In Geopolitics Today - Monday, June 7th
What might Biden and Putin agree on, Myanmar as China's geopolitical nightmare, and could US-South Korean economic interests be diverging?
On What Areas Might the Biden-Putin Summit Lead to Agreement
The last time Joe Biden met Vladimir Putin their meeting did not seem to go well. Supposedly, during the March 2011 meeting, the-then vice president Biden urged the then-prime minister Putin not to return to the Kremlin, and then claimed to have reached certain conclusions about the (lack of) existence of his Russian counterpart’s soul after the meeting. And Putin seems to have lost no love for Biden either. More than a decade has passed since that meeting in Russia, and there have been no indications since that time that Biden’s and Putin’s views of each other have improved.
But those differences should not prevent the pragmatists in the White House and the Kremlin from trying to prevent further deterioration of the bilateral relationship when the two leaders meet in Switzerland on June 16.
Biden and his administration have recently signalled their interest in attempting to stabilize the US-Russian relationship, making overtures in the form of conciliatory statements and granting sanctions waivers. Similarly, key members of Putin’s team have also spoken of the need for stability and compromise in the US-Russia relationship. If stabilization of the US-Russian relationship is, indeed, an end that Biden and Putin agree is worth pursuing, then what would be the means to attain that end?
A partial reversal of restrictions on diplomatic personnel and a resumption of the dialogue on strategic stability could be among the means which the leaders can agree upon at their summit in Geneva. However, expecting that Biden and Putin would agree to some kind of a broad reset or reach deals on major issues like a common set of rules in the cyber domain, or resolutions to the conflicts in Ukraine or Syria, would be unrealistic.
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China’s Geopolitical Nightmare Following the Coup d’Etat in Myanmar
This article assesses relations between the People’s Republic of China and the Republic of the Union of Myanmar, or Burma, in light of the military coup d’état which took place on February 1, 2020. This event caused an unexpected crisis in ties between the two neighbouring countries, which the people of Myanmar have traditionally described as familial.
And the two countries are indeed close. In 2021, Myanmar’s largest economic partner in terms of trade, aid and investment is China. On the other hand, Myanmar’s signature is also critical to China’s access to the Indian Ocean for its Belt and Road Initiative. In unstable border areas, China has a major influence on armed insurgent groups such as the Kokang Group and the United Wa State Army. China has significantly at stake in Myanmar that it must tread carefully, and Beijing’s top priority regarding Myanmar has been to ensure political stability.
But while the previous sets of protests led by Aung San Suu Kyi between 1988-2010 were largely non-violent, the ones seen in Myanmar this year have been anything but. And things could change quickly from here if the protests begin targeting Chinese citizens and infrastructure projects.
In such an eventuality, China could choose to downgrade its economic engagement or pull out of Myanmar entirely, and it might turn to the China-Pakistan Corridor as an alternative for gaining access to the Indian Ocean. Or it might entrench itself against what it perceives to be US-aligned forces stoking unrest in a strategically important province.
For now, Myanmar has engaged fully with China, and it seems that despite deep suspicions of China held by some of the leaders in Naypyidaw, the Myanmar military has been attempting to shut down widespread protests in a search for stability.
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Could US-South Korean Economic Interests be Diverging?
Moon Jae-in, the President of South Korea, was only the second foreign leader to visit the White House following the inauguration of the Biden administration. It was a clear signal of how important Asia is to the new president. And on the surface, the summit was a success.
The two leaders talked up the decision of Hyundai, Samsung, LG, and SK to invest $25 billion into US facilities for manufacturing computer chips, electric vehicle batteries, and similar cutting-edge technologies. In return, the United States pledged to help South Korea ramp up its vaccination campaign against COVID-19. The two countries also promised to strengthen their partnership on R&D in such fields as IT and AI.
But as the Biden administration is continuing the process of decoupling strategic supply chains away from China, South Korea has no intention of decoupling from China. South Korea’s largest trading partner is China and many South Korean exports to China become components in goods that then get sent to the United States. For this reason, among many others, tensions in the US-China competition will inevitably have a negative effect on the South Korean economy.
In sum, what the meeting between the two leaders showed was that economic cooperation between the United States and South Korea continues business as usual. But because they are both bracing for some disruption in relations with China, and one partner (SK) has a lot more to lose than the other (US) as relations with China deteriorate, the interests of the US and South Korea can be seen as increasingly diverging.
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