Biden pays tribute to Sweden, Finland NATO bids when Turkey strengthens opposition
“America’s alliances in Europe and Asia keep us – and I would argue the world – strong and secure,” Biden said in Rose Garden. “They are how we meet the challenges of our time and deliver for our people today and seize opportunities for a better tomorrow.”
“Today, I am proud to welcome and offer the strong support in the United States for the applications of two major democracies and two close, very capable partners to join the strongest, most powerful defensive alliance in the history of the world,” Biden said.
“They meet all NATO requirements and a little more,” he said, “and having two new NATO members in the far north will increase the security of our alliance.”
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan flatly opposes the two NATO missions, but NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said he was confident the conflict would be resolved. Turkey’s stance is critical as NATO makes decisions by consensus.
Erdogan has said that Turkey’s objection stems from complaints against Sweden’s – and to a lesser extent Finland’s – perceived support for the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, and an armed group in Syria that Turkey sees as an extension of the PKK. The conflict with the PKK has killed tens of thousands of people since 1984.
Turkey also accuses Sweden and Finland of harboring supporters of Fethullah Gulen, a US-based Muslim priest accused by the Turkish government of the 2016 military coup.
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The objections reflect long-standing Turkish complaints about even more widespread US support for Kurds, as well as Gulen’s presence in America.
Biden’s travels abroad come when he encounters strong domestic headwinds: lack of infant formula, budget-blowing inflation, a growing number of covid-19 infections and growing impatience among a democratic base facing a decision in the US Supreme Court that is likely to result in a withdrawal of the right to abortion.
The riddles that Biden faces in Asia are no less frightening.
China’s military confidence has grown over the course of Biden’s presidency, with its provocative actions often putting the region on edge.
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Last month, China held military exercises around Taiwan after a group of US congressional representatives arrived for talks on the autonomous island. At the end of last year, China increased travel to Taiwan’s airspace. Taiwan considers itself a sovereign state, but Beijing sees Taiwan as a breakaway province and has not ruled out the use of force to achieve unification.
Japan has reported that China’s military vessels often encroach on Japanese territorial waters around the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea. The uninhabited islands are controlled by Japan but are claimed by China, which calls them Diaoyu.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Wednesday criticized what he called negative moves from Washington and Tokyo against Beijing during a video conversation with Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi.
“What attracts attention and vigilance is the fact that the so-called joint Japan-US anti-China rhetoric even before the US leader has left for the meeting kicks up dust,” Wang said according to the Chinese Foreign Ministry. .
At the same time, South Korea can lean closer to the United States under Yoon, who took office last week. The new South Korean president has criticized his predecessor as “submissive” to China by trying to balance relations with Washington and Beijing. To neutralize North Korea’s nuclear threat, Yoon has promised to seek a stronger US security commitment.
The Biden administration has warned China to help Russia in its war with Ukraine. In March, the United States informed Asian and European allies that the US intelligence service had determined that China had signaled to Russia a willingness to provide military and financial support to reduce the level of severe sanctions imposed by the United States and its allies.
Biden administration officials say the Russian invasion has been a clearing moment for some of the major powers in Asia as financial sanctions and export bans have been imposed to control Russia.
US Ambassador Rahm Emanuel, Biden’s top envoy to Japan, said the Japanese had stood out by gathering eight out of ten members of the Association of Southeast Nations to support a UN vote against the Russian invasion.
“Japan has been a pioneer that has increased and accelerated for South Korea, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand and others here in the Indo-Pacific,” Emanuel said of Tokyo’s support for Ukraine following the Russian invasion.
Biden, who is making his first presidential trip to Asia, met with Kishida shortly after a UN climate conference last year shortly after the Japanese prime minister took office. He has not yet met Yoon face to face. The South Korean leader, a former prosecutor who took office without political or foreign policy experience, was elected in a hard-fought election.
Biden arrives in the middle of an ongoing crisis in North Korea, where a mass outbreak of covid-19 is spreading through its unvaccinated population. North Korea acknowledged domestic covid-19 infections for the first time last week, ending a generally dubious claim that it was virus-free.
In recent months, North Korea has launched a series of missiles in what experts see as an attempt to modernize its weapons and force its rivals to accept the country as a nuclear-weapon state and mitigate its sanctions.
Sullivan said U.S. intelligence officials had determined that there was a “real possibility” that North Korea would conduct another ballistic missile or nuclear test around the time of Biden’s visit to Asia.
To be sure, China will also keep a close eye on “cracks in the relationship” during Biden’s trip, said Scott Kennedy, a Chinese economic analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
Sullivan confirmed that Biden will use the trip to launch the long-awaited Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, a proposed pact to establish rules for trade and digital standards, ensure reliable supply chains, occupational safety, decarbonisation and tax and anti-corruption issues. Known as IPEF, it is a planned replacement for the trans-Pacific Partnership that President Donald Trump left in 2017 and to which the Biden administration has not rejoined.
In terms of economic power, the United States is slightly behind China in the Pacific, according to the Lowy Institute, an Australian think tank.
But the institute’s analysis shows the possibility that a trade pact could increase the combined power of the United States and its allies in relation to China. Biden’s challenge is that IPEF would not necessarily lower tariffs or give Allied signatories greater access to US markets, something Asian countries are striving for.