Harris to offer vision for Indo-Pacific in major speech

SINGAPORE – U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris is preparing to lay out the Biden administration’s vision for the Indo-Pacific region, an area of growing importance to a government that has made countering China’s influence globally a centerpiece of its foreign policy.

The address Tuesday morning at Singapore’s iconic Gardens by the Bay waterfront park is an opportunity for the former state attorney general and U.S. senator to prove her fluidity with diplomatic and security issues.

Harris’ remarks also come during a critical moment for the United States as the Biden administration seeks to further solidify its pivot towards Asia while America’s decades-long focus on the Middle East comes to a messy end with the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Harris will speak about security, economic partnerships and global health in the region, said a White House official who requested anonymity to preview the speech. She also will emphasize the need for a free and open Indo-Pacific – an implicit contrast with Beijing, whose incursions in the disputed South China Sea have raised alarms among some nations in the region.

Aides say Harris’ remarks are likely to echo and expand upon those she delivered at the U.S. Naval Academy graduation in June, where she described a world that is “interconnected,” “interdependent” and “fragile.”

In a potential preview of her remarks, Harris told sailors aboard a U.S. combat ship at the Changi naval base in Singapore on Monday that “a big part of the history of the 21st century will be written about this very region” and that their work defending the region was pivotal.

“It is in our vital interest to stand united with our allies and our partners in Southeast Asia in defense of a free and open Indo-Pacific,” she said.

Harris is on a weeklong swing through Southeast Asia, which brought her Monday to Singapore for meetings with Singapore President Halimah Yacob and Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. The vice president’s office announced a number of agreements out of that meeting aimed at combating cyberthreats, tackling climate change, addressing the COVID-19 pandemic and alleviating supply chain issues.

After her speech Tuesday, Harris will hold a roundtable discussion with business leaders on supply chain issues, and then travel to Vietnam, where she’ll meet with top officials Wednesday.

President Joe Biden himself has repeatedly emphasized his focus on China as one of America’s main adversaries, pledging in a February speech at the State Department to “confront China’s economic abuses; counter its aggressive, coercive action; to push back on China’s attack on human rights, intellectual property, and global governance” – a message he echoed again later that month to European allies at the virtual G7 Summit and Munich Security Conference.

And in recent months, his administration has ramped up outreach to the Indo-Pacific region, with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Austin both visiting the area in the spring and summer. Secretary of State Antony Blinken also held a number of virtual meetings with Southeast Asian officials earlier this month.

The chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, however, complicated that message of support to the region, raising questions about the U.S. commitment to its allies. While Biden said last week that an indefinite engagement would’ve benefited “true strategic competitors” China and Russia, China has seized on the images of violence from the evacuation to slam the U.S. for its engagement there.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said Monday that the U.S. had done “unscrupulous and dishonest things” in Afghanistan and called on the nation to help rebuild.

“The United States is the root cause and the biggest external factor in the Afghan issue,” Wenbin said. “It cannot just run away like this.”

But Harris, during a joint news conference with Prime Minister Lee on Monday, said that her presence in the country, combined with the agreements around greater cooperation that the Biden administration has pursued with Indo-Pacific countries, speak “volumes in terms of the integrity of the relationships that the United States has around the world on many issues.”