Asean gathering a key part of US moves to ‘step up our game’
President Joe Biden is hosting the first Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit to be held in Washington, as his administration makes an extended effort to demonstrate that the United States has not lost focus on the Asia-Pacific region even while dealing with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
As Biden welcomed leaders from eight Asean nations for a dinner yesterday to start the twoday ‘‘special summit’’, the White House announced that the US would commit to more than US$150 million (NZ$240.3m) in new projects to bolster Southeast Asia’s climate, maritime and public health infrastructure.
A senior administration official, who previewed the announcement on the condition of anonymity, said the effort was meant to signal that the US was looking to ‘‘step up our game in Southeast Asia’’.
The gathering is the group’s first meeting at the White House in its 45-year history. Leaders are taking part in more formal talks at the State Department.
The Asean nations include Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. The top leaders from Asean member Myanmar were barred from attending, while outgoing Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte dispatched Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr to represent his government.
The summit comes before Biden’s trip next week to South Korea and Japan – his first visit to Asia as president – for talks with those two countries’ leaders. He also will meet during that trip with leaders from the Indo-Pacific strategic alliance with the US known as the Quad: Australia, India and Japan.
Biden has tried to put greater focus on that alliance, and on improving relations with Pacific nations, in the early going of his presidency as he sees a rising China as the most threatening economic and national security adversary to the US.
Biden, who pledged to make the Pacific a greater focal point of US policy, has seen his attempt at an ‘‘Asia pivot’’ complicated by the most serious fighting in Europe since World War II.
‘‘There has been a sense that in previous administrations that we had set off with a determined pace to focus on East Asia or in the Indo-Pacific, and then find ourselves with other pressing challenges that perhaps draws (us) away a little bit,’’ said Kurt Campbell, coordinator for Indo-Pacific Affairs on the White House National Security Council. ‘‘I think there is a deep sense that that can’t happen again.’’
The new US investment in Asean nations includes US$40m (NZ$64m) for clean energy infrastructure, US$60m (NZ$96.1m) million for a new regional maritime initiative, and US$6m (NZ$9.6m) to accelerate digital development in the region.
Biden is expected to address the situation in Myanmar with Asean leaders, as well as discussing China and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The US and Asean members are not on the same page on all issues. Biden has called for Russia to be disinvited from
November’s scheduled Group of 20 summit in Jakarta because of its invasion of Ukraine. Asean member Indonesia, which holds the presidency of the G20 this year, has resisted the calls to pull Moscow’s invitation.
Ferdinand Marcos Jr, the presumptive winner of this week’s Philippines presidential election, could test US sway in the region. The son and namesake of the country’s former dictator has said he wants to pursue closer ties with China. His campaign said Marcos Jr met yesterday with Chinese ambassador Huang Xilian, who conveyed that Beijing wanted to bring cooperation between the two countries to ‘‘new heights’’.
Campbell acknowledged that ‘‘historical considerations’’ could present ‘‘challenges’’ to the relationship with Marcos Jr, a seeming reference to longstanding litigation in the US against the estate of his father, Ferdinand Marcos. A US appeals court in 1996 upheld damages of about US$2 billion against the elder Marcos’s estate for the torture and killings of thousands of Filipinos.
Some Asean leaders have felt snubbed that Biden isn’t holding any formal bilateral meetings with his counterparts, including Hun Sen, the prime minister of Cambodia, which holds the rotating Asean chair.
Other than Singapore, the region has not taken a particularly tough stand on Russia’s war in Ukraine, despite having a strong stake in the principle of sovereignty for smaller, less powerful countries. US officials may seek to push their Asean counterparts to issue condemnations of Russia’s actions, pledge support to Ukraine, or join international sanctions efforts.
Overall, the Ukraine conflict has improved the image of the US following international missteps in recent years, including in Afghanistan, according to some analysts.
‘‘Asean sees Russia’s massive miscalculation, China’s initial effort to back Russia with ‘no limits’, and the US coalition’s actions, and has an even clearer-eyed appreciation for US leadership,’’ said Satu Limaye, a Southeast Asia expert at the East-West Centre think tank, based in Hawaii.