WASHINGTON – Vice President Kamala Harris will deepen her contacts with Southeast Asia this week at an international summit in Jakarta, Indonesia, where she will seek to allay doubts about U.S. engagement in the region raised by President Joe Biden’s absence.
It is Harris’ third trip to Southeast Asia and fourth to Asia overall, and she has touched down in more countries there than any other continent. The repeated visits, in addition to meetings she hosted in Washington, have made Harris an important interlocutor for the Democratic administration as it seeks to strengthen a network of partnerships to counterbalance Chinese influence.
This latest trip is another opportunity for Harris to burnish her foreign policy credentials as she prepares for a busy campaign year. She has already come under attack from Republican presidential candidates who say she is unprepared to campaign if Biden, the oldest U.S. president in history, fails to complete a second term.
John Kirby, a White House national security spokesman, said Harris has “made our alliances and partnerships in the Indo-Pacific an important part of her agenda as vice president,” and he described her itinerary as “fully consistent with the themes with which she is addressing.” she is busy.” that you focused on.
But Biden’s decision to leave the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, known as ASEAN, has caused some frustration, particularly because he will already be in India and Vietnam around the same time. The president’s proximity makes his absence “all the more glaring than it would otherwise be,” said Marty Natalegawa, Indonesia’s former foreign minister.
However, Natalegawa acknowledged that ASEAN is struggling to convince world leaders that it deserves to play a central role in the region. This is despite the fact that the alliance represents more than 650 million people in ten countries, which together make up the fifth largest economy in the world.
The organization has failed to resolve the civil war in Myanmar, where there was a military coup two years ago and it was excluded from meetings. A peace plan negotiated with the country’s top general brought no progress.
Negotiations over territorial claims in the South China Sea also remain stalled, and ASEAN faces internal disagreements over global competition between the United States and China. Some members, such as the Philippines and Vietnam, are seeking closer ties with Washington, while Cambodia remains firmly in Beijing’s orbit.
“We can complain all we want about other countries not respecting us or not coming to our summits,” Natalegawa said. “But ultimately it’s actually a point of reflection.”
If ASEAN does not become more effective, Natalegawa said, “we may end up with fewer and fewer leaders.”
Kirby, the national security spokesman, dismissed the idea that Biden would snub the organization or the region.
“It’s simply impossible to look at the record that this administration has put forward and say that we’re going to get away with it somehow,” Kirby said, noting that Biden had already hosted the first summit with ASEAN leaders in Washington last year .
Phil Gordon, a national security adviser to Harris, said “every country wants the president of the United States to show up” when it holds an event, but there is also “huge enthusiasm” for the vice president’s visit to Jakarta.
He also said the summit was a valuable opportunity to engage with countries in the region.
“There are differences between them, but there are also a lot of similarities,” Gordon said. “And there are similarities with us.”
Ja-Ian Chong, an associate professor of political science at the National University of Singapore, said Harris’ presence helps the U.S. secure its bases at an event that may not prove productive on key issues.
“If you want to show you’re paying attention, send the vice president,” he said.
Harris left on Monday morning and is expected to spend two days of meetings in Jakarta. Her office has not yet announced her schedule, but she is expected to attend summit events and hold one-on-one meetings with some foreign leaders.
Shortly after Harris returns from Indonesia, Biden travels to India for the annual Group of 20 summit, attended by many of the world’s richest countries and a fixture on every president’s calendar. He then plans a stop in Vietnam, where he will focus on strengthening ties with a country that is an emerging economic power.
“I don’t blame the administration for the decision they made. It’s just unfortunate that they had to make this decision,” said Gregory B. Poling, who directs the Southeast Asia program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Amid rising tensions over the South China Sea, world leaders are gathering in Jakarta after Beijing released a new official map highlighting its territorial claims there.
The map has angered other nations that view the waters as part of their own territory or as international byways. The South China Sea is an important hub for global trade.
U.S. officials and analysts believe Beijing’s aggressive approach toward the region has opened an opportunity for Washington to forge stronger partnerships.
“In many ways, the PRC is doing its job for us,” said David Stilwell, using the acronym for the People’s Republic of China. Stilwell served as assistant secretary of state for the Office of East Asian and Pacific Affairs under President Donald Trump.
Although Biden has recently focused primarily on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, he left no doubt that he sees China as the biggest foreign policy challenge for the United States. He has described much of his agenda, both at home and abroad, as an attempt to deter Beijing from replacing Washington as the world’s most powerful force.
Sometimes his warnings take a darker turn. During a recent fundraiser for his re-election campaign in Park City, Utah, Biden called China a “ticking time bomb” because of its economic and demographic challenges.
“That’s not good because when bad people have problems, they do bad things,” he said.
Harris has previously visited Singapore and Vietnam, Japan and South Korea, as well as the Philippines and Thailand.
Many of her trips were focused on the global rivalry with China.
Speaking from the deck of a U.S. Navy destroyer docked near Tokyo last year, Harris said China had “challenged the freedom of the seas” and “used its military and economic power to coerce its neighbors and to intimidate.”
Harris was also the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit Palawan, a Philippine island next to the South China Sea that is a frontline for territorial disputes. She said Washington would support the Philippines “in the face of intimidation and coercion.”
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Associated Press writer Edna Tarigan contributed from Jakarta, Indonesia.