A nation that seeks to maximize its own interests through containment, confrontation, closure, exclusivity or even the use of force runs against the will of the world, and Blinken failed to break that old mold. His words remain out of step with the direction of mankind.

While U.S. President Joe Biden’s Asia trip didn’t include China, Secretary of State Antony Blinken filled in some of the missing pieces in the puzzle of America’s Indo-Pacific diplomacy. His recent speech can be seen as a prelude to America’s long-delayed national security strategy.

The Biden administration’s leadership failure is the net effect of Capitol Hill’s revolving door politics. The White House is not in charge. The Big Defense is.

The United States does not rule out cooperation with China on particular issues, but the prominence of cooperation in principle has dropped significantly. Indications are that areas of possible cooperation are narrowing and the difficulty is increasing.

With President Joe Biden’s Asia tour and recent remarks by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, the United States has begun putting a Cold War notion into practice once again. But what has failed in the past will not likely succeed in the future.

At the gathering in Washington, China was the elephant in the room. While it’s too soon to say which side has the upper hand in Southeast Asia, the summit offered a glimpse of how the competition will unfold.

There was nothing new revealed in the U.S. president’s visit, other than launching Indo-Pacific Economic Framework. Roping in Japan and South Korea and declaring that the U.S. would “intervene” in a Taiwan conflict, all amounted to old news.

The U.S. secretary of state restated and reinforced the Biden administration’s approach, proposing an “invest, align, compete” strategy for success over China. The speech revealed significant clues about the features of America’s basic strategic game ahead.

As President Biden attends his first in-person meetings in Asia, who he’s visiting and their respective agendas can inform our observations on what the U.S. strategy will be in dealing with China’s neighbors.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken delivered his speech on the Biden administration’s approach to China last week. While he laid out a laundry list of China-U.S. policy issues, the administration must now actively fashion an integrated strategy to deal with the ongoing challenges presented by Beijing.