In Southeast Asia, Kamala Harris’s Message: You Can Depend on the U.S.

SINGAPORE — Vice President Kamala Harris sought to fortify the picture of america as a reputable ally by providing a pointy rebuke of China throughout an deal with on Tuesday in Southeast Asia. Her effort comes because the White Home faces rising questions on its reliability as a world associate amid ongoing violence in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.

“Within the South China Sea, we all know that Beijing continues to coerce, to intimidate and to make claims to the overwhelming majority of the South China Sea,” Ms. Harris mentioned in Singapore. She added that China’s “illegal claims” had continued “to undermine the rules-based order and threaten the sovereignty of countries.”

The White Home is aiming to refocus U.S. international coverage technique on competing with China’s rising financial affect reasonably than on persevering with to struggle “without end wars,” such because the two-decade lengthy battle in Afghanistan. The chaotic effort to evacuate Americans and Afghan allies from Kabul has overshadowed the vice chairman’s journey, which started on Sunday in Singapore and can take her to Vietnam.

Ms. Harris’s abroad journey, her second as vice chairman, gained heightened urgency within the days earlier than she boarded Air Pressure Two. The journey had been seen as an opportunity to bolster financial and safety ties with key companions in Singapore and Vietnam, a vital piece of President Biden’s technique within the South China Sea. However within the wake of the haphazard withdrawal from Afghanistan, her journey grew to become the administration’s first check of the White Home efforts to reassure the world that it could nonetheless be a trusted worldwide associate.

For Ms. Harris, that has meant reassuring nations within the South China Sea of the administration’s credibility whereas confronting questions on whether or not america had deserted its allies in Afghanistan.

That strain is more likely to improve when Ms. Harris arrives in Vietnam. Her senior aides have confronted questions in regards to the historic parallel between the U.S. evacuation of Americans in 1975 from Saigon and the scenario in Kabul — replete with scenes of determined Afghans operating behind U.S. navy planes, and of Americans, Afghan allies and their kinfolk crowded into the Kabul airport and caught in limbo.

However in Singapore, Ms. Harris has pressed on together with her message.

“I’m standing right here due to our dedication to a longstanding relationship, which is an everlasting relationship, with the Indo-Pacific area, with Southeast Asian international locations and, particularly, with Singapore,” the vice chairman mentioned a day earlier alongside Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong of Singapore throughout a information convention dominated by questions on Afghanistan. She mentioned that the administration was “singularly centered” on evacuating People and Afghan allies from the nation.

In an indication of how huge a shadow the scenario in Afghanistan had forged over the journey, even Mr. Lee was requested by one of many two native reporters in regards to the U.S. withdrawal.

“We hope Afghanistan doesn’t turn into an epicenter for terrorism once more,” Mr. Lee mentioned. “And post-Afghanistan in the long run, what issues is how the U.S. repositions itself within the Asia Pacific, engages the broader area and continues the struggle in opposition to terrorism.”

Ms. Harris’s presence was described by specialists as a welcoming signal of renewed focus by the Biden administration within the South China Sea after a number of Southeast Asian officers in current months grew to become annoyed over the dearth of face-to-face engagement from america.

The vice chairman’s go to got here simply weeks after the U.S. protection secretary, Lloyd J. Austin, traveled to Singapore, the anchor of the U.S. naval presence within the area, to reassure Southeast Asian nations of the administration’s funding. China has taken benefit of america’ absence by courting nations with visits, loans and coronavirus vaccines.

At a information briefing on Tuesday, Wang Wenbin, a spokesman for China’s Overseas Ministry, mentioned, “What is going on in Afghanistan now clearly tells folks what guidelines are touted by america and what’s the so-called order of america.”

“The US all the time tries to make use of guidelines and order to justify its selfishness and bullying,” Mr. Wang mentioned. “However now how many individuals will imagine it?”

The U.S. administration has tried to strike a stability within the area by countering China’s funding whereas not forcing the nations to take sides between the 2 powers. In a nod to Singapore’s efforts to remain impartial within the rising pressure between Beijing and Washington, Ms. Harris burdened on Tuesday america was not attempting to “make anybody select between international locations.”

The South China Sea is a significant flash level between Beijing and a number of other Southeast Asian international locations. Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam have all accused China of constructing and fortifying synthetic islands within the space and sending vessels to intimidate their militaries and those that fish.

After Ms. Harris met with Mr. Lee in a closed-door assembly on Monday on the Istana, the presidential palace of Singapore, the vice chairman’s workplace introduced a collection of agreements to handle local weather change, cybersecurity and the pandemic. The 2 nations additionally agreed to extend info sharing on cybersecurity threats to monetary markets, cooperate on figuring out coronavirus variants and convene business executives to handle supply-chain points, together with a world scarcity of semiconductors which can be used to construct vehicles and computer systems that has been a degree of concern for the Biden administration.

Curtis S. Chin, the previous United States ambassador to the Asian Improvement Financial institution from 2007 to 2011, mentioned these commitments solely went to date.

“It’s, in fact, an vital symbolic journey, however the actuality is that what’s extra vital than these journeys is what occurs in between,” Mr. Chin mentioned. “That’s why to me what occurred in Afghanistan is so vital as a result of the truth of U.S. habits undercuts the rhetoric of U.S. habits.”

Mr. Chin added, “Our rhetoric is: ‘We’re right here for a very long time. We’re steadfast in our engagement.’ The fact is, as Asia effectively is aware of from Vietnam to Afghanistan, that rhetoric and actuality usually don’t match.”

Ms. Harris came upon rhetoric alone throughout her first abroad journey, to Guatemala and Mexico, which had been meant to handle the components pushing migrants to flee to america, however was as an alternative marred by home politics. Her efforts to defend establishments in Central America that intention to root out corruption — one issue pushing weak households emigrate to america in record-high numbers — was overshadowed by her fumbled solutions on whether or not she would go to the U.S.-Mexico border.

“I’ve by no means been to Europe,” Ms. Harris advised the NBC anchor Lester Holt. “I don’t perceive the purpose you’re making.”

David Axelrod, a former high adviser to former President Barack Obama, mentioned Ms. Harris confronted heightened criticism as a result of she was a transparent candidate within the subsequent presidential election.

“She’s comparatively new, doesn’t have that have, so she’s going to be watched carefully on these journeys,” Mr. Axelrod mentioned of her international coverage document. “And the Afghanistan scenario simply added to her burden.”

However the journey to Southeast Asia additionally introduced Ms. Harris with a chance to handle a difficulty on the middle of uncommon political consensus in Washington, in accordance with Aaron Connelly, a analysis fellow on the Worldwide Institute for Strategic Research in Singapore.

“In distinction to Central America, this can be a area of alternatives and strategic alternatives,” mentioned Mr. Connelly. “There’s broad political settlement in america to handle the rise of China, and that is the place you’d try this.”

Sui-Lee Wee contributed reporting.