The Trump administration has released a report outlining its Indo-Pacific strategy, which includes ‘accelerating India’s rise’, preventing China from establishing ‘illiberal spheres of influence’ and maintaining ‘US strategic primacy’ in the region, according to a copy viewed by Axios.
Why it matters: The strategy outlined in the ten-page report, written in early 2018, has guided the US approach to China, India, North Korea and other countries in the Indo-Pacific region for the past three years. Its publication sheds light on the geopolitical and security challenges that will soon be inherited by the Biden government.
China is the leading government actor of concern described in the document, followed by North Korea. The strategy emphasizes countering China’s growing influence abroad by seeking strategic alignment with allies and partners, maintaining a “liberal economic order” in the region, and working to “inoculate” the US and its partners against the United States. intelligence activities of China.
- The strategy also outlines a large expansion of military, intelligence and diplomatic support to India as the main regional counterweight to China – an approach likely to raise eyebrows in Beijing and Islamabad.
What they say: “Today’s declassification of the Framework shows with transparency America’s strategic commitments to the Indo-Pacific and to our allies and partners in the region,” National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien wrote in a January 5, 2021 memo, and appended. with the strategy document.
Splitting it up: The Trump administration has closely followed some of its stated goals regarding China for the past three years, including:
- Building an “international consensus that China’s industrial policies and unfair trade practices are harmful to the global trading system”
- Expanding US counterintelligence and law enforcement to counter China’s intelligence activities in the US, and expanding intelligence sharing with allies to help them do the same.
- Developing military and asymmetric war strategies to aid Taiwan in its long, tense relationship with China.
- Strengthening national security assessments of Chinese investments in sensitive US sectors
- Work with allies and partners to try to “prevent China’s acquisition of military and strategic capabilities”.
Yes but: Some targets faced headwinds.
- The strategy repeatedly calls for greater US involvement with countries in the region, notably the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). In some cases, the US even withdrew from the region, including Trump’s withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the rejection of ASEAN summits.
- The goal of promoting the benefits of US democratic values as a counterbalance to China in the region was also hit hard by the recent armed uprising at the Capitol. Those events led to the resignation of one of the strategy’s key authors, former national security deputy Matt Pottinger.
Of interest: India is an important cornerstone of the aptly named Indo-Pacific strategy.
- The document states that improved US aid and intelligence sharing should help India in key areas of conflict with China, including on border disputes and water rights in the Himalayas. In 2020, India and China had their deadliest military skirmish along the border since 1967.
- But the relationship between the US and India is complex. During the Cold War, India refused to place itself squarely in the Western camp, opting for leadership in the non-aligned movement. The US, meanwhile, often leaned towards Pakistan, India’s historic arch-rival in South Asia.
Background: The Trump administration ushered in a new official framework to view China and India as part of the same strategic region, the “Indo-Pacific,” starting with its National Security Strategy in 2017.
- The US Pacific Command was renamed the Indo-Pacific Command in 2018, in a move widely believed to be in response to the rise of China.
Between the lines: Australia’s experience with China has had a strong influence on the shaping of the 2018 Indo-Pacific strategy.
- “In many ways they were at the forefront of understanding impact operations and interference in household systems,” a senior US official told me. “They were pioneers and we have to give Australia a lot of credit.”
- The official praised former Australian senior intelligence adviser John Garnaut and said that a 2017 report on Chinese influence operations by New Zealand scholar Anne-Marie Brady had also influenced US strategy.
Go deeper: State Department Releases Blueprint To Counter China.