 Hello and welcome to Mapping False Lines in NewsClick. Today we are going to discuss Biden's visit to South Korea and Japan and also the declaration regarding the Pacific Economic Framework which is supposed to come in this period and the Quad Summit. All this over the next four days. Now, South Korea and Japan of course are two very important and close allies of the United States in the region and therefore what is discussed with them may have a bearing also on the subsequent discussions on the Quad Summit as well as the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework which is called the IPEF. I am sorry to inflict all these acronyms on you but we have no other recourse than to discuss them because these issues are really covered as we will see in other acronyms as well. Now there has been a presidential change in South Korea. Elections have taken place. We have now President Yoon Sok Yul instead of President Moon who was earlier the President of South Korea. President Moon was trying to build bridges with North Korea, China and trying to take out from the region some of the tensions that has been there for quite some time. It is important to recognize that the U.S. still has a virtual veto over South Korean foreign and military policies as it still controls the South Korean military. This is the consequence of the Korean War which was fought 70 years back and that is why the U.S. still has 30,000 troops positioned there and as well has command over South Korean military forces. This is one of the reasons President Moon wanted to have an agreement with North Korea and the United States by which at least there will be a formal peace agreement signed there instead of what is essentially just a temporary cessation of hostilities even if it is lasted over the next 70 years. Without that this military control of South Korea that the United States has will not go. With the new president coming in you are probably likely to see a policy which will be closer to that of the United States and not what it earlier was. The other part of it is of course South Korea's economic relations with China are very deep. It is its biggest trading partner and it has 20 percent of its total exports followed by the United States with 15 percent. So South Korea will not find it easy to break its relationship with China and go over to what the U.S. may want it to do. This is a problem that even Japan is going to have but this problem is much bigger when you come to the next round of issues which are also in the offing because on I think on Monday you have the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework meeting which will take place and they will declare how the region is going to economically work with the United States. This is announced in February as a part of the U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy during the ASEAN leaders visit to Washington. Question is will it attract the ASEAN leaders because if you look at the ASEAN leaders and the policies they have followed they see themselves as a part of a much larger market in China as a big player. The ASEAN leaders are more interested in the regional comprehensive economic partnership which is a large trading agreement between the ASEAN countries and China. Originally India was supposed to be a part of this agreement as well but India walked out of it making China by far the bigger player in this though Japan is also there maybe for a counterbalance in South Korea but if you look at this partnership that is there which has a trade agreement lowering of tariffs planning for increasing their trade with each other. This is very different from what the IPF which is what the U.S. is proposing is because there there is no such trade integration that is being talked about it is in fact it did start with the U.S wanting to according to the financial times wanting to have negotiations but it appears under pressure from the ASEAN countries they have scaled that down and said they will start consultation about what the nature of this IPF will be. So it's neither fish nor fowl at the moment we have to see what comes out of it. Now this is also a part of the larger problem that the U.S created for itself when it walked out of the other trade agreement which is a trans-specific partnership that trans-specific partnership at Japan it had the United States, Canada and the ASEAN countries as well so that could have provided a much bigger balance against China if that was what United States was wanting but under Trump it walked out of the TPP because it felt it would not benefit from such a trade agreement and a much watered down IPF is not a substitute for what the ASEAN countries really want they want to expand their trade and RCA let's recognize is one of the biggest trading blocks in the world today if not the biggest because it has 30 percent of world GDP just for our understanding China's trade with ASEAN is twice as much as that of the United States therefore it's very unlikely that ASEAN countries will readily join the United States bandwagon. If we look at the other issue that is also something that the U.S has been taking up it is a question of exclusive economics zone and the South China Sea issue we have seen U.S Navy patrolling that area claiming right to free navigation declaring this to be a global commons now here is the issue those on the South China Sea there are differences between the ASEAN countries and China on what is each other's exclusive economic zone the all of them agree that economic zones should exist and this is not global commons so therefore their differences with China are very different from their differences with the United States and China therefore to think that the U.S can quarrel them as it is planning on the South China issue doesn't seem to be very realistic and while the United States also talks about unclos what is called the United Nations Convention of the Law of the Seas it itself hasn't signed unclos and it has not not only not ratified it it is deep differences with how economic zones are supposed to be done and that's why one of the reasons that it has not signed it other side if you look at it Marcos Jr. who with his running mate Sara Duterte who have recently won the Philippines elections have vowed to sign a bilateral deal with China to settle the South China Sea issue so both Marcos Jr. and Duterte Jr. bring a whiff of their parents dictatorial and highly autocratic rule on the U.S. and China issue they seem to take a similar position currently the Philippines and Vietnam have sharp maritime disputes with China they have also similar differences with each other therefore a common front of all of them against China doesn't look very likely possibility the U.S. narratives between democracies versus autocracies is one of rank hypocrisy this is what they're peddling when it comes to Southeast Asia or East Asia vis-a-vis China the question is if we look at the freedom house list and freedom house is not a particularly independent body it is very close to the United States and to western powers it has counted that the 42 nations who receive U.S. military and financial assistance so 25 percent of countries the U.S. doesn't like under sanctions 75 percent of the countries it designates itself as autocracies is also being aided by the United States with military and other assistance this whole issue of framing the world in terms of autocracies and democracies with the support that U.S. gives to most of the dictatorial regimes military regimes kings and sultans in the world particularly in west Asia all of it doesn't means there are very few takers for its argument of autocracies versus democracies just because the U.S. decided it doesn't like some country it doesn't becomes an autocracy whether we like it or not within one the Russian elections so by that definition it's not a dictatorial regime China is not an authoritarian regime it has democratic features with you may not recognize I may not recognize the U.S. may not recognize the people of China recognize Iran has held elections to call all of them as autocracies and call the Sultan of Morocco as democratic Saudi Arabian kings princes as democratic is I think a violation of how we look at the world and this is the reason that this whole framing of the issue is problematic when you look at the court when you talk about the court which meeting is also supposed to be in Japan very soon I think it's taking place on May 24th the question is what is the court and here it is about the Indo-Pacific and here we have discussed in news click other times other times as well that it is how countries see the world if you see people you talk about East Asia you talk about Southeast Asia you talk about South Asia if you see it militarily in geo-strategic terms then you see oceans because the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean is where the maritime power is exercised through which you think you can control the countries around these oceans therefore looking at Pacific as the U.S. pawn if you see South China see where is it from you will see it's quite a distance from the United States shorelines why is the U.S. navy there because it believes Pacific is its backwater so when we look at this view of the world this does not square in with the view of the world for instance Tassian countries have which is we must develop our economies must have trade with each other we must develop further the way that U.S. looks at it at it is how to contain China and that is a military exercise not at the moment an economic one where does India fit in in this it it try the U.S. tried very hard to get India to break with Russia on the question of military agreements supply of military equipment to India and also on oil supplies it has failed because India's strategic interest does not allow it to break with Russia in that fashion it has its tension with China but even today China is a major trading partner of India so the question is India how it sees its economic relationships its military ties with Russia and how it sees its ties with the United States over in the Pacific is a big question mark for India and it is clear that India has not gone with the United States on Russia like most of the countries in the region have not like most of the countries in the world have not we have not sanctioned Russia in ASEAN countries Singapore is the only one which has sanctioned Russia so given all of this what is the role of Quad is something we'll have to see it will depend crucially on what India does or doesn't want to do because as far as the other countries are concerned you have for instance Japan you have United States and you have Australia all three are militarily very closely tied and with AUK US which is really Australia United Kingdom and US Australia is very much a part of the American setup at the moment militarily so given all of this this region is going to see a lot of churning whether the president Biden of the United States will make a difference through his visit is an open question as of date it seems to be more optics than real politics that we are going to see transacted but the jury will have to be out on that one a number of supposedly important meetings are being held the Quad and the IPEF the economic agreement that the US wants to have with ASEAN countries and Japan let's see where all of this goes we'll be back with more false lines for you and do keep watching news click and visit our website