Joe Biden with the man he picked to be the next US secretary of state,Tony Blinken,in 2017.Credit:Getty
Blinken was then-secretary of state John Kerry's deputy,seen as the one with his eyes on Asia in a department that could never shake off its trans-Atlantic obsessions and its penchant for getting bogged down in Middle Eastern affairs - from interventions in Syria and Lebanon to the Iran nuclear deal.
Breaking away from its position to remain neutral on China's maritime claims in the disputed waterway,the US was now about to undertake freedom-of-navigation exercises to stand up to Beijing's growing militarisation.
While Obama's"pivot to Asia"had many pitfalls and false starts,it marked the first shift in US foreign policy which properly acknowledged that the Indo-Pacific was going to be the key strategy battleground of the 21st century.
Then-secretary of state John Kerry and national security advisor Susan Rice always seemed more at home in Geneva and Paris than Jakarta and Beijing.
Then-Secretary of State John Kerry,center right,and Defence Secretary Ash Carter,right,discussed China with their Australian counterparts,Foreign Minister Julie Bishop,second from left,and Defence Minister Marise Payne,left,in Boston on October 13,2015.Credit:Michael Dwyer
In this respect,Blinken - who served in the past two Democratic administrations,including as a deputy national security adviser from 2013 to 2015 and as deputy secretary of state from 2015 to 2017 - will be different.
Blinken is not an"Asia hand"per se;the fluent French speaker is a life-long diplomat who spent his high school years in Paris. But Australian officials who encountered him in the Obama administration say he was always attuned to the need to focus on a rising China and the instability that would cause in the Indo-Pacific.