By Dr Bappaditya Mukherjee
Considerable significance is attached to the anniversary marking the 1st hundred days of any US administration. At this juncture, the Biden administration has undertaken a host of initiatives in the domain of US foreign policy regardless of facing quite a few challenges on the domestic front exacerbated by the COVID pandemic. With China and Iran, President Biden and his foreign policy advisors look to be largely following via on the policy positions articulated for the duration of the Presidential campaign. In addition, climate transform will be a vital component of the Biden administration’s diplomatic initiatives. President Biden has also announced that September 11 would be the withdrawal date for US troops from Afghanistan.
The Biden campaign had indicated last year that it would reduced the rhetorical temperature with China. At the very same time, Biden faces sturdy domestic compulsions precluding a re-engagement with China. Currently, China is overwhelmingly unpopular amongst the American mass public. According to the most up-to-date polls by Gallup, only 20 % of Americans hold a favourable view of China.
The Biden administration has largely concurred with the Trump administration’s diagnosis that the US-China relationship is fundamentally competitive. The Biden administration’s Interim National Security Strategic Guidance builds upon various of the themes on China outlined in the National Security Strategy published by the Trump administration in December 2017.
Key members of the Biden group also think that the punitive measures taken by the Trump administration against China have been largely ineffective. This is especially the case with trade as the tariffs imposed by the Trump administration resulted in a net loss of American jobs. Yet, they also do not want to be seen as capitulating to China. This could be why Joe Biden has indicated that his administration will not reverse course on tariffs imposed by his predecessor in the close to term.
For the moment, the Biden administration’s China policy is probably to be guided by the principle of “competitive coexistence” which calls for a reassessment of the policy of perpetual confrontation. At the very same time, the US would acknowledge that it is in strategic competitors with China and concentrate on creating counter-balancing coalitions in the Indo-Pacific.
Recent actions by the Biden administration have been viewed as extremely provocative by the Chinese authorities. The Biden administration loosened the restriction on US officials from meeting their Taiwanese counterparts and sent a delegation of retired US politicians to Taipei to send a ‘personal signal’ of assistance. These incorporated former U.S. Senator Chris Dodd and former Deputy Secretaries of State Richard Armitage and James Steinberg.
At their 1st higher-level diplomatic meeting in Alaska beneath the Biden tenure, the US and China traded charges on a host of concerns. The US side led by Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken criticized China for cyber-attacks, the therapy of Muslim minorities in Xinjiang and Beijing’s growing manage more than Hong Kong. In turn, China pointed to the hypocrisy of the US lecturing China on human rights concerns provided the revelation of deep divisions in American society about the status of minorities. The persistence of US tariffs and the Taiwan initiative has led some observers to conclude that the Biden administration has decided to carry forward the hardline of the Trump administration on China. This conclusion is premature. Some even perceive that US engagement with China regardless of the latter’s assertiveness indicates a begrudging acceptance of its heightened energy and influence. Despite the overheated tenor of the meeting, it is extremely considerable that a higher-level dialogue involving the two nations took spot. This is not surprising due to the fact China remains vital for Biden’s essential foreign policy agenda: restarting and strengthening the international climate transform regime.
It has been reported that President Biden has conveyed to foreign governments his intention to sharply decrease greenhouse gas emissions in the next decade. The hope is that with US leadership on this front, some of the other top contributors to greenhouse gases will boost their commitments as nicely. Significantly, the U.S. climate envoy John Kerry has currently visited Shanghai to meet with Chinese officials to look for points of convergence in climate negotiations. The US will attempt to get China to make a stronger commitment to international climate ambitions ahead of a summit of forty world leaders hosted by U.S. President Joe Biden on April 22, which includes Prime Minister Modi.
Biden is also conscious that taking on China will not be as quick as it appears. As Robert A. Manning has not too long ago noted in the magazine Foreign Policy, there is not a great deal assistance amongst the regular US allies in Europe and Asia to undertake hostile actions to undermine the Chinese Communist Party’s hold on energy. There is widespread worry that pushed into a corner, a weaker, impoverished China would pose a higher threat to the stability of international and regional order. For instance, just prior to Biden’s inauguration, top EU nations – France and Germany – concluded the Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI) with China regardless of an informal request from the incoming administration not to do so. Although the EU imposed sanctions on China in response to the therapy of the minority Uyghur population in the northwestern area of Xinjiang, the move seems to have been largely symbolic.
As of now, China’s assertiveness has convinced the Biden administration to invest more sources in the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue or the Quad as an off-shore balancing coalition. It is also probably to expand financial partnerships with like-minded partners in the financial realm and the domain of guidelines governing higher-tech sectors.
President Biden has personally hosted a virtual summit of the heads of government of the other Quad nations – India, Australia and Japan. At this summit, the agenda of the Quad was expanded from maritime and defence cooperation to vaccine diplomacy. The 4 leaders agreed to combine their sources to send 1 billion coronavirus vaccines across Asia by the finish of 2022. Besides the altruistic motivations of their cooperative work, this was created to counter China’s strategic efforts at enhancing its influence in Southeast Asia by supplying vaccines to numerous nations. One of the essential ambitions of the Quad seems to be to integrate India into an informal alliance with the remaining 3 nations that currently have a structured alliance in spot. While Indo-Pacific is now a priority for India, its strategic neighborhood and selection-makers stay wary of becoming component of a formal alliance.
There is a considerable section of the Indian strategic and academic neighborhood that retains deep suspicions of the US – a legacy of the Cold War. This segment of the Indian commentariat was not too long ago provided considerable fodder by the Biden administration’s response to the second wave of the COVID crisis facing India. India desperately necessary raw components from the US to manufacture the Covishield vaccine. In response to requests from official and private channels like the key Indian vaccine manufacturer, the Serum Institute of Pune, senior members of the Biden administration dithered. Key officials mouthed the Trump-era slogan of “America First” and cited the Defense Production Act to turn down the request, thereby causing considerable angst in India. Fortunately for the overall health of India-US ties, the Biden administration has due to the fact reversed its initial position and it has decided to not only facilitate the provide of raw components for Covishield but also therapeutics, diagnostic test kits, ventilators and private protective gear.
The revival of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), also identified as the Iran deal, nullified by the Trump administration, has also preoccupied the Biden administration for the duration of this period. However, Biden’s concern with opposition from Republican members of congress has precluded him from producing a great deal headway on this front. Thus far, Biden has unsuccessfully attempted to extract concessions from Iran to mollify Republicans, who stay steadfastly opposed to any resumption of the JCPOA. However, it is unlikely that the Iranian regime will give in to Biden’s stress techniques, obtaining survived the Trump administration without having providing any concessions.
Given that it was the US that abrogated the JCPOA, it would have been far more productive for Biden to make some “good faith” moves quickly just after assuming workplace. He made some minor concessions which includes the lifting of travel restrictions on Iranian diplomats to the United Nations in New York. These are probably to be insufficient. Even if Biden’s gambit had been to succeed, at the moment it is challenging to visualize a situation exactly where congressional Republicans will acquiesce to a revival of the JCPOA.
Another feasible self-confidence-developing measure by the Biden administration could be to problem waivers to enable foreign corporations to work with Iran’s civil nuclear programme. This has been recommended by Germany, France and Great Britain who have also stressed the want for the US to take the lead in supplying some financial relief to Iran. Thus far, the Biden administration has been unwilling to take this strategy. This could be mainly due to fears that any unilateral concessions would upset the delicate balance of energy in Capitol Hill, thereby hurting essential domestic policy priorities of the Biden administration.
The Biden administration’s target of reviving the JCPOA has been made more challenging by the continued attacks on the US and allied personnel in Iraq. It is broadly suspected that Iran-aligned groups are accountable for these attacks. The attack on Erbil, the capital of the autonomous area of Kurdistan on February 15 was the deadliest of them all. It brought on the death of a civilian contractor and injured nine other personnel. This prompted a retaliatory strike by the Biden administration on Iran-backed groups in Syria, exactly where they are working to assistance the Bashar-al-Assad regime. The other incident detrimental to the revival of the JCPOA was the alleged attack by Israeli covert sources on the Natanz nuclear facility of Iran. Iran responded by raising its uranium enrichment to 60% more than 20 instances the permissible limit.
President Biden has a history of opposing US troop presence in Afghanistan. He did not assistance the US troop surge ordered by President Obama in 2009. News reports indicate that President Biden has extended the original deadline of US troop withdrawal from May 1 to September 11 this year. This may possibly look like a minor violation of the terms of the deal the US government signed with the Taliban in February 2020. However, the Taliban do not see it this way and have rejected the planned extension and the accompanying peace strategy.
A handful of weeks ago, US envoy Zalmay Khalilzad delivered a draft peace agreement the central thought of which is the formation of a transitional government that would include things like the Taliban thereby replacing the present elected government headed by President Ashraf Ghani. However, the agreement is silent on two vital queries: One, the nature of energy-sharing amongst the distinct warring factions and the manage of the safety forces.
In a letter to President Ghani, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken proposed a 90-day reduction in violence to produce space for the finalization of the peace agreement. The Biden administration’s selection to carry via with an artificial withdrawal deadline is probably to trigger the collapse of the Ghani government. The Biden administration may possibly be hoping that it will be in a position to engage the regional powers – Pakistan, Iran, China, Russia and India – to agree on a peace strategy. While India will be a considerable player provided the investments it has made in Afghanistan more than the years, it lacks a working relationship with the Taliban. This will limit India’s influence as it lacks a working relationship with the Taliban. In contrast, a collapse of the peace course of action or a violent civil war that limits the influence of Kabul or a political settlement that provides the Taliban a share of energy will boost Pakistan’s clout.
Finally, considerable developments have taken spot in the context of US-Russia relations. In the context of the current make-up of Russian forces along the Ukrainian border, Biden has taken a slew of measures targeting Russia for its alleged meddling in the US Presidential elections and launching cyber-attacks. These include things like new sanctions against Russia to penalize Moscow for its alleged meddling in US elections and cyber-attacks, a ban on US banks shopping for new Russian state debt, sanctions against 38 people and entities, and the expulsion of 10 diplomats. In a tit-for-tat move, Russia has decided to ban Russians and other non-Americans from working in the US missions, protect against US officials from producing limitless visits to Russia and sanctioning eight officials. Although US-Russia relations seem fraught at the moment, the positive reaction of the Russian foreign minister to the proposed summit meeting involving President Biden and President Putin leaves a particular lead to for optimism.
(The author is a former faculty at the State University of New York, Geneseo. Views expressed are private and do not reflect the official position or policy of TheSpuzz Online.)