Europe in Biden’s anti-China crusade
President Joe Biden’s public messages in Europe reveal three points on the U.S.’s agenda. The first one is, “America is back!” He previously said it at home when he took office. But this time, he said it again during his first trip outside the United States. It may sound like a rerun, but that was a necessary and thoughtful gesture.
The relationship between the U.S. and Europe was damaged during the past four years under Trump. Repairing frayed ties with Europe was at the top of Biden’s agenda, which in turn would enable him to accomplish the remaining two topics on the list: COVID-19 diplomacy and competition against authoritarian states.
The members of the G7 club, the world’s most affluent democracies, were ironically the ones that suffered the most from the pandemic. Even Italy, an ally of the United States, had to resort to receiving massive medical relief dispatches from China, while Washington was left watching helplessly. “This was the first time I realized that we the United States are not what we used to be,” a retired American military reservist with foreign deployment experience, told me.
The coronavirus was devastating enough to humiliate the superpower status of the U.S., as it ended up with more casualties than any other country in the world. China, in the meantime, played the role of a “vaccine angel,” winning the hearts and minds of developing nations.
However, things have started to turn around, as the U.S. and Europe have succeeded in developing vaccines. Now, they have pledged to provide large quantities of vaccines to developing nations. Providing such public goods globally is a gesture to restore the leadership of Washington and of the West more broadly.
The third point on the agenda is what Biden repeatedly dubbed as “competition between democracies and autocracies.” In February, Biden had a two-hour phone conversation with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Only as of late have the contents of this conversation become known. During their conversation, Xi reportedly exuded confidence that China would eventually prevail over the U.S. to become the number one global superpower.
After the phone call, Biden instructed his staff to include, in his subsequent public messages, how democracies can compete effectively against authoritarian regimes. In Europe, Biden rallied Western democracies to compete with China’s autocratic model.
After all, the keyword that connects the dots of the three agendas is “China.” Some U.S. observers even see that the real purpose of the three-hour, closed-door rendezvous with Putin was to “neutralize” Russia, (or to drive a wedge between Russia and China) so that the U.S. could focus on dealing with China. This approach may be an American strategic version of the late Qing Dynasty slogan, “yi yi zhi yi” (using one barbarian to control the other).
In fact, during the Cold War, the U.S. and the Soviet Union cooperated with each other to keep China in check. Mao even fled Beijing in fear of a possible nuclear attack by Stalin during the Sino-Soviet split (1956-66).
After all, Biden’s most important mission is to keep China in check, and the key question is whether Europe will join Biden’s anti-China crusade. Based on the wording of the joint statements from the G7 and NATO meetings, Biden seemed successful in persuading Europe to accuse Beijing of human rights abuses and China’s “stated ambitions and assertive behavior,” which presents “systemic challenges” to the rules-based international order.
With all due respect, however, it remains to be seen how much Europe will act on these words. For instance, NATO’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, hurriedly insisted that China was “not an adversary.”
South Korea, which is America’s ally and exposed to the geopolitics of the conflict between the U.S. and China, needs to pay close attention to politics between Europe and the United States. After all, Europe is America’s closest ally, both ideologically and culturally. It is part of the greater Anglosphere. However, Europe is geographically far from China and tends not to see the Middle Kingdom as a security threat.
Moreover, for most European countries, China is their major trading partner. Thus, whether Europe will participate in Biden’s anti-China bloc (or to what extent it will follow through on the summits’ joint statements) will be an important bellwether in the future direction of U.S.-China rivalry.
For now, Biden appears to have achieved his desired goal with Europe — at least in terms of rhetoric. In the end, however, actions speak louder than words.
Lee Seong-hyon, Ph.D. (sunnybbsfs@gmail. com), is an ICAS fellow in Washington and the author of the book, “The U.S.-China Competition: Who Will Rule the World?” (2019).