Harris Blasts China In Speech On Indo-Pacific Region

US Vice President Kamala Harris delivered a sharp rebuke to China for its incursions in the South China Sea (SCS), warning its actions there amount to “coercion” and “intimidation” and affirming that the US will support its allies in the region against Beijing’s advances, Alexandra Jaffe reported for the Associated Press (AP).

Photo Insert: Vice President Kamala Harris had scathing words for Beijing.

“We know that Beijing continues to coerce, to intimidate and to make claims to the vast majority of the SCS,” she said in a foreign policy speech Tuesday in Singapore in which she laid out the Biden administration’s vision for the Indo-Pacific.

“Beijing’s actions continue to undermine the rules-based order and threaten the sovereignty of nations.”

Harris, who is on a weeklong swing through Southeast Asia, declared that the US “stands with our allies and our partners” in the face of threats from China. Her subsequent stop in Vietnam was delayed several hours due to an investigation into two possible incidents of the so-called Havana syndrome — a mysterious health ailment plaguing US diplomats — in Hanoi.

The speech sought to cement the US commitment to supporting its allies in an area of growing importance to the Biden administration, which has made countering China’s influence globally a centerpiece of its foreign policy.

And it came during a critical moment for the United States, as the Biden administration seeks to further solidify its pivot toward Asia while America’s decades-long focus on the Middle East comes to a messy end with the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Harris underscored this shift, calling the Indo-Pacific “critically important to our nation’s security and prosperity.”

She said that while the US is focused on closing out its Afghanistan engagement by evacuating as many people as possible, “it is also imperative that as we address developments in one region, we continue to advance our interests in other regions, including this region.”

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