Joe Biden’s Chinese strategy is starting to fall into place. On February 4, during his first visit to the State Department as president, the Democrat designated Beijing as “The most serious competitor” of the United States and affirmed that he intended to counter it by relying on what he had presented as two pillars of American diplomacy: allies and values.
By participating virtually, Friday March 12, for the first time at the level of heads of state and government, in a regional forum, Joe Biden gave a first translation of his objectives, which are part of the continuity of aggressiveness manifested with regard to Beijing by his predecessor, Donald Trump. The Quad, short for Quadrilateral Dialogue for Security, brings together, in addition to the United States, India, Australia and Japan.
After insisting that this was the first multilateral summit he was hosting, Joe Biden immediately put forward a “An objective which, I think, concerns us all: a free and open Indo-Pacific region is essential to each of our countries and to our future”. The formula implies that this region could be threatened by what the United States sees as Chinese expansionism. The Prime Ministers of India, Japan and Australia, Narendra Modi, Yoshihide Suga and Scott Morrison, did not contradict him.
This meeting, which could be repeated at the end of the year, is to be followed by the first foreign tour of Secretary of State, Tony Blinken, to Japan and South Korea, from March 15 to 18. The head of American diplomacy will be accompanied by the secretary of defense, Lloyd Austin, thus reinforcing the message of firmness addressed to Beijing, while Donald Trump regularly lamented the financial cost for the United States that the deployment of forces entails. permanent military personnel in these two countries.
“Chorus of opprobrium”
It is only at the end of these visits and the display of the attention paid by Washington to its allies in the region that the first Sino-American high-level meeting will be held. Tony Blinken is due to meet with senior Chinese officials on March 18 in Alaska, along with Joe Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan. They are Yang Jiechi, the head of international affairs for the Chinese Communist Party, and Wang Yi, the foreign minister.
Another sign of the Asian concern of the new administration, the Japanese Prime Minister, with whom Joe Biden spoke on Friday, is also the first foreign official to be received in April in Washington, after a dearth of visits due to the pandemic of Covid-19.
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