| Skybird |
06-15-21 07:34 AM |
The Neue Zürcher Zeitung writes:
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Europe and America talk past each other
Joe Biden is riding a wave of sympathy in Europe. Nevertheless, the American president cannot be satisfied with the results of his trip. Europe gives him the cold shoulder on what is central to him - how to deal with China.
An unusual round of summit meetings is drawing to a close. One after the other, the American President Joe Biden met the British leadership, the heads of state and government of the G-7, his counterparts in the NATO Council and the top officials of the EU; Now, at the end of his trip to Europe, he faces the eagerly awaited encounter with the Kremlin ruler Vladimir Putin. The meeting in Geneva looks like the climax in a careful choreography: Strengthened by the backing of his allies, Biden faces the Russian autocrat, who has beaten down the opposition movement in his country in recent months and fears on the Ukrainian border, as it were as an envoy from the free world fueled a new war. -
But the impression is twice as wrong. Biden has neither emerged strengthened from his meetings in Cornwall and Brussels, nor is his appointment with Putin of central importance to him. From the American point of view, Russia has a potential to disrupt, but is not a strategic rival like China. Moscow tries to harm American interests in all possible arenas, but the United States does not see this as a threat to its role as a world power. The case of China is different. The rise of the Middle Kingdom is the fundamental challenge by which the American president's foreign policy is measured. What Biden would achieve while wrestling with this opponent on his trip to Europe was the key question that hovered over all of his meetings. -
In Europe, the changes that have occurred in Washington are underestimated. Although the Republican Donald Trump had already adopted a confrontational stance towards Beijing, something essential was added under Biden. The “system competition” with the dictatorial central state China is no longer subject to the whims of a twittering president, as it once was, but now shapes the thinking and action of the entire government apparatus. Just as the Cold War and, after 2001, the “War on Terror” formed the guideline for American foreign policy, the challenge of China now outshines everything else. -
Measured against this, the summit results must disappoint the Americans. In the epic final communiqué of the G-7, which would fill around eight pages of the NZZ newspaper, China hardly appears. Where this happens anyway, the text is noticeably softened. The idea of a global infrastructure program propagated by the USA found its way into the declaration of the heads of state. But the fact that the Americans want to build this up as a project to compete with the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative has been swept under the table; there is also no schedule for concrete investments. -
The G-7 did not even come up with a clear criticism of Beijing's human rights violations. The section on forced labor alludes to conditions in Xinjiang, but a direct mention of China seemed too risky for some of the summit participants. Eliminating goods from Xinjiang from the international supply chains, as the American Congress is preparing, goes far too far for the European partners. -
Germany and France show no willingness to submit to American wishes and view the relationship with China through the lens of a rivalry between competing power blocs. The fear of losing out on a lucrative export market plays just as important a role as the worry that criticism or even demonizing China could even lead to the formation of blocks in world politics. -
The two leading nations of the EU do not perceive China's aggressive behavior as a problem to the same extent as the USA. Biden, on the other hand, dresses his China policy in a rhetoric that is almost a battle of fate. Biden emphasized in Cornwall that the free world is in conflict with autocrats around the world. The question for him is whether the democracies can survive in this competition in the 21st century. -
Biden was most likely to find echo with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who after Brexit is more dependent than ever on maintaining the “special relationship” with America. The two proclaimed a “new Atlantic Charter” in which the commitment to strengthening democracy comes first. The model is the Atlantic Charter of 1941, which paved the way for a future liberal world order during World War II. But since the times of Roosevelt and Churchill, the Anglo-American team has lost a lot of weight. Biden knows that he also needs allies on the European continent and in East Asia for his goals. -
Paris and largely Berlin, however, gave him the cold shoulder. In Cornwall, French President Emmanuel Macron pointedly stated that the G-7 was not an anti-China club. Even before he left for the summit, he had announced priorities that ran counter to Biden's. He did not say a word about a great power rivalry or the need to strengthen democracies in the world. At every opportunity Macron insists on the “strategic autonomy” of Europe. By this he means that he has no intention of adopting the guiding principles of the American president. -
The German Chancellor Merkel is more friendly in tone, but does not offer less resistance on the matter. She takes refuge in cryptic catchphrases such as “rule-based multilateral cooperation” and at best admits to Biden that there will be a dispute with China “in some aspects”. Merkel has already demonstrated in the dispute over the Russian Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline that Merkel does not want to divide the world sharply into democracies and autocracies like the White House. While Washington regards this building as a capital geostrategic mistake because it strengthens the Kremlin's influence in Europe and deepens the rift lines on the continent, Merkel wants to see it as a purely economic project. -
The joviality displayed these days towards Biden is therefore deceptive. Europe and America are talking past one another on a question that is central to Washington. On this side of the Atlantic there is relief that a polterer like Trump is no longer messing up such summits, but that does not mean that you stand behind your successor. An opinion poll published by the Pew Research Center shortly before Biden's trip to Europe is therefore deceptive. Accordingly, the image of the US in Europe has improved dramatically since Trump left. Three-quarters of respondents are confident that the American president will do the right thing on the world stage (around five times higher than at the end of the Trump era). -
But this radical change in mood is hardly generating any dividends for Biden for the time being. In his first five months, he did not get much closer to his goal of giving American China policy more muscle with the help of European allies. He can boast partial successes, including the fact that in March the EU imposed sanctions on China for human rights violations for the first time in decades and put the controversial investment agreement with Beijing on hold. -
But the US wants to go much further. The Senate gave a foretaste of this last week with the passage of a law intended to mobilize the huge sum of 250 billion dollars to stand up to China in terms of technology and make America's economy more independent in areas such as artificial intelligence and semiconductors. With the demand for a partial decoupling of western industries from China, however, the USA is hardly heard in Europe. -
The transatlantic partners in climate policy have found new cooperation, but a gap remains on geopolitical issues. This was pasted over at Biden's stations in Europe - with diverse, but ultimately non-binding China references and friendly pats on the back for the guest from Washington. But the US will not give up and will study European behavior closely. The risk of disillusionment is great. -
Biden is the most pro-European president since the end of the Cold War, but he too depends on results. If he comes to the conclusion that the European Union is not providing any real help on the key issue of American foreign policy, this continent will become less important for the United States. American taxpayers will then ask why they should continue to invest so much money in the security of Europe - a region of the world where people like to talk about democratic values, only not if it anger the rulers in Beijing and endanger good business could.
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