Believing Biden
At the conclusion of the one week trip to Europe by President Biden the Europeans appear to believe in the necessity of a push back against the authoritarian China of Xi-Jinping despite their mutual economic interests with Beijing and their fear of an eventual Trumpian renaissance in the US.
Contrary to Trump, it is relatively easy to believe in Biden. In his opening remarks of the press conference on his talks with Putin, he went to great lengths to emphasize the central place of human rights issues in his foreign policy. Against Russia certainly with the Biden promise of ‘devastating’ consequences should Alexei Nawalny, leader of Russia’s banned opposition die in jail. But the statement was formulated in general terms to include China, as the Geneva summit followed three European summits – the G-7 in Cornwall, the Nato annual meeting and the US-EU summit both in Brussels – where China came up as much as Russia. For the first time ever at a Nato summit, China was mentioned in the communique notwithstanding its character of being a transatlantic alliance.
Biden’s argument, that no democratic government can afford to turn a blind eye to blatant human rights violations lest it would lose its credibility towards the world and its own people, cannot but resonate in Europe. Because Europe, and the EU as its institutional embodiment, likes to think that it makes up for a certain lack of united military resolve by being a value driven superpower. But also because Xi Jinping with his totalitarian way of dealing with liberties and minorities within and naked aggression in its neighbourhood makes it impossible to not react, regardless of economic consequences.
Yes, it is true that economic ties between Europe and China are important and growing. Especially in certain areas such as the by now proverbial German car industry. But then again weighed against the risk of getting on the wrong side of eventual US embargo measures, the choice is evident. After all, it will not be for a considerable time, if ever, that the Renminbi replaces the US Dollar as the gold standard for international payments. Not to speak of the ever louder complaints by European SMEs about forced know-how transfer and outright theft of intellectual property in commercial dealings with China and the Chinese.
Nor are political views in Europe unanimous about dealing with Beijing. Yet here too, the signs are clear. The 17 plus 1 grouping, assembling Europe’s Eastern front on a common negotiation table with Beijing, seen there as the successful wedge into a united EU front, shows signs of breaking apart. Lithuania, as the first Baltic state has quit and others have downgraded their representation at respective meetings to insignificance.
The worst authoritarian outlier in the EU and steadfast pathfinder on the road to Beijing, Orban of Hungary, just got a real slap in the face by its own electorate when a great majority showed their disapproval to replace George Soros’ University with the European main seat of China’s elite Fudan University. The opposition mayor of Budapest renamed the respective street promptly ‘Free Hong Kong Road’. Beyond Budapest, the incident clearly shows the losing battle of Chinese diplomacy for international soft power – no wonder given China’s ‘wolf diplomacy’ since Xi’s elevation to all powerful ‘Great Helmsman’.
More important are the ambitions of the European heavyweights to pursue their own policy towards China. Seen in this perspective, the invitation by Biden for Angela Merkel to visit him in the White House as the first European leader is no coincidence. Germany as leading light in the EU must be persuaded that transatlantic fidelity still pays and will continue to do so. On the first count, Biden has cancelled Trump’s retreat of US troops from Germany while calling the US commitment to Nato ’sacred’, and on the second – the open question whether Biden’s renewed love for its European allies will outlast his presidency – Europe cannot but take pot luck. The scepticism, incidentally not just in Europe but anywhere else in the world, whether Bidens mantra will outlast him, is not due to old world cynicism but to the steady drumbeat by the finest US connoisseurs, such as FT’s Edward Luce, that trumpism still lurks menacingly in redneck America.
Macron of France will first have to prove that his reign can withstand an assault from France’ far right, ideological allies of trumpism; moreover it can be safely assumed that under Biden the quiet American support for the indispensable French role of defending Africa both against Islamism and the Chinese juggernaut will continue. As to the traditionally first Premier to be invited to the White House, Britain’s Johnson got a renewed ‘Atlantic Charter’ in a bilateral meeting with Biden before the G-7 summit, but it came with a stern warning by this American president with Irish ancestors, not to trouble the peace on the whole Island with another bout of Boris’ well known Brexit shenanigans.
Oh yes, there also was a Putin – Biden summit at the end of this sino-centred first trip abroad by the new US president. Contrary to many speculations and wild theorizing, it appears to this observer that both have achieved their minimum target. No more but no less either. Putin was clearly basking in the limelight of traditional East-West meetings ‘on the highest level’ regardless of any concrete result. Interesting to see that President Obama’s observation some ten years ago designating Russia as a middle power – true but for one all important fact: nuclear arms – had evidently rankled Putin far more than Biden’s ‘killer’ remark.
On Biden’s side he has achieved the first step towards a ‘Cold Peace’ with Russia. No hot verbal sparring, potentially spiralling out of control but clear red lines for Russion behaviour be it regarding Nawalny or further hacking. Coupled with his steadfast support for Nato in Europe over the days before meeting with Putin the East-Europeans should be reassured. Whether he could have, and should have engineered a ‘reverse Kissinger’ – Henry Kissinger, at the time National Security Advisor of President Nixon led an US opening towards China in 1971, to spite the then USSR – preventing the cementing of relations between Beijing and Moscow is pointless. Biden is now too far down on a value based path in its relations with China to stay credible should he even want to just overlook Putin’s autocracy. It is the 1970ies in international policy no longer, nor can the Biden/Blinken team be compared with Nixon/Kissinger.
In conclusion, Biden can chalk down his European trip as a full success. Much as with his first internal initiatives this was heavily due to evident ‘compared to what ‘. But beyond doing better than Trump he has convinced Europe not only that he can be believed, but that he is a believer – in value based international policy – too. What else can we in Europe do, again together with the rest of the civilized world, other than hoping that in the US, civility will win durably over what we experienced during four nightmare years when Trump reigned in the White House?
Picture: madison.beer