Relations between the US and China are at a low point. US President Biden wants to counter Beijing’s growing influence in the Indo-Pacific and expand cooperation with the Asean association of states. He also meets China’s head of state Xi for the first time.
Against the background of China’s growing influence in Asia, US President Joe Biden wants to expand cooperation with the states of the Southeast Asian association of states Asean. The two sides raised their relationship to the level of a “comprehensive strategic partnership” at the Asean summit in Phnom Penh, Cambodia this Saturday. The upgrade was announced six months ago at an ASEAN-USA summit in Washington.
“Asean is at the heart of my administration’s Indo-Pacific strategy,” Biden said in a speech to leaders. He spoke of a “new era of cooperation”. “Together we tackle the big problems of our time.” He mentioned climate change, healthcare and defense against threats to the rules-based order. The goal is an Indo-Pacific “free and open, stable and prosperous, resilient and secure,” Biden said.
Cooperation should improve peace and prosperity and solve “challenges from the South China Sea to Myanmar”. He briefly addressed the crisis in Myanmar after the military coup and indirectly also the disputed Chinese territorial claims in the Southeast Asian sea area. China claims around 80 percent of the South China Sea. But also Asean countries like Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia or Brunei lay claim to islands, atolls and reefs. A third of the world’s shipping traffic passes through the resource-rich sea area. In 2016, the International Arbitration Court in The Hague dismissed China’s claims as unlawful.
In addition to Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, ASEAN also includes countries with close ties to China such as Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and soon East Timor. In his meeting with Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, Biden specifically addressed American concerns about Chinese involvement in a naval base in the country. The White House said the President “underlined the importance of full transparency about the activities of the People’s Republic of China military at Ream Naval Base.”
According to officially unconfirmed media reports, Cambodia has leased part of the base on the Gulf of Thailand to China for a period of 30 years in a secret agreement. It could become the second Chinese naval base in the world after Djibouti in Africa and support China’s activities in the disputed South China Sea. Cambodia initially denied the reports, but later admitted that China was helping with the ongoing expansion of the base.
Biden will meet with China’s head of state and party leader Xi Jinping next Monday on the Indonesian island of Bali for the first time since taking office. Among other things, he will seek a “constructive role” for China in the conflict with North Korea, said his security adviser Jake Sullivan. “If North Korea continues on this path, it will simply mean further increased US military and security presence in the region.” China has a vested interest in curbing North Korea’s “worst tendencies.”
China-US relations are at a low ebb. Points of contention are China’s backing for Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Ukraine war, the trade war, tensions over democratic Taiwan and China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea. China accuses the US of wanting to hinder its rise in the world. The US, in turn, increasingly sees China as an economic rival and a threat to its security.
