Kamala Harris going to Asia to reassert U.S. ties to the region

Vice President Kamala Harris will visit Asia

Despite the United States' public relations disaster in Afghanistan, Asia remains a region of extreme importance to the Biden Administration.

Vice President Kamala Harris, the first Asian American to hold that office, leaves Washington on Friday and arrives Sunday in Singapore, where she will deliver what aides are calling a major speech laying out the future of the U.S. relationship with a region increasingly under pressure from the People's Republic of China.

After Singapore, she is scheduled to visit former U.S. foe, Vietnam.

Harris' deputy national security adviser Phil Gordon said the vice president will emphasize the Biden administration’s commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific region, with a focus on reinforcing regional security in the area.

“The vice president will meet with government officials, leaders, people in the private sector and civil society, and she’ll focus on strengthening U.S. leadership, expanding security cooperation, deepening economic partnerships, defending the international rules-based order, in particular in the South China Sea, and standing up for our values as we do with all of our friends and partners,” he told the Associated Press.

Washington seeks to bolster international support to counter China's growing global influence. A U.S .official, speaking anonymously, said Washington saw both countries as critical partners given their locations, the size of their economies, trade ties and security partnerships on issues such as the South China Sea, which China claims almost in its entirety.

Vietnam has been a vocal opponent of China's South China Sea claims. Countries in the region, including the Philippines and Malaysia, largely welcome the U.S. military presence there as a counterweight to China's militarization of the waterway and its vast coast guard and fishing fleets.

The visit will also be the culmination of months of American outreach to Asia, where Washington’s partners worry about China’s rising influence and notably its efforts to claim control over vast reaches of the South China Sea.

"We do not want to see any country dominate that region or take advantage of the power situation to compromise the sovereignty of others," a White House official said.

China maintains the largest military and economy in Asia and has expanded its navy over the past decade.

"The Vice President is going to underscore that there should be free passage for trade, throughout the South China Sea, and no single country should disrespect the right of others." A third of the world's global trade passes through the sea, known in the Philippines as the West Philippines Sea.

In 2016, an international tribunal in a landmark ruling dismissed Beijing’s claim to much of the South China Sea. The Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague said on July 12, 2016 that there was no evidence that China had exercised exclusive control historically over the key waterway.

China has simply ignored the ruling and bullied its way to the establishment of military installations on the Spratly islands, which are only 100 miles off of the Philippines' Palawan island. The group of small islands is more than 1200 miles from the PRC.

The U.S. Navy has maintained a steady pattern of freedom of navigation operations in the South China Sea and near Taiwan, but these appear to have done little to discourage Beijing.

Trade issues will likely dominate discussions, since the region is a major manufacturer of microchips, vital to the U.S. economy. Also, Harris will emphasize concerns about battling the coronavirus pandemic. 

While in Asia, the vice president will meet virtually with health ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and announce the opening of a regional office of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Harris has “been pushing, even as we work to solve this pandemic, to get ready, get the world ready, to deal with the next one,” a second senior U.S. official said, also on the condition of anonymity.

President Biden has been sending some of his top Cabinet officials to Asia since he took office to show support for U.S. allies in the region.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin made their first overseas trip to Japan and South Korea. Austin traveled to Singapore, Vietnam and the Philippines last month where he vowed U.S. support against Beijing’s intrusions in the South China Sea.

Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman traveled to Indonesia, Thailand and Cambodia in May and early June. Last month she visited Japan, South Korea and Mongolia before heading to China for high-level talks that ultimately did little to resolve many of the deep divisions between the two countries.