The United States’ Indo-Pacific Strategy released on Friday says that it supports India’s “continued rise and regional leadership.”
The document says that the US will continue to build a “strategic partnership” in which the US and India work together and through regional groupings to promote stability in South Asia; collaborate in new domains, such as health, space, and cyberspace; deepen economic and technology cooperation; and contribute to a free and open Indo-Pacific.
The US recognizes that India is a like-minded partner and leader in South Asia and the Indian Ocean, active in and connected to Southeast Asia, a driving force of the Quad and other regional fora, and an engine for regional growth and development.
Quad
The document says that it will strengthen the Quad as a premier regional grouping and ensure it delivers on issues that matter to the Indo-Pacific. The Quad will advance work on critical and emerging technologies, driving supply-chain cooperation, joint technology deployments, and advancing common technology principles. The Quad will build a green shipping network, and will coordinate the sharing of satellite data to improve maritime domain awareness and climate responses. Quad members will cooperate to provide high-standards infrastructure in South and Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands and will work to improve their cyber capacity.
Anti-Corruption
The US will support Indo-Pacific governments’ capacity to make independent political choices by helping partners root out corruption, “including through foreign-assistance and development policies,” (read Chinese assistance). The US will also partner with governments, civil society, and journalists to ensure they have the capability to expose and mitigate the risks from foreign interference and information manipulation (read Chinese manipulation).
Myanmar
The document says that that the US will continue to stand up for democracy in Myanmar, working closely with allies and partners to press the Myanmar military to provide for a return to democracy, including through credible implementation of the Five Point Consensus.
China
The document is naturally focused on China, largely. It is alleged that the PRC (China) is combining its economic, diplomatic, military, and technological might as it pursues a sphere of influence in the Indo-Pacific and seeks to become the world’s most influential power. The PRC’s coercion and aggression spans the globe, but it is most acute in the Indo-Pacific, the document says.
China’s bulling ranges from the economic coercion of Australia to the conflict along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) with India, to the growing pressure on Taiwan and covers 65% of the world’s oceans and 25% of its land of neighbors in the East and South China Seas. America’s allies and partners in the region bear much of the cost of the PRC’s harmful behavior.
The American objective is not to change the PRC but to shape the strategic environment in which it operates, building a balance of influence in the world that is maximally favorable to the United States, its allies and partners, and the interests and values they share.
The US will seek to manage competition with the PRC “responsibly”. In other words, the US will cooperate with its allies and partners while seeking to work with the PRC in areas like climate change and nonproliferation. The US believes it is in the interests of the region and the wider world that no country withhold progress on existential transnational issues because of bilateral differences.
Economic Framework
The US will launch, in early 2022, a new partnership that will promote and facilitate high-standards trade, govern the digital economy, improve supply-chain resiliency and security, catalyze investment in transparent, high-standards infrastructure, and build digital connectivity—doubling down on our economic ties to the region while contributing to broadly shared Indo-Pacific opportunity.
Defense
The United States will defend its interests, deter military aggression against our own country and its allies and partners—including across the Taiwan Strait—and promote regional security by developing new capabilities, concepts of operation, military activities, defense industrial initiatives, and a more resilient force posture. Washington will work with Congress to fund the Pacific Deterrence Initiative and the Maritime Security initiative.
AUKUS
Through the AUKUS partnership, the US will identify the optimal pathway to deliver nuclear-powered submarines to the Royal Australian Navy at the earliest achievable date; in addition, the US will deepen cooperation and enhance interoperability through a concrete program of work on advanced capabilities, including cyber, artificial intelligence, quantum technologies, and undersea capabilities.
ASEAN
The United States is making new investments in U.S.-ASEAN ties. The US will also expand bilateral cooperation across Southeast Asia, prioritizing efforts to strengthen health security, address maritime challenges, increase connectivity, and deepen people-to-people ties.
Trustworthy Technologies
The US will promote secure and trustworthy digital infrastructure, particularly cloud and telecommunications vendor diversity, including through innovative network architectures such as Open RAN by encouraging at-scale commercial deployments and cooperation on testing, such as through shared access to test beds to enable common standards development.
The US will also deepen shared resilience in critical government and infrastructure networks, while building new regional initiatives to improve collective cybersecurity and rapidly respond to cyber incidents.
The US plans to open new embassies in Southeast Asia, increase the Coast Guard’s mission to train local forces in the region, and strengthen alliances with India, Japan, and South Korea.
No Credible Economic Strategy
Commenting on the document to the website Defense One, Craig Singleton, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said: “ This plan lacks specificity, lacks detail, and there are major gaps in terms of strengthening America’s geo–economic position in Asia.”
Mathew B. Goodman and William Alan Reinschwriting for the Centre for International and Strategic Studies, say that the Biden Administration needs to provide tangible benefits for both Americans and Indo-Pacific partners. It should advance binding rules and hard commitments as well as broad principles. Programs should be managed in a coherent and coordinated way; and they should meet the administration’s commitments to transparency and inclusiveness. The experts point out that Indo-Pacific partners are not likely to make significant commitments under the framework unless they believe they are receiving tangible benefits.
Many of the less developed countries in the region need funds for infrastructural development which China gives at present. These countries would certainly welcome US help but without strings attached, even these strings relate to democracy freedom etc.
But the fact is that the US attaches strings. The document makes that abundantly clear. Also the US believes in coercion through sanctions or threat of crippling sanctions to advance its economic and strategic agendas.
Only recently Washington conveyed to Kathmandu , both the government and the opposition, that it would be forced to review its ties with Nepal if the Nepali political leaderships fail to keep up with their commitments on the U$ 500 million Millennium Challenge Corporation grant signed nearly five years ago
In separate telephone conversations with Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba, CPN-UML chair KP Sharma Oli and Maoist Centre chair PushpaKamal Dahal on Thursday, US Assistant Secretary of State, Donald Lu, said that Washington will review its relations with Nepal in the event of its failure to ratify the MCC compact from Parliament by February 28, theKathmandu Post reported. If this is not coercion by the US, what is, critics asks.
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