The US must now repair democracy at home and abroad
"The US and China finally get real with each other"
Thomas Wright Monday, January 11, 2021
Order from Chaos
Editor's Note: For the United States to lose confidence in its own ability to protect democracy abroad would be to hand Trump and Trumpism a victory when he is on the verge of defeat. It is precisely because American democracy is under pressure at home that the U.S. government ought to stand up for it overseas, argues Thomas Wright. This piece originally appeared in The Atlantic.
Thomas Wright Director - Center on the United States and Europe Senior Fellow - Foreign Policy, Project on International Order and Strategy thomaswright08 .. http://www.twitter.com/thomaswright08
Writing in Foreign Policy, Emma Ashford, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, argued .. https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/01/07/america-cant-promote-protect-democracy-abroad/ , “Ambitious foreign-policy goals are completely out of step with the realities of the country’s domestic political and economic dysfunction … How can the United States spread democracy or act as an example for others if it barely has a functioning democracy at home?” In Foreign Affairs, James Goldgeier, a professor at American University, and Bruce Jentleson, a professor at Duke University, called .. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2021-01-09/united-states-needs-democracy-summit-home .. on President-elect Joe Biden to abandon his proposed international summit for democracy and hold a domestic one instead. Richard Haass, the president of the Council on Foreign Relations, lamented .. https://twitter.com/RichardHaass/status/1346934657623838723 .. on Twitter that “it will be a long time before we can credibly advocate for the rule of law” overseas.
However, it would be wrong to conclude that our current humiliation means that the United States has somehow lost its standing to speak up for democracy and human rights globally, or that these ideals are less pressing because of our domestic troubles. Quite the opposite. Our situation shows that the United States has a real stake in the struggle.
Repairing democracy at home is not incompatible with standing up for democracy abroad; they are mutually reinforcing. The threats to democracy are not unique to the United States. Trumpism is part of a global nationalist-populist movement that benefits from international networks of kleptocracy, disinformation, and corruption. As Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren noted during the Democratic presidential primary, taking down these networks is a necessary prerequisite for restoring democracy and the rule of law at home.
Many of the long-term threats to democracy—disinformation and the lack of an objective truth, political interference by China and Russia, inequities in the global economy, and fears about interdependence and globalization—can only be addressed collectively. And American allies still want the country’s help. Allied officials have told me in recent days that although they are worried about what’s happening in the United States, they would regard it as a “disaster” if the U.S. abandoned its leadership role in strengthening liberal democracy globally.
- To insist that we must first “get our house in order” before speaking to others’ oppression, to be so ashamed by our own shortcomings that we refrain from calling out abuses abroad, and thus to withhold our solidarity from the abused, would itself be an act of moral abdication. -
After four years of Donald Trump and rising authoritarianism around the world, we now live in what former U.K. Foreign Secretary David Miliband has labeled .. https://www.rescue.org/press-release/welcome-age-impunity-david-milibands-world-economic-forum-speech .. the “age of impunity,” when governments believe that they can get away with anything, largely because they can. If the United States does not push back against this, it will only get worse.
In the days after the insurrection, the Chinese embassy in Washington tweeted .. https://twitter.com/ChineseEmbinUS/status/1347247602094534658 .. a horribly offensive statement about the forced sterilization of Uighur women in Xinjiang, China, that was later taken down by Twitter. The post could be interpreted as a deliberate provocation to show that, as the United States fell into crisis, China could push the boundaries of acceptable discourse. Earlier in the week, China arrested scores of prodemocracy activists in Hong Kong in its efforts to slowly strangle the last remnants of freedom in the city.
Perhaps denunciation of these actions and a renewed focus in Congress on how to respond would sound hollow because of America’s domestic problems, but that does not make them any less necessary. Beijing may argue that the United States lacks credibility, but its victims certainly would not.
Unlike the Trump administration, the Biden team has signaled that it is willing to get tough with American allies and other countries when they commit human-rights abuses or undermine democracy—including the Saudi Arabian government’s murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi and the imprisonment of women-right’s activists. Many domestic critics of U.S. foreign policy have long argued for these actions. Because America elected—and then rejected—a populist who incites violence, it would be a very unfortunate irony if his newly elected replacement would shy away from holding to account an absolute monarchy that sends teams abroad .. https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/07/how-saudi-arabia-makes-dissidents-disappear .. to kidnap and sometimes murder its critics.
Moments of crisis and despair should force us to confront our own failings and reconcile them with our values and purpose. Sometimes, an individual can articulate that in a way that resonates and breaks through. This time, that eloquence came from a member of the U.S. Foreign Service, a group that has been attacked and undermined by the Trump administration. Two days after the invasion of the Capitol, Natalie Brown, the U.S. ambassador to Uganda, issued a statement .. https://ug.usembassy.gov/statement-by-u-s-ambassador-natalie-e-brown-on-the-january-6-attack-on-the-u-s-capitol-building-and-the-nurturing-of-democracy/ ..that explained why the United States must still stand for freedom and the rule of law:
- When we speak out against human rights abuses, we do so not because such abuses do not occur in America. When we speak out for press freedom, we do so not because American journalists are entirely free of harassment. When we call for judicial independence, we do so not because judges in America are free of external influence. On the contrary, we do so because we are mindful of the work still to be done in the American experiment with democracy and because our history has taught us that democracy must be defended if it is to endure. -
The U.S. certainly has lessons to learn from the past few days, and years. For example, the Trump administration used .. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/07/pompeos-surreal-speech-on-china/614596/ .. democracy and human rights purely instrumentally, as weapons with which to bludgeon its enemies—China, Venezuela, Cuba—while giving its friends a pass and undermining these values at home. That approach is bankrupt and will fail if tried again.
Biden transition officials have admirably spoken out in support of human rights and seem likely to continue to do so. The president-elect likes to talk about the “power of our example rather than the example of our power.” He is right, of course, but the sad truth is that the power of our example will not be sufficient to fight authoritarianism worldwide. The urgency and gravity of the struggle is such that it requires concrete action as well as strong words. These could include legislation to prohibit U.S. companies from aiding and abetting authoritarian governments in their acts of repression. It should also mean imposing a cost on U.S. allies that undermine democracy—for instance, banning their leaders from visiting Washington, or even reducing cooperation with them.
Trump, more than any other president, has tried to empower autocrats and undermine liberal democracy. In this, he succeeded for four years. Now we are poised for a reversal. For the United States to lose confidence in its own ability to protect democracy abroad would be to hand Trump and Trumpism a victory when he is on the verge of defeat. It is precisely because American democracy is under pressure at home that the U.S. government ought to stand up for it overseas.
"The US and China finally get real with each other "when we did the 100 country expansion of bases, it was to "keep the peace" in the world, eh? seems like china has not been invading a lot of countries lately, they have about 95 countries to go to become imperially competitive with ours. Let them waste their treasure for awhile, maybe? https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=165691127 [...] Last year, as it anticipated a win for Joe Biden in the U.S. election and then during the transition, China signaled that it wanted to effectively reset the relationship regarding cooperation on climate change and the pandemic. The Biden team saw these overtures for what they were: a trap to get the U.S. to pull back from competing with China in exchange for cooperation that would never really materialize. Biden officials told me that any reset would have been rhetorical only; China would have continued to push forward on all other fronts, including its quest for technological supremacy, its economic coercion of Australia, and its pressure on Taiwan .. https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2020/10/taiwan-us-china-donald-trump/616657/ . P - Had the Biden administration embraced China’s offer, any agreement would have collapsed beneath the weight of Beijing’s actual behavior, as well as opposition in Washington. Biden would have been forced to adjust course and take a more competitive approach anyway, under less favorable conditions, including nervous allies and an emboldened China. P - By skipping this step in favor of a strategy of competitive engagement—meeting with China but seeing it through the lens of competition—the Biden team not only saved time, but it flushed Beijing’s true intentions out into the open for the world to see. In his remarks, contrasting “Chinese-style democracy,” as he called it, with “U.S.-style democracy,” Yang implicitly acknowledged that the U.S.-China relationship is, and will continue to be, defined by a competition between different government systems: authoritarianism and liberal democracy. P - The Biden administration understands that a more assertive U.S. approach is jarring to many in the American foreign-policy establishment, which is accustomed to decades of cautious and cooperative engagement in high-level meetings. But friction is necessary, given China’s play for dominance over the past several years. “It is increasingly difficult to argue that we don’t know what China wants,” said the senior administration official, who asked for anonymity so as to speak freely about the meeting. “They are playing for keeps.” P - Biden’s priority rightly seems to be creating a greater common cause with allies against China," ----
Suhasini Haidar September 20, 2021 13:48 IST Updated: September 21, 2021 13:40 IST
U.S. President Joe Biden, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Australian PM Scott Morrison and Japanese PM Yoshihide Suga.
Emergence of Australia-U.K.-U.S. grouping could overshadow Quad’s geo-strategic aspects
Prime Minister Narendra Modi attending the first-ever in-person summit of the four leaders of the Quadrilateral Framework (Quad) in the Indo-Pacific on Friday in Washington, in many ways, is the highlight of his visit to the U.S., where he will also address the United Nations General Assembly.
U.S. President Joseph Biden had convened a virtual Quad summit with Mr. Modi and his Australian and Japanese counterparts, Scott Morrison and Yoshihide Suga, in March. And he has been keen to hold a physical meeting at the earliest, brushing aside the Tokyo’s reluctance to send Mr. Suga, as he has announced he is stepping down.
Experts say this indicates the U.S.’ intention to show its “America is back” plan with a proactive strategy on the Indo-Pacific, even as it faces criticism for the manner of its pull-out from Afghanistan. There has also been some surprise over the emergence last week of the new trilateral, the Australia-U.K.-U.S. AUKUS Indo-Pacific grouping, which could overshadow the geo-strategic aspects of the Quad, with questions raised about whether the Quad will become “Quad-lite”, dealing mainly with global social issues such as climate change, COVID-19 vaccines and supply chain resilience, while the U.S. allies, who are treaty partners, work on the stronger strategic sphere together.
Free and open Indo-Pacific: While the first iteration of the Quad grouping in 2005-2009, formed in the aftermath of the Asian tsunami, focused on friendly maritime exercises and HADR (Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief), its reprise in 2017 has focused much more on the threat to the Indo-Pacific maritime sphere, mainly from unilateral actions by China on the South China Sea and other disputes. At the March summit, a joint statement issued by the leaders, called the “Spirit of the Quad”, said they would promote a “free, open rules-based order, rooted in international law to advance security and prosperity and counter threats to both in the Indo-Pacific and beyond.” Clearly, given growing tensions between China and each of the Quad countries in the past year, as well as the U.S.’s increasing rhetoric over Taiwan, there is bound to be strong language on this count.
Connectivity and infrastructure projects: The 2017 Quad meetings of officials followed that of the Belt and Road Initiative, and the grouping was seen as an economic challenge to China as well, as Quad statements promised joint connectivity projects and transparent infrastructure funding for countries in the region in danger of being “debt-trapped”. The Donald Trump administration also launched its “Blue Dot Network” (BDN) as a way to grade project sustainability. However, these efforts have lost salience, given that joint projects such as the India-Japan MoU for the East Container Terminal in Colombo port was scrapped by Sri Lanka, differences between Australia and Japan, with India over joining the Asian economic trade agreement RCEP (Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership), and the change in U.S. government has meant BDN plans are moving more slowly.
Countering COVID-19: During the March summit, the Quad countries announced plans for a “vaccine initiative”, which involved the production in India of a billion Johnson and Johnson (J&J) COVID-19 vaccines with U.S. funding and technology, and Australian and Japanese distribution in the Indo-Pacific countries needing it the most, by the end of 2022. This was essentially a philanthropic effort, devised when all the four Quad countries seemed confident of controlling the pandemic situation in their respective countries. While plans for the initiative are still on track, the second and third waves in India, U.S. and Australia have derailed the focus, somewhat, and India’s decision not to sign indemnity waivers for the U.S.-made vaccines has meant some bad blood with manufacturers like J&J. The Modi government had to cancel its commercial and donation (vaccine Maitri) vaccine export programmes in April and has yet to restart them. The Quad summit this week will be watched closely for a possible endorsement of the India-South Africa proposal at the WTO for patent waivers for COVID-19 medicines and vaccines.
Critical technologies and resilient supply chains: The Quad also set up a working group on critical and emerging-technology “to facilitate cooperation on international standards and innovative technologies of the future”. This will involve discussions on ensuring consensus on what kind of 5G networks the Quad countries will promote, on data security and free flow, as well as on building supply chains that have been destroyed due to the Coronavirus pandemic, as countries withheld crucial material needed by others due to shortages within. The results of the working group meetings will be presented at the summit, although it remains to be seen how much India, which walked out of the Japan-led “Osaka track” on data flows, will sign on, especially after differences with the U.S. over the ban on Mastercard, other international banking organisations for breaking local data storage rules.
Climate change: This is another of the “working group” silos set up in March that is due to be discussed by the leaders. U.S. special envoy John Kerry has been on a whirlwind tour around the world, including India, trying to raise various countries’ climate ambitions. The U.S. will be keen to see some commitments coming out of the Quad summit, ahead of the next U.N. Climate Change Conference, COP 26, in Glasgow in November. In particular, the leaders are expected to discuss specific goals to be included in their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), like NetZero plans for carbon emissions, deadlines to end coal usage for thermal power plants and renewable energy goals, like India’s plans to build 450 GW of renewable energy capacity by 2030. It also remains to be seen whether the U.S. signs on to the India and France-led International Solar Alliance (ISA), which Japan and Australia have ratified during the summit.
AUKUS, France and Quad expansion
While the Australia-U.K.-U.S. trilateral pact announced .. https://www.pm.gov.au/media/joint-leaders-statement-aukus .. on September 16 to develop nuclear-powered submarines, is not expected to be on the formal agenda of the Quad summit this week, it has already overshadowed the event, and an expected bilateral between Mr. Biden and Mr. Morrison with a formal signing of the defence pact just a day before the summit is likely to be a major highlight. India has made no statement on the AUKUS pact for a number of reasons. To begin with a nuclear pact in the Indo-Pacific, as the AUKUS envisages, is clearly a much stronger message to China than the Quad’s strategic statements have been thus far, and likely to elicit a stronger reaction.
Even as the AUKUS announcement was being made, Mr. Modi was attending another strategic grouping, that of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), which includes Russia, China, Pakistan, Iran and Central Asia, and India has made it clear it intends to keep its geo-balancing between the two.
Not just China, which reacted sharply to the AUKUS announcement, but France, a close Indian partner, has been outraged by the announcement, which effectively kills a 2016 Australia-France agreement to develop diesel submarines. France has called AUKUS a “stab in the back”, recalled its Ambassadors from Australia and the U.S., and cancelled a meeting of the India-Australia-France trilateral planned this week as well.
Finally, while India will not object to a grouping that enhances the defence of the Indo-Pacific region, it is not comfortable with any kind of proliferation, which the submarine pact represents. Given the worldwide consternation over Iran’s nuclear programme, and India’s specific concerns about China-Pakistan-North Korean nuclear cooperation, South Block may prefer to be discreet about the new AUKUS alliance.
Another issue that this could spin off behind the scenes of the Quad summit is the question whether the Quad should be expanded to include other partners, some of whom India is already working with on the Indo-Pacific, including the U.K., European Union and South Korea. While Quad members have repeatedly said this has not come up for discussion, it is no doubt a subject of speculation.
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