Biden Departs on Asian Tour Hoping to Unite Allies against China
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President Joe Biden will depart Thursday to East Asia as he seeks to reorient the focus of U.S. foreign policy back to China, as the war in Ukraine enters a waning phase.
Biden will make his first stop in Seoul, South Korea, where he will meet with newly elected South Korean President Yoon Seok-youl. Yoon, the country’s former prosecutor general and anti-corruption crusader who successfully convicted two former presidents of graft, took office just ten days ago. After winning a narrow election by 0.73 percent of the vote, he plans to implement a conservative political agenda that expands South Korean involvement in the region, beyond its complicated relations with the Kim Jong-un-ruled North Korea.
Biden’s visit follows comments by the new president that signal his intent to step away from close relations with China, which the country has long sought due to its proximity across the Yellow Sea. “South Korea and the United States share an alliance forged in blood,” he said, which had worked to protect “freedom against the tyranny of communism.”
The visit also comes as North Korea has ramped up its nuclear weapons program in recent weeks. A U.S. intelligence official told CNN that the North is planning to test either an underground nuclear weapon at the Punggye-ri test site, or an intercontinental ballistic missile, around Biden’s visit – which will be seen as rebuke to the president. An increase in missile testing by the North has put South Korea on alert, which has prompted President Yoon to request new high altitude ballistic missile batteries from the U.S. Separately, it is widely expected that Biden will visit the De-Militarized Zone along the border between North and South Korea, as every U.S. President since Ronald Reagan has done.
After the Korean Peninsula, Biden will visit Japan, where he will meet Emperor Naruhito and new Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. Though North Korea remains a security threat to Japan, with its missiles having landed close to the Japanese Archipelago, the main topic of the visit will be China’s influence in the region. He will launch a new economic initiative, the “Indo-Pacific Economic Framework,” meant to reduce the dependency of Southeast Asian countries on the Chinese economy.
Biden will also participate in a meeting of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue – a grouping of Indo-Pacific democracies for military cooperation – joined by prime ministers Narendra Modi of India and Scott Morrison of Australia. The meeting puts Morrison in a tricky position, as that Australia is due to hold a general election on Saturday, which Morrison’s Liberal-National Coalition government is widely expected to lose to the Australian Labor Party under Anthony Albanese.
Per National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, Biden’s trip is intended to “reaffirm and reinforce” partnerships with U.S. allies in the region. It comes as the bulk of the Administration’s attention has been focused on Europe, after Russia invaded Ukraine in February. Among recent developments were formal applications by Sweden and Finland to join NATO, whose accession is currently opposed by Turkey. Biden hosted Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson and Finnish President Sauli Niinistö at the White House on Wednesday to discuss the accession process.
