Opinion | The US 'Indo-Pacific' Framework will fail: Here's why
By Tom Fowdy
On Monday whilst visiting Japan, US President Joe Biden launched the "Indo-Pacific Economic Framework", an initiative which claims to increase American economic engagement in Asia with the undisguised goal of containing China. The White House claims the project will "set the rules" of the region concerning supply chains, investment and technology. However, the proposal has already been extensively criticized by numerous voices precisely because in practice, it literally commits or promises to deliver nothing substantial at all. The IPEF is in fact a bizarre initiative which is purely rhetorical, as opposed to institutional or legal, and expects its members to make commitments against the largest economy in the Asian region, in exchange for what exactly?
It is very clear that the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework will be a complete and inevitable failure, short of a complete reversal of American foreign policy on a host of issues. First of all, the IPEF is a project based on the aspirations of political and military hegemony, of which blatantly goes against a trend of Asian regional integration spanning back decades. The United States is obsessed with containing China, and in doing so its foreign policy has premised on a denial of Beijing's importance to the global economy and a push to try and make other countries "take sides" against it, irrespective of the costs or economic realities at hand.
In doing so, the US has little pragmatism or empathy for the reality that as the world's second largest economy, and largest consumer market, amounting to 1.4 billion people, China has positioned itself as the nexus of the Asia-Pacific economy which has driven forwards integration with other countries, of which China is the largest import and export partner thereof. A critical source of trade and investment, geography ultimately intertwines the economic fortunes of countries around it with Beijing, and there is nothing the United States can do in order to change this economic outlook.
The IPEF of course, is premised directly on such a denial of this reality. Despite the fact the United States has pursued an aggressively protectionist domestic economic policy which has eschewed economic integration with Asia as undermining US jobs and competitiveness at home (hence Trump withdrew from TPP), the United States nonetheless it believes, sitting at the other side of the ocean, that it has a right to politically dominate the Asia-Pacific and dictate the economic outlook of the region despite that it both geographically and economically, does not have skin in the game itself. The IPEF is based on a premise that Beijing can simply be isolated or ignored and that its own economic clout cannot feasibly be a "rule setter" if the United States is calling the shots.
This is without even considering the fact that the IPEF does not truly offer anything economically whatsoever. It pledges no investment, no market access, no institutions, no treaties, nothing. Its only substance is the manifestation of prime American arrogance and hubris, believing that China, the largest trading nation in the region, can somehow be isolated from regional chains. If there is one thing that manifests the political weakness and lack of promise from the project, it's the fact that the US cannot even persuade its participants to admit Taiwan as a member to the body, despite its obvious Anti-China agenda, because of fear of yes… upsetting China, illustrating of course that the nations who participate in it have no intention to cross China's red lines, because they have to live with China as a neighbor and economic partner. It also adds another dimension as to why a China-exclusive supply chain is impossible.
Given this, the IPEF should not be taken too seriously, precisely because it is so ill-prepared and ill-conceived to truly achieve anything. The United States recognizes it is of course losing the economic game in Asia against China, but is unwilling nonetheless to make serious compromises because of the "America First" consensus ruling at home. As a result, this initiative is a bottom of the barrel and face-saving compromise to try and give the impression it is committed to the region. Yet this initiative is for the most part hollow, useless and even ignorant of regional trends in a vain attempt at geopolitics. China has no need to panic, and simply ought to continue in its ambitions to join the CPTPP. Whilst America brandishes slogans, Beijing will continue to produce results in a region it is an active and dominant participant therein.
The author is a well-seasoned writer and analyst with a large portfolio related to China topics, especially in the field of politics, international relations and more. He graduated with an Msc. in Chinese Studies from Oxford University in 2018.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of DotDotNews.
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