions as well as 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 from a strong position,” Sulllivan said Friday.