WASHINGTON – Vice President Kamala Harris will deepen her outreach to Southeast Asia this week at a global summit in Jakarta, Indonesia, the place she’ll check out to erase doubts about U.S. dedication to the area stirred by way of President Joe Biden’s absence.
It’s Harris’ 3rd travel to Southeast Asia and fourth to Asia general, and she’s touched down in additional nations there than another continent. The repeat visits, as well as to conferences that she’s hosted in Washington, have situated Harris as a key interlocutor for the management because it tries to bolster a community of partnerships to counterbalance Chinese affect.
This newest adventure is every other alternative for Harris to burnish her overseas coverage credentials as she prepares for a bruising campaign year. She’s already come below assault from Republican presidential applicants who say she’s unprepared to step up if Biden — the oldest U.S. president in historical past — can not end a 2nd time period.
John Kirby, a White House nationwide safety spokesman, stated Harris has “made our alliances and partnerships in the Indo-Pacific a key part of her agenda as vice president,” and he described her itinerary as “perfectly in keeping with the issues that she’s been focused on.”
But Biden’s decision to skip the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, known as ASEAN, has caused some frustration, particularly because he’s already going to be in India and Vietnam around the same time. The president’s proximity makes his nonattendance “all the more more glaring than would otherwise be the case,” stated Marty Natalegawa, Indonesia’s former overseas affairs minister.
However, Natalegawa conceded that ASEAN is struggling to convince world leaders that it deserves to play a central role in the region. That’s even though the alliance represents more than 650 million people across 10 nations that collectively have the world’s fifth largest economy.
The organization has not resolved civil strife in Myanmar, which saw a military coup two years ago and has been disinvited from meetings. A peace plan reached with the country’s top general did not lead to any progress.
Negotiations over territorial claims in the South China Sea remain bogged down as well, and ASEAN faces internal disagreements over global competition between the United States and China. Some members, such as the Philippines and Vietnam, have sought closer ties with Washington, while Cambodia remains firmly in Beijing’s orbit.
“We can complain all we want about other countries not respecting us or not coming to our summits,” Natalegawa said. “But ultimately, it is actually a point of reflection.”
Unless ASEAN turns into simpler, Natalegawa stated, “we may end up with less and less leaders turning up.”
Kirby, the national security spokesman, rejected the idea that Biden was snubbing the organization or the region.
“It’s just impossible to look at the record that this administration has put forward and say that we are somehow walking away,” Kirby stated, noting that Biden already hosted the first-ever Washington summit with ASEAN leaders final yr.
Ja-Ian Chong, an affiliate professor of political science at the National University of Singapore, stated Harris’ presence is helping the U.S. duvet its bases at an match that won’t turn out productive on key problems.
“You want to show that you’re paying attention, you send the vice president,” he said.
Harris is scheduled to depart Monday morning and spend two days enmeshed in meetings in Jakarta. Her office has not yet detailed her schedule, but she’s expected to attend summit events and hold individual talks with some foreign leaders.
Soon after Harris returns from Indonesia, Biden is headed to India for the annual Group of 20 summit, which pulls together many of the world’s richest countries and is a staple of any presidents’ calendar. Then he plans to stop in Vietnam, where he’s focused on strengthening ties with a country that is an emerging economic power.
“I don’t fault the administration for the choice that they made. It’s just unfortunate that they had to make that choice,” stated Gregory B. Poling, who directs the Southeast Asia program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Leaders are accumulating in Jakarta amid heightened rigidity over the South China Sea after Beijing launched a new official map that emphasizes its territorial claims there.
The map has angered other nations that consider the waters to be part of their own territory or international byways. The South China Sea is a critical crossroads for global trade.
U.S. officials and analysts believe Beijing’s aggressive approach to the region has created an opening for Washington to forge stronger partnerships.
“In many ways, the PRC is doing its work for us,” said David Stilwell, using the acronym for the People’s Republic of China. Stilwell served as the assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs under President Donald Trump.
Although much of Biden’s recent attention has been on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, he’s left no doubt that he considers China to be the top foreign policy challenge for the U.S. He’s described much of his agenda, both domestic and overseas, as an effort to deter Beijing from supplanting Washington as the most powerful worldwide force.
Sometimes his warnings take a darker turn. During a recent fundraiser for his reelection campaign in Park City, Utah, Biden described China as a “ticking time bomb” because of its economic and demographic challenges.
“That’s not good because when bad folks have problems, they do bad things,” he said.
Harris has previously visited Singapore and Vietnam, Japan and South Korea, and the Philippines and Thailand.
Many of her travels have been geared toward the global rivalry with China.
Speaking from the deck of a U.S. Navy destroyer docked near Tokyo last year, Harris said China has “challenged freedom of the seas” and “flexed its army and financial would possibly to coerce and intimidate its neighbors.”
Harris additionally become the perfect score U.S. authentic to discuss with Palawan, a Filipino island adjoining to the South China Sea that has been a entrance line for the territorial disputes. She stated that Washington would reinforce the Philippines “within the face of intimidation and coercion.”
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Associated Press author Edna Tarigan contributed from Jakarta, Indonesia.