All eyes on the Indo-Pacific following Afghanistan withdrawal

Last week, President Joe Biden announced that all US troops would be withdrawn from Afghanistan by September this year, marking an end to a 20-year conflict triggered by the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001, which led to the deaths of almost 3,000 civilians.

The historic announcement has polarised analysts, rekindling debate over the US’ foreign policy strategy.

Some observers claim that the move suggests Biden would lead an “introspective America”, focused on addressing domestic challenges.

However, according to Michael Shoebridge, director of the defence, strategy and national security program at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), such observations are “misplaced”.

Shoebridge references a statement from a White House spokesperson, which points to a shift in focus towards “threats and challenges that are most acute for the United States”, particularly competition with China.

The ASPI analyst writes that “closing the 9/11 era” could help support a genuine pivot to the Indo-Pacific redistributing resources for the tussle with Xi Jinping’s “state-corporate China”.

This shift in US foreign policy was, according to Shoebridge, exemplified by President Biden’s decision to send an ‘informal delegation’ to Taiwan in the same week as the announcement of the Afghanistan withdrawal.

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He claims that this new focus would enable the US to respond to the unchecked ramp up in Chinese aggression over the past year, epitomised by military posturing over Taiwanese airspace.

“Biden’s Afghanistan decision clears the air for the US to answer those questions because it makes an emphatic statement that US attention has shifted to the urgent competition with China. That’s good news everywhere but in Beijing,” he adds.

“Now is the time to dismantle Beijing’s narrative on Taiwan simply and clearly, because this is the path to changing Xi’s risk calculations about using force against that island.

“The line we hear from Xi’s government is that Taiwan matters more to the people of China than to anyone else, so no one will sacrifice anything to oppose Beijing’s takeover of what is already psychologically theirs. This, as usual, is a story that Beijing is writing in the hope that others will believe it — with some success.”

According to the ASPI director, President Biden can now turn to shaping a “counter-narrative”, which fosters tangible international support for Taiwanese independence.  

“Taiwan matters for at least four compelling reasons that, taken together, have to absorb the time and attention of national leaders and governments across the Indo-Pacific and in NATO,” he continues.

“And the reasons are a combination of strategic, economic and technological themes that echo the priorities Biden articulated during his election campaign and has been acting on since becoming US President in January.”

Shoebridge notes the geo-strategic benefits of an independent Taiwan, which enables the US and its allies to project military power into mainland China, complicating Beijing’s military ambitions.

“China possessing Taiwan removes this constraint and enables it to project force more easily against Japan and South Korea and beyond its ‘first island chain’,” he warns.

Shoebridge also points to the “economic and technological importance of Taiwan”, which supports the world’s semiconductor industrial capacity.

“This area of high technology is in the middle of US–China competition for future economic and strategic power,” he writes.

“China lags the US and Taiwan in this area despite spending billions of yuan and decades of effort to catch up. Taking over Taiwan would close a glaring technological gap in Chinese civil and military technology while handing Beijing a powerful additional tool for economically coercing the rest of us.”

Finally, Shoebridge stresses that Taiwan should be “at the heart of US and allied priorities” for the foreseeable future because, in strategic competition, “momentum matters”.

“Analysts and pundits in the US and in allied and partner capitals told themselves, their governments and anyone else who would listen that China’s island building in the South China Sea and creation of military bases there only gave it control of ‘a pile of rocks’,” he writes.

“Instead, Beijing’s militarisation of the South China Sea changed the strategic position there to the great disadvantage of south-east Asian states and in ways that undercut American and allied power. What more profound effect would Beijing gaining control of Taiwan have?”

Shoebridge concludes: “So, while Afghanistan decisions may seem a long way from Taiwan, Biden’s uncomfortable but necessary reordering of American power and interests away from the 9/11 era to the real competition of this decade comes at the right time.”

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