US strategy for Indo-Pacific region must promote economic development, not just defence: Senate panel

“We have a lot of alliances … But are we doing enough trade, investment and diplomacy, which is really where I think the battleground needs to be?”

New Jersey Democrat Bob Menendez said he believed the US faced “a behemoth of an economic challenge with China in this region”.

Engaging in free-trade agreements in the Indo-Pacific could strengthen “economic opportunity and loosen the noose that China has with these countries”, he said.

Harry Harris, a former American ambassador to South Korea, echoed the senators’ calls, arguing that the US was missing “great opportunities”.

The US put “adequate emphasis” on diplomatic, military and economic components, he testified, but he was not convinced “we’re advocating all the time for the right things in those three buckets”.

Harris, who before his ambassadorship served as commander of the US Indo-Pacific Command, said this perception fuelled his advocacy for the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade agreement championed by former US president Barack Obama and rejected by his successor, Donald Trump.

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“I did it because of the security relationship between the TPP countries that I felt would have been strengthened,” he recalled. “We lost that opportunity.”

Harris also testified that the US-led, 14-nation Indo-Pacific Economic Framework “lacks the teeth that a free-trade agreement gets”.

The initiative is one of the Biden administration’s main platforms for diplomatic outreach in the region, promoting issues like supply chain-resilience, trade cooperation and climate resilience efforts.

Critics of the framework have said it lacks concrete mechanisms to discuss contentious issues such as reducing tariffs and opening the US market to Indo-Pacific goods.

Harris further testified that Washington should consider joining the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (Unclos), a treaty signed by 168 countries and the European Union regulating maritime matters like exclusive economic zones, the extent of continental shelves and the principles of natural-resource exploration.

For decades, the US has resisted joining Unclos, largely owing to conservative members of Congress opposing the environmental and legal obligations it stipulates for ratification.

“If you look at the nations that are not signatories, it starts to resemble an axis of stupidity because we’re not signatories to this thing that China, Russia and others are signatories to,” Harris testified. “And they are taking economic advantage from all these things.”

“That is, in my opinion, shooting ourselves in the foot.”

The hearing transpired as the Biden administration strives to boost defence engagement with partner countries in the Indo-Pacific.

On April 7, American troops carried out a major military exercise in the South China Sea with allies Japan, Australia and the Philippines.

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The drills were aimed at showing “our collective commitment to strengthening regional and international cooperation in support of a free and open Indo-Pacific”, according to a joint statement from the countries.

Walter Russell Mead of the Hudson Institute, a Washington-based think tank, testified on Wednesday that while military engagement was essential, “the best way to ensure the long-term stability of a free and open Indo-Pacific without Americans going to war is to encourage and support the economic growth of countries” in the region.

“As these countries are more dynamic, powerful and wealthy, even in Beijing they’ll understand that their dream of dominating the Indo-Pacific is simply not realistic,” said Mead, who is also a professor at Bard College.

“The United States needs to be absolutely clear about our commitment to the region on a multidimensional basis – military, economic, cultural – and in every possible way to deepen our links.”