It is a project that China sees with a dim view: US President Joe Biden announced, Monday, May 23 in Tokyo, the launch of a new economic partnership in Asia-Pacific with 13 first participating countries, including the States USA and Japan.

The Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) is not a free trade agreement, but provides for further integration between its member countries in four key areas: digital economy, supply chains procurement, green energy and the fight against corruption.

“The United States and Japan, together with 11 other nations, will launch the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework,” Joe Biden said during a press conference with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.

“It is a commitment to work with our close friends and partners in the region, on the challenges that matter most to ensuring economic competitiveness in the 21st century,” added the American president.

More details on IPEF were to be released later on Monday.

A project "doomed" to failure, according to Beijing

This American initiative appears clearly intended to offer in Asia-Pacific an alternative to China, the world's second economic power with growing influence in the region.

Jake Sullivan, Joe Biden's national security adviser, assured that it was an "open platform" because designed and defined as such, but Beijing feels deliberately excluded and has already made it known.

Washington seeks "to form small cliques in the name of freedom and openness" hoping to "contain China", criticized Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Sunday, who considers the American project "dedicated" to failure.

Under Donald Trump, Joe Biden's predecessor in the White House, the United States withdrew in 2017 from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a vast multilateral free trade agreement which was the subject of a new treaty in 2018 without Washington.

Joe Biden has also made it clear that he has no intention of relaunching major free trade agreements, in the face of an American public opinion which mainly sees these treaties as a threat to jobs in the United States.

With AFP

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