United States President Joe Biden will host Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr for a summit in Washington on April 11.

The first-of-its-kind gathering by the US and its two Asian allies is part of Biden’s strategy to stitch together existing bilateral alliances into broader “mini-laterals” to amplify US influence in Asia.

How exactly is the US looking to upgrade its operations in East Asia? What message does the wave of US trilaterals send to China?

Trisha Craig, Vice President (Engagement) and Senior Lecturer of Social Sciences (Sociology and Political Science), Yale-NUS College weighs in.