VIENTIANE – U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will make the case for the Biden administration’s expanded commitment to Asia and the Indo-Pacific region more broadly as he visits Laos, Vietnam, Japan, the Philippines, Singapore and Mongolia this week and next. The trip comes as the 2024 U.S. presidential election campaign heats up after a series of bombshell developments upended the race.
Blinken, who has already modified his travel schedule twice since the trip was announced just hours after President Joe Biden made his decision not to seek re-election, arrives in Vientiane, Laos, on Saturday for the annual ASEAN Regional Forum. The security conference gathers the foreign ministers of Association of Southeast Asian Nations and regional powers like China, Australia, Japan, Russia, South Korea and India.
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All participants represent either critical U.S. allies and partners or Washington’s two largest rivals – Moscow and Beijing, which have grown closer over the past two years, prompting deep concerns about their combined global influence. Just this week, U.S. and Canadian jets intercepted Chinese and Russian bombers flying jointly near Alaska. The U.S. has repeatedly accused China of helping to rebuild Russia’s military industrial base that allows it to wage its war in Ukraine.
Blinken is expected to meet with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Vientiane but has no plans to see Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who is also attending the ASEAN conference, according to the State Department.
Despite, or perhaps due to, its major policy differences with the U.S. over Taiwan, Tibet, Hong Kong, the South China Sea, trade and human rights, China is emerging as a potential challenger to the U.S. in international diplomatic dominance.
Beijing has recently mediated a fragile rapprochement between r ival Palestinian factions, negotiated a tentative deal with the Philippines to end escalating confrontations over their competing maritime claims in the South China Sea, agreed to work with India on withdrawing tens of thousands of troops along their disputed Himalayan border, and hosted Ukraine’s foreign minister.
Despite assertions from U.S. officials that Biden’s decision to withdraw will have no impact on the administration’s foreign policies for his last six months in office, questions abound about his priorities before he leaves the White House and the path his successor may take.
Although there was no discussion of Blinken cancelling his travel plans after Biden’s announcement, his time and meetings in Laos have been cut nearly in half since the original trip announcement, and two brief stops in Vietnam and Mongolia have been added.
While the presumptive Democratic nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, might be expected to hew closely to Biden’s approach, Republican challenger Donald Trump could bring major change, particularly regarding security commitments to America’s Asian allies, notably Japan, South Korea and the Philippines.
“Foreign leaders and adversaries now are not only facing new uncertainty about the outcome of the election that seemed Trump’s for the taking, but uncertainty as well about how the policies of a victorious Democratic candidate would differ from Biden,” said Danny Russel, a former assistant secretary of state for East Asia and the Pacific in the Obama administration who is currently vice president of the Asia Society Policy Institute in New York.
“For China in particular, this argues for a cautious wait-and-see posture,” he said.
Blinken will use the trip to reassure partners that “America is all in on the Indo-Pacific,” said Dan Kritenbrink, the top U.S. diplomat for Asia. “The United States has been an Indo-Pacific power for more than a century and will remain so going forward.”
“We’re going to continue to do everything possible to demonstrate that commitment in coming months,” Kritenbrink told reporters earlier this week. He discounted concerns about the presidential campaign but added: “We do try to reassure allies and partners that there are certain fundamentals about America’s engagement that are not going to change, that have been consistent.”
Among those constants for the past six decades have been large U.S. troop deployments in Japan and South Korea and a mutual defense treaty with the Philippines. During his first term in office, Trump cast doubt on the usefulness of U.S. alliances around the world and suggested that the American military presence in Japan and South Korea be reduced or eliminated.
As part of his Asia tour, Blinken will be joined by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in Tokyo and Manila, where they will meet with their Japanese and Filipino counterparts to shore up their defense cooperation “in the face of really growing and unprecedented threats in the region,” according to Kritenbrink.
And, in the view of analysts like Russel, Biden may direct his team to step up engagement. “Leaders who may have effectively counted him out are now dealing with an undistracted Joe Biden, focused on augmenting his substantial legacy and unencumbered by the heavy burden of campaigning,” Russel said.