An American expert on Asia-Pacific and the Southeast Asian regions on Thursday, Nov. 26, said the election of Joe Biden as the next President of the United States would continue to highlight the need for multilateral dialogue to resolve the issue over the South China Sea.

“I expect continuity and more careful diplomacy on the South China Sea,” he said. 

“I think that the US-China relationship will remain very confrontational rhetoric and characterized by competition, but that rhetoric will be lowered. I expect the Biden administration to be less aggressive on Taiwan, more forward-leaning on Hong Kong, Uighurs, Zhenjiang, continuity on tough policy in the South China Sea with much more emphasis on ASEAN, and a return to a much higher level of engagement with treaty allies,” said Ernest Bower, president and CEO of Bower Group Asia.

Bower was one of the resource speakers during a webinar conducted by the Manila-based think-tank, Stratbase Albert Del Rosario Institute on Nov. 25.
According to Bower, a Biden administration is also expected to reinvest in Asian architecture, particularly ASEAN-based architecture, and structures for economic security and cooperation such as the East Asia Summit (EAS), the ASEAN-US Summit, and related fora that are not necessarily ASEAN-centric, like the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC).

“Then you can see less bottlenecking and a more policy-based approach, more predictable outcomes,” he said.

Bower, who helped found and build the US ASEAN Business Council, said it is likely that a “great new US ambassador,” along the lines of the traditional highly-experienced career officers may be assigned to Manila replacing Amb. M Sung Kim who has been moved to Jakarta, Indonesia. 

“It’ll be a question of how Asia wants to engage in those issues, but I think we’ll make progress. It could cause some pain points in the bilateral relationship, particularly with the Duterte administration, but I think that’ll be well-managed by a good ambassador, and the Philippines will experience some issues around human rights around the drug war in the Philippines and other issues such as the freedom of the press,” he said.

Bower sees progress to be made in issues and sectors such as healthcare, technology cooperation, digital trade, cloud computing, and data management.

Furthermore, the American expert said the Biden team is likely to invest in renewing its five treaty alliances in Asia believed to have been, in many cases, badly damaged, namely bonds with Australia, Japan, Korea, the Philippines, and Thailand.

These countries, he said, will be at the top of the list for Biden’s Asia team as they focus on the list of repairing the damage done by four years of “very transactional, very ideological policy.”

“If the Philippines is willing, now or after 2022, Biden and the US will look for chances to expand investment in security cooperation, economic partnership, and deepening our strong ties across sectors,” said Bower.

Bower said this would include the preservation of the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) with the Philippines.