WEIRD, IT’S USUALLY THE OTHER WAY AROUND: China Is Doing Biden’s Work for Him.
If President Joe Biden’s trip to Asia—marked as it was by his comments on the defense of Taiwan, announcements on a proposed new regional trade pact, and meetings with leaders who exhibit similar levels of concern about a rising China—has shown the persistence of American global power, it has also revealed something of equal importance: Beijing’s failure to translate economic might into political dominance, even in its own backyard.
Biden today concluded a summit of the leaders of the Quad—a security partnership including Australia, India, Japan, and the United States—who issued a joint statement chockablock with references to promoting democracy, a rules-based global order, and peaceful resolution of disputes. That came a day after Biden announced the formation of the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, a partnership with 13 countries as diverse as South Korea, Vietnam, and New Zealand. Notably absent from all of this was China. Biden’s trip exhibited Washington’s continued ability to rally other nations behind its standard, and in initiatives overtly targeted against the region’s supposedly rising superpower.
The script wasn’t meant to read this way. As China grew in economic importance, its smaller neighbors would, the thinking went, inevitably and inexorably be drawn into its orbit, while U.S. power would correspondingly fade, ushered along by its own political divisions and percolating isolationism.
That’s Michael Schuman writing for The Atlantic, where bad ideas often go to achieve immortality.
Most sensible people watching Communist China’s rise predicted that its smaller neighbors — from whom China historically expected tribute and vassalage — would be drawn to the US as a counterbalance. More importantly, a counterbalance with no territorial ambitions or desire for tribute.
It took a concerted effort on the part of Barack Obama and his Administration to throw a monkey wrench into that process, and a brief show of American resolve from Donald Trump to get it underway again.
Joe Biden has yet to screw it up again, but don’t underestimate his ability to do so.