Analysts say US under Biden to keep fighting China, nurture allies

By Vann Marlo M. Villegas, Reporter

THE UNITED States under President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. will probably focus on economic recovery amid a coronavirus pandemic, while boosting alliances with other nations as it competes with China as a superpower, according to political analysts.

The new administration’s interim National Security Strategic Guidance cited criticism of his predecessor Donald Trump, who started the competition with China but was “not strategic,” said Renato C. de Castro, an international studies professor from De La Salle University.

“The Biden administration also indicated that it would continue the strategic competition but it would approach it in a calibrated and strategic manner,” he said by telephone.

Mr. de Castro said the Biden government would likely rely on America’s traditional allies and coalition.

“It will be different from the Trump administration approach of unilateralism or America first,” he said. “It should be America and its allies and security partners.”

The guidance is temporary and other agencies must come up with their specific approaches, he added.

The Biden Administration this month released the guidance, which seeks to protect Americans, revitalize the country’s democracy and respond to the health and economic crises.

It also seeks to strengthen and modernize alliances and partnerships around the world and restore US credibility so it can set an international agenda, not China. The US will help China’s neighbors defend their rights.

The Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA)�� said it would continue to work with the US.

“We continue to work closely with the United States, as our only treaty ally, to strengthen our bilateral relations founded on mutual respect and in accordance with international law,” Marie Yvette L. Banzon-Abalos, executive director of the Office of Public and Cultural Diplomacy, told ����ý in a WhatsApp message.

While the Biden administration prioritizes the US economy, it probably won’t withdraw trade and investments from other countries including the Philippines as part of its contest with China, said George N. Manzano, an economist at the University of Asia and the Pacific.

“China is investing heavily in Southeast Asia,” he said by telephone. “China is trading very heavily with Southeast Asia, they could not withdraw their presence here.”

Mr. Manzano said US investments in its own industries are tempered by interests in other countries.

“It should be balanced,” he said. “Their investment in the US is for economic reasons and also strategic in the sense that to be a big superpower, you need to have a strong economy.”

Richard J. Heydarian, professorial chairholder on geopolitics at the Polytechnic University of the Philippines, said Mr. Biden adopted the policy of his predecessor in terms of “toughness” against China but puts emphasis on alliance building.

“Biden is in a far better position especially in light of growing anti-China sentiment in the United States and most of the world especially in major western capitals,” he said in a phone interview.

He said the US meeting with Japan, Australia and India this month “was effectively a way to signal to China that it’s not really just a superpower rivalry but it’s going to be China against all major powers in this part of the world.”

“It’s not multilateralism for the sake of it but how to build robust multilateral coalitions to deter and constrain China’s worse instincts, Mr. Heydarian said.

It also seeks to strengthen America’s hand “as it commences direct negotiations with China and also to build a global coalition to preserve the international liberal order that the US established after the Second World War,” he added.

Mr. Heydarian said Mr. Biden might find it difficult to balance the revival of its economy as it counters China’s offers of trade and investment to its allies.

Part of the US calibrated approach is renegotiating its visiting forces agreement with the Philippines, Mr. de Castro said.

He noted that the Biden Administration had tried to engage with the Philippine government without raising issues of human rights violations and drug-related killings under President Rodrigo R. Duterte.

“It means that the focus is on the strategic competition with China,” Mr. de Castro said.

Mr. Heydarian said the US focus now is trying to keep the VFA (Visiting Forces Agreement) alive and prevent Mr. Duterte from ending it.

Mr. Duterte in Feb. last year said he was ending the military pact, which lays the rules on the deployment of troops for war games, after the US Embassy canceled the visa of Senator Ronald M. dela Rosa, his former police chief who led his deadly war on drugs.

He suspended the termination for six months in June, citing heightened tensions in the region and calling it a distraction to countries’ anti-coronavirus efforts. It was suspended again for another six months.

Mr. Duterte in a pre-recorded speech last month said he had not decided whether he would end the pact.