Kurt Campbell, the White House’s Asia chief, has played a significant role in developing U.S. policy toward China since the Clinton administration. The arc of his career mirrors the overall change in the relationship from engagement to competition. Under President Clinton, Campbell worked on Asia issues at the Pentagon and separately was part of a White House team advocating for the North American Free Trade Agreement. During the Obama administration, he was assistant Secretary of State for East Asian affairs and helped formulate the “pivot” to Asia, aimed at shifting America’s military and foreign policy focus to China and the rest of Asia. By 2018, he was writing in Foreign Affairs about the failure of engagement to remake China. Three years later, President Biden named him the National Security Council’s coordinator for the Indo-Pacific. There he has helped devise administration policy for competing with China. That includes putting together a submarine-building deal
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