Asia is a top priority for the United States

The Indo-Pacific will play a much larger role in U.S. foreign policy, with Asia one of the top priorities, according to political experts.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin are in Japan and South Korea this week and are visiting Washington’s two main military allies in Asia, where there are dozens thousands of troops.

Last Friday, President Joe Biden virtually met with the prime ministers of Japan, India and Australia as part of the first summit of the leaders of an informal strategic alliance: the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue or Quad, as it is known .

“Asia is the priority,” Control Risks partner Angela Mancini told CNBC’s “Capital Connection” on Monday. He explained that, based on last week’s Quad meeting, as well as the general diplomacy that is happening with the current administration, the US makes it very clear that the Indo-Pacific region is important to Washington, compared with the transactional approach of the previous administration.

“In addition to consolidating alliances to potentially fight China, there are also some specific bilateral issues that need to be addressed,” said Mancini, who added that it includes the presence of U.S. troops in the region.

The Biden administration is building on the framework left by the Trump administration in terms of the Indo-Pacific strategy and is developing a coalition of partners to collaborate, according to Asia analyst Akhil Bery South of the political risk consultancy Eurasia Group.

The rain of diplomatic activities in Asia by U.S. officials is ahead of the Blinken meeting with Chinese officials Yang Jiechi and Wang Yi on March 18 in Alaska.

The informal Quad alliance is positioned as committed to a free, open and inclusive Indo-Pacific.

According to Harsh Pant, head of the strategic studies program at New Observer Research Foundation, the group will play a much more important role in the region and may become “a core of a larger regional security architecture.” Delhi.

For more than a decade, the Quad has had a dull existence even after geopolitical tensions between the US and China worsened from 2017 onwards, followed by a deterioration in relations between India and China. China, Pant said Monday on CNBC’s “Street Signs Asia.” The group’s profile has risen in recent months, he said.

Last year, India invited Australia to participate in the Malabar naval exercises alongside the United States and Japan. For years, New Delhi resisted Canberra’s involvement given that the measure would provoke Beijing.

Pant said India appears to be re-evaluating its policy towards China after being a “fence sitter” on the region’s largest power balance sheet. New Delhi now “makes very clear the reasons for joining certain platforms,” he added.

The Quad’s joint statement last Friday avoided any direct mention of China and its foreign policies in the region and focused on areas such as Covid-19 vaccine distribution efforts.

This agreement is already a “significant step forward and demonstrates that the group is capable of delivering tangible deliveries, rather than just talking about China’s challenge,” Eurasia Group’s e-mail told CNBC Bery.

While it remains to be seen to what extent the Biden administration can get allies closer to the region’s developments from a multilateral perspective, Beijing is likely to back down, Mancini said of Control Risks .

“China feels that they are being surrounded by the United States and that the feeling is real and growing, so they will push back their own investments in technology spending and their own focus on the national economy,” he said.