Last month, the U.S. House and Senate swore in new members and began the 117th Congress. The biggest change, of course, is that Republicans now hold a small margin in the House of Representatives. Nancy Pelosi, the senior House Democrat, stepped down from her role as Speaker and was replaced by Republican Kevin McCarthy. The Senate will not change hands, since the three Independent Senators will caucus with 48 Democrats, allowing them to retain control of the chamber.
What will this mean for Southeast Asia? The good news is that U.S. support for deeper regional engagement is remarkably bipartisan. As a result, U.S. support for allies and partners in Southeast Asia will continue. Democrats and Republicans are likely to prioritise strengthening the U.S. alliance with the Philippines and expanding ties with key partners like Singapore, Vietnam, and Indonesia. Expanding access to military facilities throughout Southeast Asia will draw considerable support, especially since U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense Ely Ratner has suggested that 2023 will be the biggest year for U.S. regional military posture in a generation.
But U.S. engagement in Southeast Asia could also face some obstacles, particularly related to Washington’s intensifying rhetoric on China. Both Republicans and Democrats are likely to make countering China a key element of their Congressional agenda in the next two years. The House of Representatives has established a new Select Committee on China and named Congressman Mike Gallagher its chairman. This group will likely hold hearings on issues ranging from the origins of Covid-19 to Beijing’s human rights violations and rising tensions across the Taiwan Strait. Meanwhile, rumours abound that Representative McCarthy will visit Taiwan in 2023, potentially with a large (and even bipartisan) Congressional delegation.
This, combined with China’s renewed diplomatic outreach and its pressure ahead of Taiwan’s January 2024 presidential election, could create tensions between the United States and some countries in Southeast Asia. So too could House legislative priorities such as restricting investment into China, providing more specific security guarantees to Taiwan, and banning TikTok in the United States (whose parent company is Chinese-owned ByteDance). A notable risk is that some of these policies could broaden the gulf between Washington and its partners in Southeast Asia.
ASEAN leaders will continue to prefer a less adversarial approach to China, which could spill into public view around major events, such as when the United States hosts the 2023 Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit or a second U.S.-ASEAN special summit that has been rumoured for later this year. Economic frustrations could also come to the fore if foreign concerns about U.S. protectionism are not addressed or substantial progress is not made on the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework. So there are some potential risks related to the political dynamics in Washington that will need to be managed.
Biden’s White House team has generated a large number of new ideas and initiatives on Asia, but the challenge now is to work with Congress to turn that vision into reality.
But the biggest change in 2023 might come not from Congress, but from the executive branch. After two years, U.S. government officials often rotate into new jobs, especially those working long hours in demanding roles, like White House staffers. Biden’s National Security Council has been particularly important on Asia policy, so rumours that various White House officials might move on in 2023 could have real implications for U.S. regional policies.
The name that has attracted most attention in this regard is Kurt Campbell, since he has played a leading role in shaping U.S. policy on Asia not only in the Biden administration, but in the Obama administration as well. Campbell is likely to stay in office for some time, yet a number of other White House staff are preparing to rotate into new positions. There are, of course, many capable Asia-focused officials in the administration, so this shift in personnel could provide an opportunity for the administration to devolve some responsibility for executing Asia policy back to departments and agencies. Indeed, this could help the administration focus on executing the many initiatives it has already begun.
In its first two years, the Biden team organised a major new Asia-related initiative roughly once every six months. In the first six months, the Quad held its first leaders’ virtual meeting in March 2021. In the second six months, the administration hosted the announcement of the Australia-United Kingdom-United States (AUKUS) arrangement and the first in-person Quad Leaders’ Summit in September 2021. In the third six months, the White House welcomed Southeast Asian leaders for a special summit in Washington in May 2022. And in its fourth six months, Biden received Pacific Islands leaders in September 2022. But sustained attention for each of these groups requires more resources than the White House can bring to bear.
Biden’s White House team has generated a large number of new ideas and initiatives on Asia, but the challenge now is to work with Congress to turn that vision into reality. The White House has limited staff and therefore limited bandwidth, so devolving more responsibility for execution, coordination, and implementation to the various departments and agencies is critical. This would also put officials like Assistant Secretaries of State and Defense Dan Kritenbrink and Ely Ratner more in the driver’s seat. This should be reassuring to many in the region since they and a number of other U.S. officials outside the White House know Southeast Asia well.
It is often said that personnel make policy. If this is true, then the biggest change to watch in 2023 may not be the shift in control of the House from Democrats to Republicans, but rather a realignment of portfolios within the executive branch.
Source : Fulcrum