Antony Blinken is the U.S. secretary of state, Lloyd Austin is defense secretary and Jake Sullivan is President Biden’s national security adviser.
No place on Earth is more critical to Americans’ livelihoods and futures than the Indo-Pacific.
The region — which stretches from our Pacific coastline to the Indian Ocean — generates nearly 60 percent of global gross domestic product. Its commerce supports more than 3 million American jobs. Much of the world’s advanced manufacturing, which helps power the U.S. economy, happens in its factories. And the area’s serious security challenges, including North Korea’s nuclear saber-rattling and China’s dangerous and provocative actions at sea, have effects far beyond the region.
But when President Biden took office, America’s standing in this critical part of the world was at its lowest point in decades. The region was still reeling from the covid-19 pandemic. Our allies and partners feared that the United States had become an unreliable friend. An increasingly aggressive China was taking advantage of America’s turn inward to advance its alternative vision of the world — a vision hostile to U.S. interests.
So, President Biden instructed us to transform our approach to the region.
This transformation — and the tremendous results it has brought about — is one of the most important and least-told stories of the foreign policy strategy advanced by President Biden and Vice President Harris.
First, we upgraded the old “hub and spoke” model of diplomacy with an integrated, interconnected network of partnerships.
The United States had long had one-to-one partnerships and alliances with other Indo-Pacific countries. But much like the hub and the spokes of a wheel, those individual partnerships didn’t overlap. We have worked not just to strengthen our existing one-to-one relationships in Asia but also to bring those partners together in new and innovative ways.
We launched AUKUS, a new security partnership among Australia, Britain and the United States.
President Biden brought together Japan and South Korea — two countries with a difficult history — to join the United States in the Camp David Trilateral Summit, spurring unprecedented defense and economic cooperation among our countries. He hosted the first-ever summit between Japan and the Philippines, forging another three-way partnership with U.S. treaty allies.
We elevated the regional grouping known as the Quad — Australia, India, Japan and the United States — to deliver hundreds of millions of lifesaving coronavirus vaccines, mobilize millions of dollars in digital-infrastructure investments, and advance the global clean energy transition.
