Biden resumes ‘Asia pivot’ in U.S. policy

After hosting a special summit in Washington last week of leaders from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, President Joe Biden is going to South Korea and Japan this week – his first visit to Asia as president.

He also will meet with leaders from the Indo-Pacific strategic alliance with the United States known as the Quad: Australia, India and Japan.

Biden has tried to put greater focus on improving relations with Pacific nations. He sees a rising China as the most threatening economic and national security adversary to the U.S.

Biden’s attempt at an “Asia pivot” has been complicated by the war in Ukraine. “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,” Kurt Campbell of the National Security Council said Wednesday. “I think there is a deep sense that that can’t happen again.”

North Korea has recently increased its ballistic missile testing in an attempt, some experts say, to put pressure on the Biden administration ahead of Biden’s trip. Nuclear negotiations remain stalled.