Biden in touch with the heartland

SINGAPORE - Most American politicians make it a point to celebrate their middle-class roots only during election-time.

Not so United States Vice-President Joe Biden, the "scrappy kid" from Middle America as he is often known. The old-school politician not only wears his heartland heritage as a badge of honour at home, but also enjoys showcasing it around the world when he is sent on diplomatic missions.

When the 70-year-old grandfather visited Beijing two years ago, for instance, he raised eyebrows by turning up for lunch at a small neighbourhood eatery, eschewing the many exclusive restaurants in the Chinese capital city.

He and his small entourage's modest meal of pork buns, noodles and cucumbers - with the bill coming up to 79 yuan (S$16) - delighted many Chinese netizens who were impressed by his frugal ways.

Mr Biden reprised his heartland routine when he visited Singapore last week, turning up unannounced at the popular Adam Road hawker centre last Friday afternoon.

He went around greeting food stall owners, posed for pictures with surprised diners, and bought two cups of ice-cold lime juice for $3 - not quite what you might expect from the second-most powerful man in the US.

However, Mr Biden's folksy approach to politics and diplomacy, while endearing, has fed a widely held media caricature of him as a political lightweight. His propensity for headline-grabbing gaffes has not helped matters.

Some pundits even consider Mr Biden a political liability for US President Barack Obama, and suggested in the run-up to last year's election that he be replaced on the ticket by then top diplomat Hillary Clinton.

But nothing is further from the truth. If anything, Mr Biden's track record in the last five years puts him among the most important and trusted members of the Obama administration.

For starters, he was tapped to oversee the implementation of the US$787 billion (S$995 billion) economic stimulus package Mr Obama helped to pass in the first few weeks of his presidency in 2009. He has been a leading voice in many tough domestic and foreign policy decisions, from tackling gun violence to counter-terrorism as well as the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq and Afghanistan.

More recently, on New Year's Eve, he leveraged his deep ties in Congress (he became a US Senator at age 30) to help broker a deal between duelling Republican and Democratic lawmakers over the so-called "fiscal cliff" crisis. If the crisis had been left unresolved, a series of major tax hikes and deep government spending cuts would have tipped the US economy back into recession.

It was another tough mission that brought Mr Biden to India and Singapore last week - pacifying worries among regional countries that the so-called US "rebalancing" strategy to Asia was running out of steam.

The strategy, announced with much fanfare in late 2011, has seen Washington shift more military and diplomatic resources towards the Asia-Pacific in recognition of its growing economic and strategic weight.

But many Asian countries have expressed doubts about whether the US can sustain this effort, given its weakened economy and distractions of crises at home and in other hot spots - a perception that the Obama administration is eager to dispel.

Mr Biden, in a wide-ranging speech in Singapore last Saturday, gave the assurance that the US was "all in" with regard to its rebalancing strategy. He added: "We are, and we will remain, a resident Pacific power.

"And it is in the interests of all nations, especially Pacific nations, that we be there."

While the same assurance has been given on several other occasions by US officials, Mr Biden's effort takes on greater heft on account of his decades of experience in international relations.

Before he resigned from the Senate in 2009 to take up the vice-presidency, Mr Biden served for 34 years on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and was its chairman for several years. Though he is largely seen as a European and arms control expert, some of his recent experiences have helped to make up for his limited experience with Asia.

Most notably, Mr Biden has spent an unusual amount of "face time" with China's top leader Xi Jinping in recent years. The two spent at least 10 hours together when Mr Biden visited China in August 2011, including a rare joint trip to south-western Sichuan province.

When Mr Xi visited the US in February last year, it was Mr Biden who formally hosted the then Chinese vice-president during his four-day visit. Mr Biden's direct insights on Mr Xi, who will run China for the next decade, will be something many Asian leaders are looking to tap in future meetings.

Mr Biden declined to discuss his impressions of Mr Xi in a written interview with The Straits Times. But he characterised prickly US-China relations as being "more hopeful" than widely assumed.

"Our relationship is subject to all kinds of caricatures. I've heard the US-China relationship described as everything from the next Cold War to the new G-2, and the truth is, neither is accurate," Mr Biden noted.

"There are obviously some real disagreements between our countries on certain issues... (but) I remain confident that we'll be able to make significant, measurable progress over time."

chinhon@sph.com.sg

Additional reporting by Robin Chan

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