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In the long run, just the countries’ common urge to oppose China’s aggression won’t be sufficient to sustain the momentum. Unless the United States improves the investment and trade elements of its Indo-Pacific strategy, Asian allies will eventually turn back to China out of economic necessity. But for now, Xi’s bullying is driving his neighbors to call for more U.S. engagement and cooperation.
“My message to Xi Jinping is, ‘Don’t change,’” Emanuel said, a bit facetiously. “Keep it up at home and in the neighborhood. He deserves recognition for all his assistance.”
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The meeting’s backdrop is a tense, medium-boil crisis playing out now in the South China Sea. Beijing claims ownership of about 90 percent of this crucial waterway, which one-third of global shipping traverses each year. For years, Beijing has been harassing and threatening ships near disputed islands and geographical features it claims as its own. Lately, China’s tactics are increasingly dangerous.
CHINA
TAIWAN
Hong Kong
Pacific
Ocean
9-dash line
China’s maritime
claims
Hainan
Island
(CHINA)
Philippine
Sea
Luzon
Paracel
Islands
Manila
PHILIPPINES
Spratly
Islands
Palawan
Mindanao
Celebes
Sea
BRUNEI
Natuna
Islands
MALAYSIA
200 MILES
THE WASHINGTON POST
CHINA
TAIWAN
Hong Kong
Pacific
Ocean
9-dash line
China’s maritime claims
Hainan
Island
(CHINA)
Philippine
Sea
Luzon
Paracel
Islands
Manila
PHILIPPINES
Spratly
Islands
Palawan
Second
Thomas
Shoal
Mindanao
Sulu
Sea
BRUNEI
Celebes
Sea
Natuna
Islands
Borneo
200 MILES
MALAYSIA
THE WASHINGTON POST
Chinese Coast Guard ships have taken to shooting water cannons and even ramming Philippine ships trying to bring supplies to a reef called the Second Thomas Shoal, part of the Spratly Islands. Philippine troops occupy the reef, living on a decrepit ship that the country deliberately marooned there in 1999. This issue is so prominent in the Philippines that it has pushed Marcos, who came to power in 2022 with Beijing’s support, toward the Western camp.
Japan, which has its own territorial disputes with China, is already providing the Philippines with ships, radar and other technology to help it patrol its waters. Now, in advance of the summit, the three allies plus Australia have begun joint naval patrols in the South China Sea. Tokyo and Manila are also finalizing an agreement to permit Japanese troops to temporarily be based in the Philippines, alongside U.S. troops there.
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China’s state media calls these moves provocative and destabilizing. Marcos’s break with China has also earned him the ire of domestic critics — including his own sister. But he says his country can only stand up to Beijing with the help of allies such as the United States and Japan, and that the best way to convince Xi to curb his aggression is by showing strength. He is right on both counts.
“The deterrence game is escalating in the South China Sea, with the Philippines on the front lines,” Patrick Cronin, Asia-Pacific security chair at the Hudson Institute, told me. “And all of this has huge implications for a Taiwan scenario.”
In my conversations with officials from both countries, their first question is always: What will Donald Trump do if he gets reelected? Nobody really knows, but based on Trump’s actions during his last term, Asian allies have reason for concern. Trump pulled the United States out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. He threatened to withdraw U.S. troops from Japan and South Korea if they didn’t pay more to host them. He “fell in love” with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.
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Trump had a good relationship with then-Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and then-Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, but both of those leaders are gone. Many officials in Trump’s administration who worked to bolster alliances in Asia won’t be back. In a second Trump term, the only sure bet is on unpredictability.
Washington has a tendency to focus on the urgent over the important. But with China’s power growing, the United States must demonstrate that despite two ongoing wars in Ukraine and Gaza and domestic political dysfunction, America can still play the geopolitical long game in Asia. Hopefully, this week’s trilateral summit will mark the beginning, not the end, of that effort.
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Israel and Ukraine might be sucking up all the foreign policy oxygen, but this week in Washington, one of the most significant international developments is something else entirely. The leaders of two important Asian allies will meet with the U.S. president, together, for the first time — highlighting a new three-way alliance. And the man who deserves the most credit for making this happen is, ironically, Chinese President Xi Jinping.
When President Biden meets with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Philippine President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. at the White House Wednesday, these leaders will present this new trilateral alliance as focused on common interests and principles such as freedom of navigation and rule of law, rather than as directed at any one country. But the subtext is clear: as China’s appetite for power and territory grows, Indo-Pacific allies are teaming up and asking for U.S. help.
For the Biden team, this summit is the culmination of years of work building new alliance groups in Asia. They have already held meetings with the leaders of the Quad (United States, Japan, Australia and India), AUKUS (Australia, United Kingdom and United States), and Japan and South Korea last year at Camp David. This latest arrangement is sometimes internally called JAROPUS (Japan, Republic of Philippines and United States), an acronym coined by U.S. ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel that has not yet completely caught on.
“The Indo-Pacific comes down to two strategic visions,” Emanuel told me in an interview. “One is that this is China’s neighborhood and China makes the rules. The other is that the United States is a permanent Pacific power that you can bet long. The U.S. version is gaining ground.”
In the long run, just the countries’ common urge to oppose China’s aggression won’t be sufficient to sustain the momentum. Unless the United States improves the investment and trade elements of its Indo-Pacific strategy, Asian allies will eventually turn back to China out of economic necessity. But for now, Xi’s bullying is driving his neighbors to call for more U.S. engagement and cooperation.
“My message to Xi Jinping is, ‘Don’t change,’” Emanuel said, a bit facetiously. “Keep it up at home and in the neighborhood. He deserves recognition for all his assistance.”
The meeting’s backdrop is a tense, medium-boil crisis playing out now in the South China Sea. Beijing claims ownership of about 90 percent of this crucial waterway, which one-third of global shipping traverses each year. For years, Beijing has been harassing and threatening ships near disputed islands and geographical features it claims as its own. Lately, China’s tactics are increasingly dangerous.
CHINA
TAIWAN
Hong Kong
Pacific
Ocean
9-dash line
China’s maritime
claims
Hainan
Island
(CHINA)
Philippine
Sea
Luzon
Paracel
Islands
Manila
PHILIPPINES
Spratly
Islands
Palawan
Mindanao
Celebes
Sea
BRUNEI
Natuna
Islands
MALAYSIA
200 MILES
THE WASHINGTON POST
CHINA
TAIWAN
Hong Kong
Pacific
Ocean
9-dash line
China’s maritime claims
Hainan
Island
(CHINA)
Philippine
Sea
Luzon
Paracel
Islands
Manila
PHILIPPINES
Spratly
Islands
Palawan
Second
Thomas
Shoal
Mindanao
Sulu
Sea
BRUNEI
Celebes
Sea
Natuna
Islands
Borneo
200 MILES
MALAYSIA
THE WASHINGTON POST
Chinese Coast Guard ships have taken to shooting water cannons and even ramming Philippine ships trying to bring supplies to a reef called the Second Thomas Shoal, part of the Spratly Islands. Philippine troops occupy the reef, living on a decrepit ship that the country deliberately marooned there in 1999. This issue is so prominent in the Philippines that it has pushed Marcos, who came to power in 2022 with Beijing’s support, toward the Western camp.
Japan, which has its own territorial disputes with China, is already providing the Philippines with ships, radar and other technology to help it patrol its waters. Now, in advance of the summit, the three allies plus Australia have begun joint naval patrols in the South China Sea. Tokyo and Manila are also finalizing an agreement to permit Japanese troops to temporarily be based in the Philippines, alongside U.S. troops there.
China’s state media calls these moves provocative and destabilizing. Marcos’s break with China has also earned him the ire of domestic critics — including his own sister. But he says his country can only stand up to Beijing with the help of allies such as the United States and Japan, and that the best way to convince Xi to curb his aggression is by showing strength. He is right on both counts.
“The deterrence game is escalating in the South China Sea, with the Philippines on the front lines,” Patrick Cronin, Asia-Pacific security chair at the Hudson Institute, told me. “And all of this has huge implications for a Taiwan scenario.”
In my conversations with officials from both countries, their first question is always: What will Donald Trump do if he gets reelected? Nobody really knows, but based on Trump’s actions during his last term, Asian allies have reason for concern. Trump pulled the United States out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. He threatened to withdraw U.S. troops from Japan and South Korea if they didn’t pay more to host them. He “fell in love” with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.
Trump had a good relationship with then-Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and then-Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, but both of those leaders are gone. Many officials in Trump’s administration who worked to bolster alliances in Asia won’t be back. In a second Trump term, the only sure bet is on unpredictability.
Washington has a tendency to focus on the urgent over the important. But with China’s power growing, the United States must demonstrate that despite two ongoing wars in Ukraine and Gaza and domestic political dysfunction, America can still play the geopolitical long game in Asia. Hopefully, this week’s trilateral summit will mark the beginning, not the end, of that effort.
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