US Indo-Pacific strategy sends China ranting 

The US’ recent pro-active strategy in the Indo-Pacific, what with US President Joe Biden’s hosting leaders of the Association of Southeast Nations (ASEAN) in Washington this month (May 2022), which was followed by his visit to Tokyo, Japan for the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) meet, and also to Seoul, Korea, and the launch of the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF), has seen China up the ante on its rhetoric on how the US is seeking to contain it.  

US President Joe Biden met with leaders of Australia, India and Japan, a quadrilateral bloc that professes to ensure a free and open Indo-Pacific, on Tuesday, 24 May. China views the formation of the Quad as a bid to check its burgeoning influence in the Indo-Pacific.  

The Quad, itself, was set up as a strategic dialogue between the United States, India, Japan and Australia, that is maintained by talks between member countries. The dialogue was initiated in 2007 by then Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, with the leaders of the US, Australia and India. The dialogue was paralleled by joint military exercises of an unprecedented scale, titled Exercise Malabar. The Chinese government responded to the Quadrilateral dialogue by issuing formal diplomatic protests to its members. 

In a joint statement in March 2021, “The Spirit of the Quad,” the Quad members described “a shared vision for a “Free and Open Indo-Pacific” and a “rules-based maritime order in the East and South China Seas”, which the Quad members state are needed to counter Chinese maritime claims. China claims 90 percent of the South China Sea, territory that is disputed by a few ASEAN nations and Taiwan. 

It is not only Quad that is making China anxious. On 15 September 2021, US President Joe Biden, former Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson jointly announced the formation of the trilateral security alliance, AUKUS, under which Australia would get a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines for the first time. 

AUKUS is a new three-way strategic defence alliance initially to build a class of nuclear-propelled submarines, but also to work together in the Indo-Pacific region, where the rise of China is seen as an increasing threat what with its belligerence in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait; and develop wider technologies. The deal marks the first time the US has shared nuclear propulsion technology with an ally apart from the UK.  

Indeed, each time China’s status as an Indo-Pacific superpower has been challenged, it has responded with volumes of rhetoric. Now with the formation of the IPEF, China has displayed its tetchiness by branding the grouping as an ‘Asian economic NATO.’ 

The IPEF is a group of 12-member countries, including India, Japan, Australia, Korea, New Zealand and a handful of Asean nations, that seeks to set international rules on the digital economy, supply chains, decarbonization and regulations applying to workers. 

It is not a free trade agreement; and it is not a security pact, like Quad or AUKUS. But it can definitely be termed as a move by the US to raise its economic profile and create another counterbalance to China within Asia. It’s a broad plan designed to help expand the U.S.′ “economic leadership” in the Indo-Pacific region. China is increasingly critical about any move by the US to stymie its influence in the Indo-Pacific region.   

Chinese Communist Party media mouthpiece, Global Times, on Saturday, excoriated: “the main goal of Biden’s trip to South Korea and Japan is trying to form a new political posturing against China, by establishing an alliance around Washington in the Asia-Pacific region.” 

Ahead of the launch of IPEF and the Quad meeting, China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi lambasted the US Indo-Pacific strategy and accused Washington of trying to sow discord in the region. 

Speaking to reporters following talks on Sunday, 22 May, with visiting Pakistani Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou, Wang said the strategy was “concocted by the United States under the banner of ‘freedom and openness’” and Washington was “keen to gang up with ‘small circles’ and change China’s neighbourhood environment.” 

About the new IPEF, Wang asked if the framework was “a political tool for the US to maintain regional economic hegemony and deliberately exclude specific countries”. “Is the U.S. politicising, weaponising, and ideologising economic issues and using economic means to coerce regional countries to choose sides between China and the US?” he said to reporters, adding that “attempts to create camps, a NATO or Cold War in the Asia-Pacific will not succeed.” 

China claims that the (IPEF) grouping intends to “change China’s surrounding environment”. Its purpose is to contain China and make Asia-Pacific countries serve as “pawns” of the US hegemony, Wang said. 

What is particularly dangerous is for the US to shed its disguise, provoke and play the “Taiwan” and “South China Sea” cards, he said. 

“Try to mess up other regions and then mess up the Asia-Pacific region as well. Facts will prove that the so-called “Indo-Pacific Strategy” is in essence a strategy of creating division, inciting confrontation and undermining peace,” he said. 

“No matter how much it is packaged or disguised, it will inevitably fail in the end. The people of this region should tell the US that the outdated Cold War scenario should never be repeated in Asia, and the turmoil and war that are taking place in the world should never happen in this region,” he said. 

China’s military, also, on Thursday, 26 May, slammed the US Indo-Pacific Strategy, saying it interferes with its domestic affairs. 
 
“The US report hyped up foreign threats and tried to form exclusive cliques yet claimed to promote regional freedom, openness, prosperity and security, which is “void of any logic or reason,” Senior Colonel Tan Kefei, a spokesperson for China’s Ministry of National Defence, told an online press conference. 
 

Notwithstanding the Chinese denigration, the success of the US initiatives will depend on how far it can go in propitiating the region. US agenda in the Indo-Pacific will be constrained by the protectionist policies of the Trump era that still persist. With protectionist sentiment still running high in the US electorate, Biden will be resigned to desisting from providing more market access to Indo-Pacific countries. Indonesia, that is party to the IPEF and the largest ASEAN nation, has already hinted its concern about China being alienated, by saying the IPEF grouping should not be exclusive. For the US, it will involve substantial effort, initiative and resourcefulness to scotch China’s dominance, that has made massive strides in the region through economic statecraft, trade, and investments under the Belt and Road Initiative.