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      in World Politics

      Forecasting the US-China Relationship

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      With a new US administration about to be inaugurated, it is prudent to look at the dynamics and variables shaping the future of one of the world’s most important relationships, that between Washington and Beijing. President Donald Trump came into office looking to take a more aggressive approach toward China. Trump’s reliance on figures like Peter Navarro and Mike Pompeo put American foreign policy on a forceful path. While Navarro, as Trump’s trade adviser, was focused on conducting trade wars, Secretary of State Pompeo was centered on military balancing. In the final year of the Trump presidency, relations with China were rapidly disintegrating, with little room left for cooperation.

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      If President Trump presided over a rapid deterioration of the US-China relationship, under President Joe Biden, the relationship is likely experience a stable deterioration. A stable deterioration is typified by two features: the continuance of deviating trajectories and the transactional nature of future cooperation. These two features interact to create a new status quo in the US-China relationship.

      Deviating Trajectories

      The era of engagement between Beijing and Washington was sustained through a shared interest in China’s economic and political integration in the international community. Today, China under President Xi Jinping has sought to both blunt international political institutions and create international financial bodies, thereby challenging US spuremacy and allowing for more Chinese dexterity. Xi’s international revisionism struggles against American national interests, creating a split between the two global giants.

      As President-elect Joe Biden is in the final stages of forming his national security team, he sends a strong, clear signal: This will not be a third Barack Obama term. Biden has declared that he plans on nominating Antony Blinken as secretary of state and Jake Sullivan as national security adviser. While both are veterans of the Obama administration, their tone and language signal a break from the Obama years. Both Blinken and Sullivan have acknowledged the need to develop a new strategy for China that goes beyond traditional engagement into managing competition.

      Embed from Getty Images

      At a Hudson Institute event last summer, Blinken stated, “We are in a competition with China — and there’s nothing wrong with competition, if it’s fair.” Continuing the theme of managing competition with China, a piece for Foreign Affairs co-authored by Sullivan with Kurt Campbell, the CEO of the Asia Group, suggests that “the signs that China is gearing up to contest America’s global leadership are unmistakable, and they are ubiquitous.”

      These statements follow a larger trend within the Democratic Party of getting tougher on China. For example, in the 2016 Democratic Party Platform, China is only mentioned seven times. In the 2020 document, mentions were up to 22 and included language like “push back against” and “stand up to.” A Biden administration is going to bring strategic clarity to US-China competition. Key advisers like Sullivan and Blinken are not pollyannish about the relationship and recognize the dramatic change that has been occurring for nearly a decade. As Biden leaves America’s engagement strategy behind, he will advance a more confident and more energetic foreign policy in defense of US interests and values.

      Meanwhile, on the Chinese side of the relationship, President Xi Jinping has pursued an aggressive posture that has shaken the regional order. His ambitious “national rejuvenation” strategy has created consternation. Xi has abandoned institutional integration and instead established his own multilateral financial institutions to blunt the influence of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The People’s Liberation Army has also been more assertive in promoting Beijing’s territorial claims in the South China Sea. The complete political absorption of Hong Kong has alarmed neighboring Taiwan. Lastly, Xi’s extraordinary Belt and Road Initiative has expanded China’s political influence across the region.

      President Xi’s national rejuvenation campaign is in direct conflict with the interests of the United States and its allies. The US stands atop of an international order that promotes political and economic liberty. Through this alliance system, the United States promotes and secures a free and open Indo-Pacific. Under Xi’s helmsmanship, China wants to displace, if not replace, the US and develop a new, Sinocentric order. These trajectories will only continue to deviate until a new status quo can develop.

      Areas of Cooperation

      While the chasm in the US-China relationship widens and deepens, there are several areas where American and Chinese interests align. The United States and China must develop procedures for collaboration in these areas. If the relationship is only limited to competition, problems will arise that could otherwise be solved. Additionally, neither country gains from complete destruction of bilateral relations.

      The stabilization of the Korean Peninsula will require significant coordination between Washington and Beijing. Neither the Chinese nor the Americans want to see conventional or nuclear conflict on the peninsula. The two countries do not need to feign friendship to achieve stabilization, but it does require communication.

      Climate change is an issue that is not only an opportunity for cooperation but a problem that demands collaboration. As the world’s two largest economies, the US and China have a lot of influence in affecting the trajectory of global warming and climate change. Both countries stand only to gain from working together on this issue. Collaboration on the environment does not require a new proclamation of camaraderie between the two nations. Each government can recognize that cooperation on climate change is important without declaring a new era of relations. The business-like, transactional nature of US-China cooperation creates an environment where the two countries can work together without upsetting the aggressive factions within their respective countries.

      When accounting for these dynamics, the most likely scenario to play out under the Biden administration is stable deterioration. Stable deterioration recognizes the continued decline in bilateral relations brought about by the deviating trajectories of the two countries but understands that there is a limit to that decline. Both countries accept collaboration when interests align, but the nature of cooperation is transactional. Through managing competition and transactional cooperation, a new status quo in the US-China relationship will develop.

      This scenario assumes that neither President Biden nor President Xi perceives any value in the destruction of bilateral relations, but both recognize that competition is unavoidable. Both countries will continue to pursue their interests in the region, and neither will apologize for it. But both the United States and China will work together to develop a new relationship that allows them to compete without the total abandonment of the relationship.   

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in World Politics

      In China’s Net City, Opportunity Comes at Uncertain Costs

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      The one thing the city of Shenzhen — whose nearly 13 million people comprise the industrial engine of China’s Guangdong province — seems unwilling to reimagine is its name. The name Shenzhen, which loosely translates to “irrigation ditch” or “drainage dump,” is the only piece of the city’s incredible story that remains stuck in the past.

      Beginning in 2020, Shenzhen, in partnership with Chinese tech behemoth Tencent and NBBJ Architects, embarked on the design of a coastal, sustainable, state-of-the-art neighborhood called Net City to serve as the exclamation point capping Shenzhen’s status as China’s Silicon Valley. And yet, upon its completion in 2027, Net City, like Shenzhen itself, will represent far more than just another technology company’s tricked-out corporate campus. In fact, Net City might just set the global standard for urban development in the 21st century. That is if it can navigate the perilous waters that have sunk so many similarly intentioned projects in the past.

      Policies, Principles, People

      Green, tech-infused infrastructure is no longer groundbreaking in and of itself, but neither is the desire of major global firms to directly fund urban investment as a business strategy. Examples of this often quixotic foray range from Google’s disappointing but understandable discontinuation of investments in a Toronto smart city project to Fordlandia, Ford Motor Company’s failed Amazonian utopia chronicled brilliantly in Greg Grandin’s 2009 award-winning book. For both the Googles of today and those of generations past, it appears that products remain significantly easier to manufacture than physical places.

      Any local economic development professional, or for that matter anyone who has tried to renovate a kitchen, will tell you that construction projects, no matter their scale, are marked by an eternal struggle between the perfect and the possible. What, then, can set Tencent’s Net City apart from these previous failures? To borrow the time-honored language of geopolitical analysis, the potential answers come in three “buckets”: policies, principles and people.

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      On the policy front, the analysis must begin with the fact that there exists no better example of the opening of markets, however gradually and cautiously, as an accelerant for innovation, growth and prosperity than Shenzhen. It is stunning how much economic dynamism has been unleashed in this former fishing village over the past few decades, and the same innovation-spurring economic policy framework that enabled the city’s rise will similarly nurture the growth and ongoing vitality of the Net City project as it matures.

      That said, Shenzhen is not the only part of China that has grown. And, in immediate relevance to Net City, it would not be the only place where China has invested untold billions only to end up with what are commonly referred to now as ghost cities. A Net City skeptic might point to both the ambiguous nature of the true costs of this ambitious urban development and those still unoccupied, debt-funded townscapes littering China’s interior still awaiting their first residents as the fodder for their wariness.

      Product and Place

      Skeptics are also right to cite the lingering uncertainty of COVID-19 and fissures with nearby Hong Kong as risks to the sizable foreign direct investment Shenzhen has enjoyed throughout its rise. While the Chinese government and Tencent have every incentive to ensure the successful development of Net City, even these giants are not immune to the conditions of the world economy and thus should double down on the (relatively) open policy frameworks and diversified, reliable financing strategies that have thus far enabled Shenzhen’s rise.

      Next, as it relates to the principles upon which Net City has unapologetically been founded, its focused, intentional blending of work and leisure with the natural world place sustainability at its core in a manner and at a scale no previous corporate community can claim. Limitations on cars in favor of pedestrian-friendly walkable spaces coupled with reliance on renewable energy sources will provide a rising China with beautiful, tangible evidence that it, too, is taking steps to combat climate change and to shape the next century of life on this planet in ways the rest of the world might cheer.

      These commitments to sustainability, while encouraging, cannot only be for show. Net City provides China with an opportunity to demonstrate not only its desire to lead the world as a center of innovation, but as an upholder of the shared values and responsibilities that come with the terra firma for any global power.

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      Lastly, as it relates to the people who will someday call this new neighborhood home, it is possible that no single neighborhood in the world has ever rooted itself so enthusiastically in the philosophy of user-centered design as Net City. The blurring of lines between work and play to come upon its completion will pale in comparison to the implications of Net City’s more meta-level, but no less intentional, blurring of product and place. But just as fatefully as the designers of Fordlandia discovered that places are not products, so too must Net City’s master planners remember that people are not products either.

      Net City’s development has begun at a moment when the familiar dueling concepts of work and life have also merged into one amorphous, quarantine soup of time and space. While billions around the world cannot wait to return to certain elements of pre-COVID work-life balance, a more realistic forecaster will admit that work and life have become intertwined in ways that have transformed experiences on both fronts and will not soon be undone.

      This march may appear inevitable, but it remains an open question how much further people will willingly participate in the elimination of boundaries between home and work, of private and public spaces and of restrictions instead of rights. Whether discussing a new piece of technology or a new smart city, the tired bargain between new features and old freedoms is a false one. Smart cities need not — and should not — dangle the possibility of positive environmental outcomes behind the acceptance of stricter, tech-fueled surveillance states.

      The ongoing development of this initiative will fascinate global analysts for the majority of the next decade that stands to reveal the level of commitment its designers have to the lofty promises they have made at its outset. But beneath all that potential and possibility Net City might also reveal the answer to a deeper question: Is the internet a place we want to live?

      *[Fair Observer is a media partner of Young Professionals in Foreign Policy.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in US Politics

      Pompeo lifts US-Taiwan restrictions in move likely to anger China

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      Secretary of state Mike Pompeo on Saturday said he was lifting restrictions on contacts between US officials and their Taiwanese counterparts, a move likely to anger China and increase tensions between Beijing and Washington in the waning days of Donald Trump’s presidency.China claims democratic and separately ruled Taiwan as its own territory, and regularly describes Taiwan as the most sensitive issue in its ties with the US.While the US, like most countries, has no official relations with Taiwan, the Trump administration has ramped up support, with arms sales and laws to help Taiwan deal with pressure from China.In a statement, Pompeo said that for several decades the US state department had created complex internal restrictions on interactions with Taiwanese counterparts by American diplomats, service members and other officials.“The United States government took these actions unilaterally, in an attempt to appease the Communist regime in Beijing,” Pompeo said. “Today I am announcing that I am lifting all of these self-imposed restrictions.”The US ambassador to the United Nations, Kelly Craft, will visit Taiwan next week for meetings with senior Taiwanese leaders, prompting China to warn on Thursday that the Trump administration was playing with fire.Chinese fighter jets approached the island in August and September during the last two visits: by US health secretary Alex Azar and under secretary of state Keith Krach.The US is Taiwan’s strongest international backer and arms supplier, and is obliged to help provide it with the means to defend itself under the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act.“Today’s statement recognizes that the US-Taiwan relationship need not, and should not, be shackled by self-imposed restrictions of our permanent bureaucracy,” Pompeo said. More

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      in World Politics

      Kim Jung-un’s Understanding of Self-Reliance

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      Like Diogenes wandering through the streets of Athens seeking an honest man, The Guardian seems to have stumbled across the first political leader willing to recognize the disappointing reality of his own politics. Who is that rare honest leader? North Korea’s ruler, Kim Jong-un. The Guardian offers this headline: “North Korea: Kim Jong-un says economic plan a near-total failure at rare political meeting.”

      Unlike his good friend Donald Trump, Kim has the luxury of not having to appeal to the masses for votes to hold on to power. And unlike Trump, he can afford to admit failure, even disastrous failure. Al Jazeera reports Kim’s admission that “the country’s economic development plan had fallen short in ‘almost all areas.’” Unlike Western leaders who blame the opposition for undermining their cherished programs, Kim, having eliminated or assassinated any pretenders, has no opposition to blame. That makes it less risky to admit his own failings. It also permits him to propose the solutions to those problems while being certain they will be carried out, though less certain about whether they will succeed or fail.

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      The Yonhap news agency quotes its leader as saying that “The surest and fastest way to tackle the current multiple challenges facing us is to make every possible effort to strengthen our own power and our own self-reliant capacity.”

      Today’s Daily Devil’s Dictionary definition:

      Self-reliant:

      Indifferent to the regard of others, free to operate with no consideration of one’s eventual critics and only suspicion of their intentions.

      Contextual Note

      Self-reliance has long been considered the preeminent virtue in US culture. The iconic 19th-century philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote a famous essay with the title “Self-Reliance.” He quoted lines by Beaumont and Fletcher, contemporaries of Shakespeare:

      “Man is his own star; and the soul that can

      Render an honest and a perfect man,

      Commands all light, all influence, all fate.”

      For Emerson, self-reliance concerned the virtuous individual who can, through self-direction, become “honest” and “perfect,” meeting Diogenes’ strict requirement. Kim’s idea of self-reliance is the opposite. It has nothing to do with individuals. But for all their radical opposition, history has revealed a link between the two. For Kim, it is the state that must be self-reliant. Individual North Koreans under his regime must behave in conformity with his laws and rules. To Emerson’s assertion, “Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist,” Kim would respond, “Whoso fails to conform undermines the ability of the state to remain self-reliant.”

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      What do these totally opposed versions of self-reliance tell us about the world we live in today? They define two extremes on the spectrum of responsibility. Emerson assumes that the “self” in the expression “self-reliance” is an individual with the liberty to oppose the surrounding society. Kim assumes that “self” is the nation, in opposition to all other nations. Everyone must identify with the national self to assert and maintain its independence. Anthropologists sum this up as two easily recognizable cultural orientations: Western individualism versus Asian collectivism.

      Emerson enjoined his readers to brave the opinions of others: “What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think.” Although it was far from Emerson’s intention, successive generations of Americans interpreted his dictum as an obligation to focus only on their interests and desires. During the 20th century, Americans increasingly viewed themselves as autonomous individuals largely indifferent to the opinions of others. This produced a trend toward solipsism and narcissism, never more evident than in the personality of Donald Trump. Emerson, the moral philosopher, would have been shocked. He assumed the existence of a social consciousness because of what he called the “divine idea which each of us represents.”

      The subsequent romanticization of the idea of self-reliance, symbolized in the figures of Western pioneers and the lone cowboys, opened the floodgates to what would become the consumer society, ordered and managed by commercial interests. This led to an increasingly exacerbated form of consumerist individualism whose paradoxical effect was to create a new conformity in consumer habits that could no longer be challenged by a call to non-conformity. Nevertheless, Emerson’s expressed one idea that Kim might easily agree with: “Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.” Emerson saw this as applying to every individual American. Kim applies it only to himself, as the unique “mind” of his nation.

      Historical Note

      In his 1947 essay “The Engineering of Consent,” Edward Bernays, credited with inventing the profession of public relations, noted that broadcast media had radically transformed American culture. “All these media,” he wrote, “provide open doors to the public mind.” Bernays believed he was giving a practical application of the theories of his uncle, Sigmund Freud, about the unconscious and the role of raw impulses in human behavior. Bernays had been applying his new “science” of public relations to both business and politics for decades. In his 1928 book, “Propaganda,” he described his strategies as the “conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses” and claimed that it was “an important element in democratic society.”

      Freud would probably have disagreed with Bernays’ contention that “conscious and intelligent manipulation” of unconscious drives was a good thing. The founder of psychoanalysis famously wrote “wo Es war soll Ich werden,” which literally means “where it was I shall be.” American psychoanalysts have preferred another translation, “where the id was the ego shall be,” referring to Freud’s nomenclature that divides the personality into id, ego and superego. This suggested that the ego should control the id or even replace it. But Freudian purists, such as Jacques Lacan, claim that it should be read in a more mysteriously poetic vein as “I will come to where it was.” It’s more about having a look around the chaotic realm of the id than replacing it with the ego or using it for commercial purposes.   

      If Bernays represents the real impact of Freud’s theories on American culture, as Adam Curtis has demonstrated in “A Century of the Self,” it may paradoxically justify this remark Freud made to Carl Jung at the outset of their trip to America in 1909: “They don’t realize that we are bringing them the plague.” What Freud could not himself realize was that two decades later, his nephew would turn that plague into a devious means of controlling the masses, converting them into passive consumers and provoking a form of voluntary conformism that would prove far more effective than the conformity enforced by despots like Kim Jung-un.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Emerson buttressed his idea of self-reliance by an appeal to the moral laws philosophers deem self-evident. The far more pragmatic Bernays appealed to the American worship of the law to justify his approach. He saw a legal justification for propaganda in the US Constitution. The guarantee of freedom of speech in the Bill of Rights became, in his words, “the right of persuasion.”

      Bernays made it clear that there is something common to all leaders in the age of media: “Any person or organization depends ultimately on public approval, and is therefore faced with the problem of engineering the public’s consent to a program or goal. We expect our elected government officials to try to engineer our consent — through the network of communications open to them — for the measures they propose.”

      Even Kim Jung-un “depends ultimately on public approval,” though not in the form of an election. Kim engineers consent by decree. Whether their name is Thatcher, Reagan, Clinton, Obama, Trump or Blair, nations expect their leaders “to try to engineer our consent,” by exploiting what Bernays already called the “web of communications.” Bernays’ web of communications includes education, just as Kim’s does. It seeks “to bring about as complete an understanding as possible.” “Understanding” translates as approval of the programs the leaders promote, without having to “wait for the people to arrive at even general understanding.” People, for Bernays, are slow at understanding.

      In 1953, Bernays designed the propaganda campaign that permitted the CIA to overthrow Guatemala’s popular, democratically elected president, Jacopo Arbenz. The team of Bernays, President Eisenhower and the Dulles brothers — Secretary of State John Foster and CIA Director Allen — engineered a faultless consensus that Kim Jung-un could only envy. Propaganda is the thing leaders can always rely on.

      *[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on Fair Observer.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in World Politics

      Asia’s Lèse-Majesté Laws Are a Futile Attempt to Stifle Dissent

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      There are currently six countries in Asia with royal families: Japan, Malaysia, Cambodia, Bhutan, Brunei and Thailand. Each possesses unique lèse-majesté laws, which criminalize insults against the monarch and members of the royal family. In Malaysia, Cambodia and Thailand, a disturbing trend of censorship under the guise of lèse-majesté has been escalating for years. The history, rationale and application of these laws can shed insights on their claim to legitimacy, what they perceive to be threats, and whether they have evolved into a new form of censorship disguised by calls for respect and propriety.

      In Japan, the last lèse-majesté conviction occurred in 1946, when a factory worker held up a placard mocking the emperor during postwar food shortages. However, the accused was soon pardoned under an imperial amnesty commemorating the new constitution, which does not include lèse-majesté articles. Under the new constitution, the emperor was protected as an individual and as a symbolic head of state, with an emphasis placed on respect rather than an acknowledgment of exalted status. Japan is a constitutional monarchy, with parliament controlling the government and the emperor holding a largely ceremonial role. However, a constitutional monarchy is no guarantee of reasonable lèse-majesté laws.

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      In Malaysia, while the Malay home minister had said that there was no need for lèse-majesté laws, the Sedition Act of 1948 is more than enough to serve the same purpose. A colonial relic, the legislation bans any act or speech of “seditious tendency” against the government or any of the country’s nine sultans. Calls for reforms have been repeatedly delayed, and at least 97 cases of social media users criticizing Malay rulers have been investigated. In a country with multiple ethnicities and religions, social harmony is cited as the basis for the law and dissidents are blamed for inciting division.

      Cambodia adopted its own lèse-majesté laws in 2018, allowing prosecutors to file suit on behalf of the monarchy against anyone deemed to be insulting it. Punishments range from prison terms and fines unaffordable for most Cambodians. The first application of the new legislation occurred when a teacher was arrested for his comments on Facebook accusing the king of the dissolution of the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP). The CNRP was the sole challenger to the ruling Cambodia People’s Party and, months later, a CNRP deputy leader was likewise accused of lèse-majesté.

      While Bhutan does not have lèse-majesté provisions, Section 317 of its penal code relating to defamation has been applied against a journalist who shared an online petition against a business mogul. The mogul also happens to be the father-in-law of the chief justice of Bhutan, himself a royal appointee, and criticism against royally appointed officials can be seen as direct criticism of the monarch. 

      Sources on Brunei’s lèse-majesté laws are scant, but the deputy director of the Royal Brunei Police Force had previously made a complaint of defamation to the Indonesian police. The deputy director is himself a member of the Brunei royal family, and the complaint was made over an Instagram account that posted pictures of Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah with insulting comments. There were no further reports on this complaint and the offending photos were later deleted from the account.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Of the six countries, Thailand has by far applied its lèse-majesté laws most aggressively, and the number of convictions is on the rise. Before 2020, the last cases under the legislation were prosecuted in 2018, and Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha has attributed the drop to the mercy of King Vajiralongkorn. However, cases rose in parallel with protests that began in July last year, calling for Prayuth’s resignation, the revision of the constitution and reform of the monarchy.

      The protest leaders have been charged with lèse-majesté, and the Thai government is now prosecuting social media giants for not curtailing posts critical of the royal family. Article 112 of Thailand’s criminal code specifies that anyone who “defames, insults or threatens the king, the queen, the heir-apparent or the regent” will be punished with a jail term between three and 15 years, while the Thai Constitution also states that “No person shall expose the King to any sort of accusation or action.” Individuals charged or investigated under lèse-majesté legislation include a BBC correspondent, a US ambassador, a celebrity fortune-teller as well as activists and ordinary folks sharing posts on social media.

      The previous United Nations special rapporteur on the promotion of freedom of opinion and expression, David Kaye, had called the provisions “incompatible with international human rights law.” The law allows anyone to file a complaint, and the minimum sentence of three years makes it impossible for judges to reduce jail time for civilians who must work to support their families.

      Needless to say, if criticism of the monarchy is automatically equated with disrespect, there is little room for a free press to perform its role as a watchdog in countries like Cambodia, Malaysia and Thailand. Taken to the extreme, lèse-majesté laws can create an environment filled with fear and petty denunciations, but they are unlikely to completely squelch public dissatisfaction. Soviet-era censorship gave birth to a culture of satire and circumvention tactics, and while social media may make policing personal opinions easier, it also spreads the word of dissent much faster between the like-minded. In some cases at least, trying to quash criticism may be the best way to draw attention to it.

      *[Fair Observer is a media partner of Young Professionals in Foreign Policy.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      Joe Biden Will Face a Much-Changed and Skeptical World

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      Joe Biden was not elected for his positions on foreign policy and national security. Few US presidential candidates are. In his debates with outgoing President Donald Trump prior to the election, those issues were hardly discussed. So, the success or failure of the Biden presidency will not be determined by foreign policy.

      For President-elect Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, domestic policy will dominate their time and efforts. Overcoming the coronavirus pandemic, ensuring that newly released vaccines are quickly and effectively administered, and righting a still stressed US economy will be their top priorities in the first year. It is what the American people want and expect. Furthermore, there is America’s worsening and more pernicious longer-term problems: increasing economic inequality, continuing racial injustice and growing political polarization.

      Joe Biden and America’s Second Reconstruction

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      These will be profoundly difficult problems to address successfully, especially as President Biden could face a US Senate controlled by the Republican Party and a thinner Democratic Party majority in the House of Representatives.

      First, Image Repair

      Nevertheless, after four years of an unprecedentedly destructive foreign policy and simply by virtue of the fact he will lead still the world’s most powerful and wealthiest nation, Joe Biden cannot ignore foreign policy. In fact, amidst his formidable domestic challenges, he must confront serious foreign policy challenges vital to America’s interests and to those of its many friends and allies around the world.

      We may already have caught a glimpse of how different Joe Biden’s foreign policy will be from Donald Trump’s, considering the first officials named to his senior foreign policy team: Antony Blinken as secretary of state, Linda Thomas-Greenfield as US ambassador to the UN with cabinet rank, Jake Sullivan as national security adviser, Avril Haines as director of National Intelligence and Katherine Tai as the US trade representative. They are all highly experienced, proven, knowledgeable, principled and committed public servants. Under President Trump, we saw few of those and many more self-interested, self-promoting political hacks and ideologues.

      One of the first jobs Biden must tackle is America’s badly damaged reputation around the world. Donald Trump undermined critical alliances, pointlessly insulted and demeaned allies, abandoned international agreements and institutions, embraced autocrats and dictators from Russia to North Korea, discarded traditional free trade principles and turned America’s back on core values of human rights, democracy and rule of law. In short, it was a side of America no one had ever seen, certainly not in the history of the modern presidency. Most profoundly, it raised the question: Who is America?

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      Joe Biden must try to answer that question, and not just with the eloquent prose of President Barack Obama, under whom he served as vice president. The world expects and will demand to see concrete action, preferably guided by some overarching policy that can show to the world that the United States can still play — and indeed, must play — a leadership role again on the global stage.

      There are some decisions that Joe Biden has indicated he will make right out of the starting block when he takes office on January 20. He will rejoin the Paris Climate Agreement and the World Health Organization. Those are relatively easy and straightforward but also very necessary. He is also likely to make clear in his inauguration address that America will return to be the leading voice for democracy, human rights and rule of law in the world, starting first at home but also unafraid to speak in their defense abroad.

      Then begins the hard part. One priority he has made clear that his administration will take on immediately is reaffirming American membership in and commitment to its alliances and critical partnerships. These constitute America’s competitive advantage in global affairs and remain the heart of its still formidable soft power in the world. After Trump’s destructive practices, Biden will have to appeal to America’s allies in Europe, e.g., NATO and the EU, and in Asia and the Pacific, like Japan, South Korea, Australia and others. And he’ll have to do it with humility, understanding that under his predecessor, America seemingly abandoned principles that had previously united them all.

      China: Work With Allies, Pursue Hard-nosed Diplomacy

      China will be Joe Biden’s biggest challenge. On trade, defense, the South China Sea, Taiwan, cybersecurity, human rights and global leadership, China presents a daunting challenge. We should expect his administration to drive a hard bargain with Beijing but to use a very different approach than his predecessor. Pursued smartly, however, he may be surprised by the inherent advantages America still holds. For example, fortifying the alliances and partnerships as previously mentioned will aid his administration in addressing the China challenge. In fact, if he is to succeed on this account, he will need those allies and partners with him at the negotiating table. Another advantage: He will likely have bipartisan support in an otherwise partisan Congress for taking a strong position on China.

      Trade is the clearest area where the US can capitalize on its extensive network of allies. China’s most important trading relationships — those with the EU and the East Asian nations — also happen to be America’s closest allies. The most effective approach will be one that joins their efforts with the administration to address China’s aggressive and predatory trade practices. Those range from intellectual property theft to intimidation and threats against foreign businesses to coopting confidential and proprietary techniques, practices and technology. But this approach works only if the new administration can establish that it can be trusted again, and not only on trade. If the US can succeed in its trade negotiations with China, it opens opportunities on other fronts.

      The objective must be clear: The US isn’t interested in standing in China’s way as it progresses to superpower status. However, China must understand that it must do so within an international community governed by collaboratively set rules.

      Renewed US Global Leadership: Climate and Global Health

      Climate and global health are two other priority issues for Biden. He has indicated he will want not only to reestablish America’s commitment to them but also to take the lead. Rejoining the Paris accords won’t be enough. The US must marshal a critical mass of other nations in joining a reinvigorated effort to go beyond the mandates of Paris. In that, he’s likely to garner support from the EU and other developed nations. Appointing former Secretary of State John Kerry as his special envoy on climate change demonstrates Biden’s seriousness about the issue and the intention to take a much-needed lead role on this global existential challenge.

      Embed from Getty Images

      The COVID-19 pandemic raging at home makes it imperative that President-elect Biden make global health security a clear foreign policy priority. If there is one thing Americans have learned from the novel coronavirus, it’s that there is no greater threat to America’s national security and economic prosperity than another pandemic, especially one perhaps more catastrophic than COVID-19. If America is to be better prepared for the next pandemic, so must be the rest of the world.

      As he did for climate, Biden may even wish to name a special envoy for global health to begin galvanizing America’s efforts and those of the rest of the world to prepare and coordinate global initiatives for preventing, containing and treating the next pandemic.

      Climate and global health present the Biden administration with just the sort of challenge-cum-opportunity to which America was known to rise in the past. They are issues on which it is uniquely positioned to lead by virtue of its power, size, wealth and technological prowess. To reassume the mantle of global leadership, President-elect Biden must lead the global effort to combat climate change and strengthen the international community’s capacity to address pandemics.

      In the Middle East, Iran and Then Everything Else

      Unlike for the US administrations dating back to Jimmy Carter, the Middle East will not be a top-five priority in 2021. Americans have lost their appetite for inserting themselves into problems that the region’s residents cannot or will not work to resolve themselves. Biden and his foreign policy team recognize this, even as they know they can’t turn their backs on this dangerously volatile region.

      But there remains one exception. Iran is a grave problem, perhaps less for the US than for Washington’s allies in the Middle East, most especially Israel and Saudi Arabia. It also constitutes a major challenge to America’s traditionally unflinching support for the Nonproliferation Treaty. Nothing could be more destabilizing in that region than the introduction of nuclear weapons. It will require almost immediate attention from President Biden.

      The Trump administration’s policy of “maximum pressure” via its punishing sanctions has indeed inflicted enormous economic pain on Iran and its people. But it hasn’t changed Tehran’s behavior. Iran today has begun to reconstitute the nuclear program that had been effectively contained under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), negotiated under President Obama in 2015 and then abandoned by Trump in 2018.

      The purpose of the sanctions cannot be inflicting pain on the Iranian people, who are not responsible for their government’s policies. The objective of sanctions and an overall policy toward Iran must be to change its behavior. By that measurement, the Trump administration’s pressure campaign has not worked. Iran continues to: develop and build longer-range missiles; support malign behavior through the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its Shia proxies throughout the region, from Iraq and Yemen to Syria and Lebanon; senselessly threaten Israel; and deny the most basic human rights to its own citizens, most especially women, journalists, perceived political opponents and religious minorities.

      Whatever trust President Obama and then-Secretary of State Kerry may have been able to build with the Iranians in reaching the JCPOA has been largely destroyed now. So, short of immediately rejoining that agreement, which would be unwise, face-to-face negotiations between Washington and Tehran will not be in the offing for at least one year.

      Embed from Getty Images

      In fact, to tackle the Iran question, Biden and Blinken must address the failures of the Obama approach. That will mean: (a) turning to America’s P5+1 partners — the UK, France and Germany — to work out a modus operandi for rejoining the JCPOA while simultaneously securing a commitment to negotiate a stronger JCPOA version 2.0; (b) consulting regularly and frequently with key regional allies to ensure their concerns and interests are addressed in any follow-on agreement with Tehran; and, most important, (c) including key congressional members in the negotiation process, at least on the Washington end. The last is most vital because the absence of Congressional support was ultimately Barack Obama and the agreement’s downfall. Any new accord negotiated must have the support of a majority of the Congress if it is to avoid the fate of the JCPOA, even it isn’t submitted for formal approval to the Congress. All of these are sine qua non for successfully addressing the Iranian challenge and securing a durable solution.

      While the Iran portfolio remains an urgent priority for Joe Biden, it won’t be one resolved in his first year and perhaps not until well into his second. His administration and the Congress must understand that the US cannot not sanction, bomb, assassinate or otherwise forcibly compel Iran into complying with its norms for behavior. It will take patient, deliberate and determined diplomacy.

      Can’t Ignore the Rest

      These are likely to be President Biden’s top priorities. But they won’t be his only ones. His administration and the US also face serious challenges from a menacing and malign Russia, an arms control agreement with whom due to expire within weeks of his taking office; still extant terrorism and cybersecurity threats; a wave of autocrats with a full head of steam, from Turkey and Hungary to Venezuela and the Philippines; ill-behaved and irrationally aggressive regional actors vying for preeminence in the Middle East; continuing conflict and humanitarian crises in the Middle East, Africa and the Caucasus and elsewhere.

      Joe Biden will be the most experienced and knowledgeable president on foreign policy since George H.W. Bush. As such, he surely knows that it is issues like these that can suddenly rise to crisis proportions and take over his foreign policy or even his presidency. So, they won’t be far from his attention. But a clear-eyed view of what is most important will drive Biden toward those highlighted above.

      However, there is likely to be a critically important domestic component of the Biden foreign policy agenda. This gets to the Achilles heel of previous administrations’ foreign policies that Donald Trump cleverly exploited. Biden and his administration must be able to convincingly articulate to the American people a foreign policy that they will see as in their interests. That will mean a policy that protects American jobs, addresses threats to climate and the environment, ensures security and offers a promise of a better future.

      Crafting a policy that meets these criteria may be Joe Biden’s biggest challenge, especially in view of the historic disconnect between foreign policy and the American people and polarization of the American public exacerbated by four years of Donald Trump. But if this administration is to be successful in confronting and capitalizing on America’s many challenges abroad, it must be able to show that it holds the interests of Americans uppermost — and that they stand behind this policy.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      The Road Leading to the India-China Standoff

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      The reason for the China-India standoff in the Galwan Valley may not be the oft-mentioned construction of the Darbuk-Shyok-Daulat Beg Oldie (DSDBO) road. The new thoroughfare improved Indian logistics in the Ladakh area, meaning that supplies and troops can be deployed with far greater speed. While the DSDBO might have irked China, Beijing has deeper …
      Continue Reading “The Road Leading to the India-China Standoff”
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      UK and US lock in behind Australia in China row

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      The British government has vowed to stand with Australia to “protect our key interests and values” and push back at “disinformation” amid a deepening rift in Canberra’s relationship with Beijing.The American ambassador to Australia also accused a Chinese foreign ministry official of spreading “disinformation through fabricated images and disingenuous statements” about Australia.The United Kingdom and the United States are the latest countries to speak out in support of Australia, after France and New Zealand criticised China over an official tweeting a digitally-created image depicting an Australian soldier cutting the throat of a child in Afghanistan.China has accused Australia of overreacting to the tweet and hyping the issue for domestic political purposes.When asked about the tweeted image, a spokesperson for the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office told the Guardian the foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, “has made clear we will always stand shoulder to shoulder with Australia to make sure that we protect our key interests and values”.“Disinformation is an issue we take extremely seriously and we will continue to coordinate closely with Australia and other international partners to ensure our citizens are protected,” the spokesperson said.The Guardian understands the British government believes that China, as a leading member of the international community, should live up to the obligations that come with that. It views the tweeted image as clearly fake and deeply concerning.When asked in the House of Commons last month about China’s escalating trade actions against Australia, Raab indicated he had regular exchanges with the Australian foreign minister, Marise Payne, and expressed “solidarity”.Raab said the UK was also working alongside Australia and the other Five Eyes partners – the US, Canada and New Zealand – on issues such as the crackdown on pro-democracy movements in Hong Kong.The US ambassador to Australia, Arthur Culvahouse, responded to questions from the Guardian by saying the Australian government had “responsibly investigated and disclosed allegations that its soldiers committed crimes in Afghanistan”.“The world can only wish that the Chinese Communist party were to bring the same degree of transparency and accountability to credible reports of atrocities against the Uighurs in Xinjiang,” Culvahouse, who was appointed by Donald Trump, said in an emailed statement on Wednesday.Those sentiments were backed by the US State Department’s deputy spokesperson, Cale Brown, who described the Afghanistan tweet as “a new low, even for the Chinese Communist party”.The CCP’s latest attack on Australia is another example of its unchecked use of disinformation and coercive diplomacy. Its hypocrisy is obvious to all. While it doctors images on @Twitter to attack other nations, the CCP prevents its own citizens from reading their posts.— Cale Brown (@StateDeputySPOX) December 2, 2020
      The Florida senator Marco Rubio wrote to the chief executive of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, to ask why the tweet had not been taken down. A Twitter spokesperson has previously said the image contained within the tweet had been “marked as sensitive media”, meaning it is hidden behind a warning message by default.On Tuesday, Scott Morrison turned to the popular Chinese social media platform WeChat to reach out to the Chinese Australian community.The prime minister sought to make clear that the escalating tensions between the two governments – which led last week to the imposition of hefty tariffs on Australian wine – were not a reflection on Chinese Australians.Morrison wrote that “the post of a false image of an Australian soldier does not diminish our respect for and appreciation of our Chinese Australian community or indeed our friendship with the people of China”.The prime minister said the “difficult issues” that had arisen in the Inspector-General of the Australian Defence Force’s report into alleged war crimes by special forces soldiers in Afghanistan were being dealt with in a “transparent and honest way”.Earlier this week, when he demanded an apology from the Chinese government over the tweet by Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian, Morrison said the dispute was broader than just the two countries, and that other nations were watching.Zhao’s tweet seized on the findings of a recent report from a four-year official investigation into the conduct of Australian special forces soldiers in Afghanistan, known as the Brereton report.Another Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson, Hua Chunying, held up the front page of the Brereton report at Tuesday’s regular press briefing in Beijing as she declared that the “computer-generated graphic” was not a case of disinformation.“The Australian side … is under immense criticism and condemnation from the international community for the ruthless killing of Afghan innocents by some of its soldiers, but the Australian side wants to turn that into a tough-on-China position,” Hua said.The Chinese embassy in Canberra urged the Australian government to “face up to the crux of the current setback of bilateral relationship and take constructive practical steps to help bring it back to the right track”.“The rage and roar of some Australian politicians and media is nothing but misreading of and overreaction to Mr Zhao’s tweet,” an embassy spokesperson said.The former senior Australian foreign affairs official Richard Maude told the Guardian on Tuesday there was no end in sight to the rift in the relationship with Beijing, and it was a “pretty lonely and tough battle for a middle power to be in on its own”.“What we really need is enough countries to be willing to publicly take a stand,” Maude said.Australia and China have been at odds over a number of issues over the past few years, including the Turnbull government’s decision to exclude Chinese telcos Huawei and ZTE from Australia’s 5G network and its introduction of foreign interference laws that were seen as targeting China’s activities.But the relationship deteriorated sharply in April when the Morrison government issued an early call for an independent international inquiry into the origin and handling of Covid-19 and floated the idea of international weapons inspector-style powers for pandemic investigations.It triggered a furious reaction from Beijing, which has subsequently taken trade actions against a range of Australian exports including barley, red meat and wine, citing technical grounds. More