Ding, dong, the witch is dead!
Much of the world, not just the blue part of the US, is celebrating the exit of the obnoxious Donald Trump. This was a man who managed to offend practically everyone, while appealing only to the insecurities and base emotions of his supporters.
But now that he's gone, what can we expect from his successor?
I think it would be a good idea for those who wanted to see Trump gone to step back a bit from the polemical view of Trump as the devil incarnate and Biden as an angel in white. The situation is far more nuanced, especially for those of us in the rest of the world outside the US.
For a start, Trump was a refreshingly different president from all of his predecessors, because the ugliness and naked self-interest in US foreign policy was laid bare for all to see. There was no pretence that the US stood for anything higher than its own self-interest. In being so famously transactional, Trump reduced the image of the US from its historical projection of exceptionalism to one where it was just another country with its own axe to grind. It was a bit of unwitting honesty from an American president not seen since the days of "Honest Abe".
That image may not altogether vanish, since the world cannot unsee what it has once seen.
Biden and his team will of course do their best to show that the US is back in the hands of the adults in the room, and the old, familiar lectures on freedom, democracy and human rights will once again be selectively heard whenever the US wants to effect a regime change to its advantage.
Even as things return to the old normal, disquieting aspects to the Biden administration are already beginning to be seen.
The first few appointees of Biden's team have been lobbyists and insiders of the Pentagon and the arms industry. His secretary of state is a known hawk.
Watch the easy camaraderie between Antony Blinken (Democrat), and his interrogator Sen Lindsey Graham (Republican) during the former's confirmation hearing as incoming Secretary of State. US foreign policy stays constant, with bipartisan consensus.
For those with hopes of a more peaceful world, this is bad news. The arms industry thrives when there are conflagrations around the world, and so it is unlikely that President Biden is going to wind back the wars.
Right on cue, there have been bomb blasts in Afghanistan, Iraq, Algeria, Yemen and Syria. If an American president ever wanted an excuse not to draw down overseas troops, he will not want for options.
That's not the only piece of bad news.
One of the things that Trump should be given credit for was his recent approach to China. After some leniency in the earlier part of his term, Trump swung around to suspicion and hostility towards China, especially after Covid. He began to push back on China in every sphere. He did not blink on trade, and he began to unabashedly cultivate "the Quad" (consisting of the US, Japan, India and Australia) to signal his willingness to confront China militarily. His accompanying rhetoric was harsh and aggressive too.
China under Xi has been a bully, and in the manner expected of bullies faced with credible threats, the dragon blinked. Surprisingly meek and conciliatory statements issued from Beijing. The wolf warrior diplomats went into retreat.
China has no intention to pick a fight with the US
-- Wang Yi, Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister - Dec 18, 2020
It remains to be seen whether Biden will keep up that pressure. As a realist, I try to follow the money. The US arms industry gains from the forever war in the Middle East. China wants the freedom to expand its tentacles throughout Asia and up to the doors of Europe through its Belt and Road Initiative. It's not so much "free trade" as the ability for China to sell to every corner of the globe. The trade war between the US and China is hurtful to both.
A new administration in Washington is an opportunity for both countries to reset their relationship to mutual advantage. What I fear most is a backroom deal to avoid the trap of a new Cold War and to instead establish a cosy duopoly. The US keeps its existing backyards of the Americas and Europe, and gets to play its deadly war games in the Middle East. China gets untrammeled overlordship over all of Asia, including the Indian subcontinent. A new agreement is signed between the two superpowers of the East and the West that ends their bruising trade war.
[For countries like India, this would be unqualified bad news. The US has been an unreliable ally to India even at the best of times. (At the worst of times, it has been a vicious and vindictive enemy, as Nixon and Kissinger demonstrated during the 1971 Bangladesh war.) Abandonment of India by the US following a duopoly deal would mean that any putative hyphenation between India and China would disappear at a stroke. With the role of the US abruptly switched from security guarantor to the ally of an adversary, India's strategic options would narrow precipitously, and its fate would be left to the tender mercies of China. India would have to make significant territorial amends for its recent show of resistance to China's border incursions, and would have to very publicly accept China's suzerainty over all of Asia, including its own neighbourhood. It would be an unprecedented cultural humiliation in addition to being a permanent economic impost on future growth.
Australia, as part of the Anglosphere's "Five Eyes" alliance, will probably continue to receive US protection, but India will be jettisoned without a second thought. The fate of Taiwan and Japan is uncertain.]
Not all aspects of the US-China duopoly deal are likely to be settled quickly and amicably. The most interesting item on the negotiating table would be Africa, I imagine. There is no clear early winner between the US and China in terms of influence over Africa, and the continent could turn into a battleground. I see Africa as the new Poland for two schemers to pretend to agree on, before one of them betrays the other.
To sum up, it may be too early to go, "Ding dong, the witch is dead!" The main peril of the post-Trump era is the possible start to the new joint reign of the Wicked Witch of the West and the Wicked Witch of the East. The rest of the world should hunker down for a long and harsh winter.
No comments:
Post a Comment