How pro-Ukraine alliance’s success explains why Biden is in Asia

As Joe Biden arrived in South Korea Friday for his first trip to Asia as president, he left behind rumblings in Washington questioning the timing of the trip.

For some, this is not the moment to distract the United States from the biggest international crisis of the day, Russia’s aggression in Ukraine.

The criticism is the inverse of the so-called “Asia-firsters” who for months have taken Mr. Biden and the administration to task for lavishing time and resources on Europe and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – at the expense, they say, of America’s focus on the bigger long-term geopolitical challenge, China.

But in many respects, some regional and foreign policy experts say, now is actually the right time for President Biden’s five-day Asia visit, which will also take him to Japan and include a summit of the so-called “Quad” of four Indo-Pacific democracies: the U.S., Japan, Australia, and India.

After the doubts sowed by last summer’s calamitous Afghanistan withdrawal, Mr. Biden’s effective rallying of European allies and steadfast support for Ukraine in the face of Russia’s aggression have restored faith in America’s unique leadership capabilities, these experts say.

China, which has been ramping up pressure on Taiwan, can’t help but notice how much of the international community has signed on to the U.S.-led defense of an independent country, they add. Of particular interest to Beijing will be how quickly and decisively European powers have moved to sever economic ties to a revanchist Russia.

Moreover, with European allies in tune with the U.S. on the war – to a degree considered impossible before months of full-court-press diplomacy – Ukraine is now a reminder to the leader of the world’s democracies that tending allies benefits America in the long run.

“I’d say this is a very good time for Biden to be going to Asia, because far from undercutting support for Ukraine or taking attention away from the war, this trip can pay dividends by sending a signal to our Asian allies and partners that America’s actions in Europe underscore a broader rededication to alliances,” says Stacie Goddard, a specialist in international security and faculty director of the Albright Institute for Global Affairs at Wellesley College in Massachusetts.

“From what I’ve seen, our actions in Europe have led to a renewed sense of confidence in American leadership,” she adds. “And at the same time we are reminded that when a crisis like the war in Ukraine pops up, having these alliances and partnerships on hand turns out to be pretty valuable.”

More colloquially, she says Mr. Biden’s Asia trip highlights the old adage that “part of the role of the president is to walk and chew gum at the same time.” Going to Asia “doesn’t detract from our Ukraine effort,” she adds. “If anything, it underpins it.”

In South Korea, Mr. Biden will meet with the country’s new president, Yoon Suk-yeol, who took office less than two weeks ago after a campaign in which he advocated strengthened ties with the U.S.

Mr. Yoon also calls for his country – the 10th largest economy in the world – to play a larger role in global affairs, an aspiration Washington wants to encourage.

North Korean reminder?

Administration officials were bracing for the president’s three days in South Korea to be punctuated by a party spoiler from North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, after satellite images this week suggested Pyongyang was preparing for either an ICBM launch or some type of nuclear test. Mr. Kim is no stranger to marking himself “present” whenever the U.S. president is in the region.

Apparently not to be outdone, Beijing announced this week that it would hold military exercises in the disputed South China Sea for five days through next Monday – timing that almost perfectly dovetails with President Biden’s visit.

In Japan, Mr. Biden will meet one-on-one with Prime Minister Kishida Fumio, as well as with Emperor Naruhito. But the main event of the Tokyo sojourn will be the summit of Quad leaders – a key venue for White House officials to underscore what they see to be the trip’s theme: the power of America’s alliances and their role in securing vital international interests.

“President Biden has rallied the free world in defense of Ukraine and in opposition to Russian aggression. He remains focused on ensuring that our efforts in those missions are successful,” Mr. Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, told reporters at a White House briefing Wednesday. “But he also intends to seize this … pivotal moment to assert bold and confident American leadership in another vital region of the world: the Indo-Pacific.”

For some, a key goal of Mr. Biden’s Asia trip must be to demonstrate the interconnected nature of America’s alliances at a time of heightened global challenges – from the rise of autocratic regimes and undermining of the Western-led international order, to the coronavirus pandemic and climate change.

“The days of chopping up our alliances and partnerships into separate unconnected spheres have to be over when the problems we face are so global,” says Michael Green, senior vice-president for Asia at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “We are a global power and … what challenges us on one side of the world is connected to what confronts us on the other side.”

With the authoritarian challenge the U.S. faces coming from both China in Asia and Russia in Europe, he says, the Ukraine invasion had to be addressed in a manner that would resonate in Asia as well.

“If the U.S. hadn’t moved on all the fronts it did to rescue an independent Ukraine, you would’ve had a quick Russian victory with probably a puppet government installed in Kyiv – and that would have been a big problem for our strategy in Asia,” says Dr. Green, who served as senior director for Asia on President George W. Bush’s National Security Council staff.

The Biden White House is clearly on board with this vision of interconnected approaches to China and Russia. “For us, there is a certain level of integration and a symbiosis in the strategy we are pursuing in Europe and the strategy we’re pursuing in the Indo-Pacific,” Mr. Sullivan said in the Wednesday briefing.

Taiwanese concerns

Still, the steadfast U.S. support for Ukraine hasn’t come without some costs in Asia, Dr. Green says. For one thing, he says the tremendous support in military assistance for Ukraine – just this week the Senate overwhelmingly approved an additional $40 billion in aid – has raised questions about America’s ability to effectively address two major security challenges at the same time.

“Across the region, people are heartened by the U.S. support for Ukraine and how it has rallied Europe and many other countries,” Dr. Green says. “But if you listen to the Taiwanese government and look at opinion polls in Taiwan and editorials across the region including in Japan, you see this worry about the ability of the U.S. to take on two contingencies simultaneously.”

In Taiwan, he says, the jitters are fed by reports that delivery of defense materials have fallen two years behind schedule as the U.S. has shifted to fill urgent demand in Ukraine.

“You have these nagging doubts across the region about the U.S. bandwidth, and it’s something China is watching very closely,” Dr. Green says, noting that he expects President Biden to specifically address the two-front question during his visit.

On the lighter side, Dr. Green notes that Korean President Yoon is expected to have three dogs running around the Blue House when President Biden stops in. The Asia scholar says Mr. Yoon “and known dog lover Joe Biden” will have “lots to bond over.”

Still, the major takeaway from Mr. Biden’s Asia trip is likely to be that America’s alliances are back – and, if anything, appreciation for them is on the upswing, some experts say.

“The key example of this from Biden’s trip may well be South Korea, one critical ally where for many different reasons it has been difficult to build a sense of the value and interest of multilateralist coalitions,” Wellesley’s Dr. Stoddard says. But she adds that mounting evidence suggests that reluctance is changing.

Adding together things like President Yoon’s campaign emphasizing Korea’s interests in becoming both a closer U.S. ally and a larger global player, and Korean appreciation for the coalition the U.S. assembled to support Ukraine, she says, “What we see is this growing sense of not just an ability but a vital interest in working together.”