It is revealing that the Chinese and Russian ambassadors in Washington co-authored a joint article (a rare occurrence) in The National Interest magazine to criticize an initiative to which they were not invited, arguing that "no country has the right to judge the vast and varied global political landscape by a single criterion" - without, however, mentioning the January 6 assault, which the Russian and Chinese media had commented on extensively. The invitation of Taiwan, on the other hand - which will not be represented by its president Tsai Ing-wen, unlike many other countries, but by its de facto diplomatic representative in the United States, Hsiao Bi-khim - has unsurprisingly provoked an outcry from the Chinese regime.
The choice of an online-only event, admittedly in part because of the pandemic, the vagueness of the objectives and the lack of details provided only a few days before the Summit clearly reflect the diminished ambitions of what at first had been presented as a major event of President Biden's first year. This is partly a result of the reserves expressed by many US allies and partners, both in Europe and Asia, about what was shaping up to be an "alliance of democracies against China". The Biden administration's focus on China obviously isn’t gone, but its political implementation has taken shape throughout the year in more restricted formats, whether bilaterally, within the Quad on the Indo-Pacific, or via the Trade and Technology Council (TTC) with the EU.
As a result, one gets the impression that the Summit will be more a series of statements by heads of state, perhaps mostly pre-recorded - at the cost of an event that will probably lead to few concrete discussions or proposals. In advance of the Summit, the Biden administration has just released two new initiatives, one on the export of digital surveillance tools, the second a new US Strategy on Countering Corruption.
The state of democracy in the United States is a matter of deep concern for the current administration, the Democratic Party, and for many Americans. It is clear that President Biden did not want to abandon his campaign promise to hold this Summit in his first year in office; moreover, an insistence on democracy and human rights in foreign policy was felt necessary in Washington after the debacle of the withdrawal from Afghanistan last summer. What remains is a Summit with reduced ambitions and an unclear agenda, except for reaffirming the importance of democratic values - even if the concrete implementation will happen in smaller and more effective forums.
Co-authored with Marin Saillofest, Assistant Policy Officer at our US Program.
Copyright: Samuel Corum / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / Getty Images via AFP
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