As of now, President Joe Biden is scheduled to make a major trip to Asia beginning on 19 May to attend the G7 Summit in Hiroshima, Japan, and a subsequent meeting in Australia with the so-called “Quad” countries. The journey comes amid rising tensions with China. The brinksmanship between the two global heavyweights is nearing historic levels and numerous nations have noted the increasingly heated rhetoric. Washington has good reason to be concerned. China challenges the U.S. in terms of its economy, technology, and military.
China will be a central topic during Biden’s trip. The president will meet with the leaders of the U.K., Germany, France, Canada, Italy, and Japan in Hiroshima for the G7 summit meeting. Eight other countries from the Global South were also invited to attend. Biden will then travel to Australia for a meeting of the “Quad” – the U.S., Australia, Japan, and India. What is the background for these meetings and potential outcomes for US national security strategy? What can we expect to occur?
President Donald Trump is credited with changing Americans’ relations with China as something more than mere competition, but the Biden Administration has taken numerous steps to create a new security architecture throughout the Pacific to confront the rising threat posed by Beijing. These two meetings will further cement a foreign policy structure that buttresses U.S. national security concerns. They will likely expand and renew alliances and relationships between countries that could potentially encircle and deter China’s expansionist policies that have grown rapidly in recent years. The Biden Administration’s focus since the beginning of 2023 has been on diplomacy and consensus-building in Asia. This has led to new relationships and the expansion of established alliances that address China, the war in Ukraine, and other emerging challenges.
The Biden effort
In January, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida visited the White House. The two leaders underscored the importance of US-Japanese relations and the American commitment to Tokyo. This was followed by an announcement that the Japanese government would seek to raise defense spending to 2% of Japanese gross domestic product (GDP). If Tokyo reaches this goal it would translate into an annual defense budget of roughly $140 billion, which would make Japan the third largest spender on defense on the planet. That is behind only the U.S. and China.
Then in March, Mr. Biden traveled to San Diego to host the Prime Ministers of Australia and the United Kingdom. Together they underscored their combined support for the so-called AUKUS agreement. This pact means that the U.K. and U.S. will assist Australia in the production of nuclear-powered attack submarines. It will further allow American and British submarines to use port facilities in Australia in future, which will allow them to have longer station time for Pacific Ocean patrols. The agreement infuriated Beijing.
In April and May, Biden hosted President Yoon Suk Yeol, the leader of South Korea, and President Ferdinand Marcos, the leader of the Philippines. During Yoon’s visit, the two presidents continued to emphasize the importance of U.S.-Korean bilateral relations. Yoon abandoned his earlier statement that Seoul would consider producing its own nuclear weapons if the U.S. did not again deploy nuclear weapons to the Korean peninsula. Out of this, the so-called “Washington Declaration” was born, whereby the U.S. agreed to periodically bring American nuclear-powered submarines capable of launching ballistic missiles to Korean ports to enhance deterrence with respect to North Korea. The Biden Administration further agreed to establish a new joint American-Korean body to discuss nuclear policy with respect to the Korean peninsula.
During the May meeting with President Marcos, it was announced that the United States and the Philippines would conduct the largest joint military exercise in their history. In addition, Manila agreed to allow American forces use of four bases in the Philippines — a huge strategic win for the U.S. over China. These bases are all in the northern portion of the country and provide American forces greater access to the South China Sea. It also means U.S. military forces will be stationed only a few hundred miles from the southern coast of Taiwan.
The Dynamics of the G7 and the Quad
There will be 15 ministerial meetings across Japan for this year’s G7. Some have already met and the last meeting, which is about trade, will be held until October. But the most important is the summit. It will occur from May 19 to 21 and will take place in Hiroshima, the hometown of Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida — a poignant setting as nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation is one of the centerpieces of discussion, according to the Japanese Foreign Ministry.
The two other top issues are economic resilience and economic security. Leaders will work on building resilient supply chains, non-market policies and practices as well as economic coercion. Exact terms on how to respond to Beijing economically are unclear, however. French President Emmanuel Macron raised eyebrows recently when he proposed pushing for European autonomy from the U.S. during his meetings with China's President Xi Jinping. There is good reason the Europeans may have concerns. Unlike Russia, isolating China from the world economy could be truly damaging, particularly for European countries.
Still, regional security affairs will be part of the G7 discussions. Russia’s aggression will again be denounced as a challenge to the rule-based international order, and the countries’ leaders will discuss further sanctions against Moscow. They will also make public their plan to “reaffirm and strengthen cooperation on the ‘Free and Open Indo-Pacific,’ which is expected to repudiate China’s growing regional influence, threats to Taiwan, and efforts to gain control of the South China Sea.
To strengthen the reach of that dialogue, Japan has purposefully emphasized the group’s outreach to the Global South, where Russia and China have made huge gains in support and influence. They have also invited Australia, Brazil, Comoros (African Union Chair), the Cook Islands (Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) Chair), India (G20 Presidency), Indonesia (ASEAN Chair), the Republic of Korea, and Vietnam. Japan’s invitation to Australia and South Korea is notable. Both countries have long harbored ill will toward Tokyo, but Japan has openly acknowledged that the Biden Administration has worked to diminish historic resentments between these nations due to the need for greater cooperation.
Japan, based on Prime Minister Kishida’s announcement earlier this year, is rapidly becoming a regional military as well as a global economic power. Tokyo is also seeking improved relations with South Korea in response to growing Chinese military and economic power. While neither country considers Beijing as large a threat as Washington does — diplomats from both countries make jokes about the spy balloon saga behind closed doors — they do see China actively pushing the limits of historic norms and international law. Seoul and Tokyo noted that Beijing has “crossed the line” repeatedly by entering their waters or pursuing government, corporate and technological espionage.
Conversations with India, Indonesia, Vietnam, Brazil, and Australia will also be key in cementing Biden’s strategy. If all parties can come to some form of agreement, China will face a form of encirclement that could fundamentally change the stakes in Asia.
The Quad will meet shortly thereafter, and that will further this effort. While once an informal group meeting of Australia, the U.S., Japan, and India; the gathering has grown more serious as talks focused on security and other issues in the Indo-Pacific region. The Leaders’ Summit will take place at the iconic Sydney Opera House.
Beijing itself views the meeting warily and sees it as a direct threat to its regional if not global influence as well as an effort to contain China’s interests. Like the G7, the focus will be on security and economic issues. Nuclear challenges are expected to take a backseat.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has said in advance of the meeting that together the member countries will be “leveraging our collective strengths” to “shape the Indo-Pacific region we all want to live in.” Further, the partners are expected to take actions to tighten economic ties through efforts that are aimed to improve regional health security, advance certain critical technologies, strengthen connectivity, enhance clean energy, and boost supply chain resilience.
Overall, this meeting will function as another way to aggressively buttress cooperation against China.
At the same time, the Biden Administration is seeking to find a “plateau” at least in Sino-US relations as the administration has pursued meetings with Chinese officials in recent days. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan met with China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi in Vienna on May 11. The Chinese embassy announced that the purpose of these meetings was “removing obstacles in China-U.S. relations and stabilizing the relationship from deterioration.”
The “Biden Asian Strategy” is clearly aimed at expanding existing security relationships and creating new ones. At the same time, the Administration is seeking to create a coordinated global economic strategy with allies. It appears clear, however, that the White House has acknowledged a clear economic reality — decoupling from the Chinese economy is not possible and unlikely to gain allied support. Richard Haas, a well-known Asian expert has observed that “the Chinese believe they have a high degree of flexibility to use aggressive tactics to protect its interests because the European countries in particular cannot afford to allow for a rupture.” That theory may be put to the test in the days ahead. While the foundations of a strong security architecture have been put in place, how the Biden Administration proceeds in this highwire act remains to be seen as it aims to secure American interests and level the partisan rancor pushing for further Chinese brinksmanship.
