President Joe Biden’s doctrine pitting liberal democracy against autocracy will be tested this week when leaders from some of the world’s top 20 economies descend on Rome for the G-20 summit.
But for a self-acclaimed foreign policy expert who likes to talk tough about autocrats, Biden will board Air Force One on Thursday for a gathering Presidents Xi Jinping of China and Vladimir Putin of Russia are poised not to attend in person.
ANOTHER DEBT CEILING FIGHT LOOMS AS BIDEN REVEAL SPENDING PLANS
Biden should “tone down” the liberal democracy vs. autocracy rhetoric from his United Nations General Assembly address last month, according to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s Chris Chivvis.
For Chivvis, the director of the think tank’s American Statecraft Program, Biden’s messaging is creating tension between his administration’s commitment to multilateralism and what he is trying to achieve as president. It reduces “space for diplomacy,” he told the Washington Examiner.
“It is a reality of international politics today that the United States in order to solve a range of problems is going to have to figure out ways to cooperate with some countries whose domestic political systems are different from our own,” Chivvis said, going on to allude to Chinese aggression toward Taiwan.
Biden’s advocacy of liberal democracy vs. autocracy and multilateralism is a virtue signal to distinguish his foreign policy from that of former President Donald Trump, Chivvis added.
Amanda Rothschild, the Vandenberg Coalition’s senior policy director, worked for Trump as a national security speechwriter for the 2018 G-20 in Argentina and the 2019 iteration in Japan. She agreed Biden’s liberal democracy vs. autocracy paradigm is problematic because during the 76th session of the U.N. General Assembly, he was simultaneously adamant he did not “want to divide the world into blocs and isn’t seeking a new Cold War.”
“There’s a tension here on China because they need cooperation on issues like climate, which is very important to the Biden administration,” she said.
Xi and Putin are not the only leaders set to skip the G-20 in person. Saudi Arabia’s King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud will head his country’s delegation remotely via video link, while there are also questions regarding Mexico President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s attendance, among others.
For Rothschild, the G-20’s mixed in-person and remote format could be challenging to navigate as well. The summit provides opportunities for sideline meetings between Biden, who is proud of his ability to nurture personal relationships, and leaders from a more diverse array of trade-focused countries than the G-7 and NATO gatherings.
“What it does mean is that if the president chooses to be critical of China on economics, COVID, or climate, he won’t be sitting in a room with President Xi,” she added. “He’ll be on a screen or something like that, which I guess changes the dynamic.”
Rothschild noted more broadly Biden’s pull-aside meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron. That discussion was scheduled after the U.S. last month scuttled France’s billion-dollar diesel submarine deal with Australia by forging a new security alliance with the United Kingdom to help Australia build nuclear-powered submarines.
But Biden’s European ties were already frayed by his deadly withdrawal from the Afghanistan War and his failure to curtail Russia, according to Rothschild.
“Biden has a lot of work to do to repair some of the relations with our European allies during the G-20,” she concluded.
Xi’s and Putin’s absence could undermine not only the G-20’s “people, planet, and prosperity” agenda but also Biden’s credibility abroad as the president grapples with domestic priorities, such as recasting a wider social safety net and reinvesting in the country’s climate response. He had hoped Congress would pass the latter before he flew to Scotland for the U.N. environment summit after Rome.
“Autocrats believe that the world is moving so rapidly that democracies cannot generate consensus quickly enough to get things done,” Biden said last week as lawmakers negotiate his likely $2 trillion social welfare and climate spending package. “They don’t measure us based on the size of our military. They don’t measure us on how much power we have that way. They measure — want to know, can we get anything done?”
Xi and Putin may not be traveling for the G-20, but Presidents Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey and Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil are expected to attend.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Erdogan, with whom Biden is anticipated to meet one on one in Rome, on Monday walked back his order to send home 10 ambassadors, including the U.S. envoy, after they called for businessman-philanthropist Osman Kavala to be released from prison. Kavala has been charged with offenses related to Turkey’s failed 2016 coup.
