SYDNEY – US President-elect Joe Biden rang round allies in Seoul, Sydneyand Tokyo Thursday, vowing to repair frayed partnerships and reaffirmingmutual-defence pacts thrown in doubt by the current White House.
A day after Biden’s series of “America is back” calls with Europeanleaders, the former vice president spoke to Australia’s Scott Morrison,South Korea’s Moon Jae-in and the recently installed Japanese leaderYoshihide Suga.
All three men had already congratulated Biden on his recent electionvictory over Donald Trump, despite the incumbent’s refusal to concede.
Biden’s call with Suga included a stark warning from the Japanese primeminister that the “security situation is increasingly severe” around theregion, according to an account of the call from Japanese officials.
Suga’s unusually frank analysis was met with Biden expressing his “deepcommitment to the defence of Japan” and to decades-old treaty obligations,according to his transition team.
During the four-year Trump administration, America’s regional allies oftenquestioned whether the mercurial president would uphold long-standingpromises to defend them in the event of a military conflagration.
In a move likely to cause protest in Beijing, Biden reportedly confirmedthis defence commitment extended to the Senkakus, an uninhabited islandchain claimed by both Japan and China which has been a potential flashpointfor decades.
In a separate 14-minute call with Moon, Biden was said to have describedthe US-South Korea alliance as “the linchpin of security and prosperity” inthe region, and vowed to work together on “shared challenges” such as NorthKorea and climate change.
Trump had publicly mulled withdrawing troops from Japan and South Korea,where more than 20,000 US military personnel are currently stationed todeter any North Korean military action.
South Korea’s presidential Blue House said Moon and Biden had agreed tomeet “as soon as possible” after the American’s inauguration.
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In his call with Australia’s leader, Biden received an invitation to visitnext year for the 70th anniversary of a security treaty between the twocountries.
Biden also reportedly noted the importance of “confronting climate change”,which Australia’s conservative government has been notably slow to tackle,despite being party to the Paris climate accord.
Morrison described the call as “very warm” and said Biden did not raise theissue of net-zero carbon targets, focusing instead on “emissions reductiontechnologies”.
Biden served for decades on the US Senate foreign relations committee –which saw him travel around the world meeting foreign leaders.
He also served as vice president to Barack Obama, who spent much of hispresidency promoting America as a “Pacific power”.
Obama’s much vaunted “Pivot to Asia” and painstaking alliance-building atregional ASEAN, APEC and East Asian summits was replaced by Trump’s moretransactional approach.
Trump rattled Asian allies by picking trade fights with China, embracingNorth Korean dictator Kim Jong Un and openly floating the possibility ofwithdrawing troops from the region.
Biden is expected to jettison Trump’s combative style, but at almost twodecades older than Obama, he comes from a generation of US policymakersthat were laser-focused on trans-Atlantic relations during the depths ofthe Cold War. -APP/AFP
