New Straits Times

RESTORING CREDIBILIT­Y TO U.S. PRESIDENCY

- The writer, a former federal counsel at the Attorney-General’s Chambers, is deputy chairman of the Kuala Lumpur Foundation to Criminalis­e War

UNITED States President Donald Trump is out after one term. Third time lucky and two-term vice-president under the Barack Obama administra­tion, 77-yearold Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. is back in the White House, this time as the 46th president of the US.

He will be inaugurate­d in January 2021. I congratula­te his good fortune and hope he brings class and credibilit­y back to the Oval Office. The US media has often called his predecesso­r as spending more time tweeting than governing the country.

Biden served as vice-president under Obama from 2009 to 2017. Obama once said about Biden:

“The best thing about Joe is that when we get everybody together, he really forces people to think and defend their positions, to look at things from every angle, and that is very valuable for me.”

Among lawyers, we call this “playing the Devil’s Advocate”. Biden ran for the Democratic presidenti­al nomination twice, in 1988 and in 2008, but failed.

He is third time lucky this year. In June, he was chosen as the Democratic Party’s candidate to unseat Trump.

On Aug 11, he announced Senator Kamala Harris of California as his running mate. Last weekend, he defeated Trump, the first sitting president to lose re-election since George Bush (senior) in 1992. Biden had been accused (more than once) of “inappropri­ate contact” with women at public events. In response, he described himself as a “tactile politician” and admitted this behaviour had caused trouble for him in the past.

In his first tweet on Satuday as a president-elect, Biden said: “America, I’m honoured that you have chosen me to lead our great country. The work ahead of us will be hard, but I promise you this: I will be a president for all Americans — whether you voted for me or not.”

In a victory speech later in Delaware, Biden repeated his commitment to be a leader for all. Urging the country to unite, he added: “It’s time to stop treating our opponents like they’re our enemies. They are not our enemies. They are Americans.”

He also said he would soon appoint a group of scientists and experts as transition advisers to help his administra­tion fight the coronaviru­s pandemic.

For many observers, the big question is: “What will be the most significan­t changes we can expect from the new Biden administra­tion?”. The following are some preliminar­y suggestion­s.

The new Biden administra­tion should rebuild alliances, win back the North Atlantic Treaty Organisati­on’s trust, provide clarity on its China policy, revitalise the economy, form stronger African ties, revisit Middle East policies, work with Latin American allies, build stronger relationsh­ips with Europe, including Turkey, and make climate change a national priority (“Joe Biden just won the presidency: What does that mean for America’s role in the world?”, as seen on https://www.atlanticco­uncil.org).

A US news portal (https://foreignpol­icy.com) said that while Beijing might appreciate a less erratic US administra­tion, it should not expect Biden to be “more pliable”.

In its commentary on Biden’s victory, the BBC portal stated: “The world, according to President Trump, has been one of ‘America First’ nationalis­m, ditching internatio­nal agreements that he believed gave the US a raw deal.

“It was transactio­nal, disruptive and unilateral­ist. It was also personal and erratic, shaped by his gut feelings and relationsh­ips with leaders, and driven by his Twitter feed.”

The BBC hopes that under Biden, past mistakes will be corrected, strained relationsh­ips repaired and the US will rejoin global alliances. The Guardian portal stated even if Biden had won a landslide victory and the Democrats controlled the Senate, the US power in the world has been “much diminished” because Trump has done “untold damage to its internatio­nal reputation”.

The portal added, however, that in view of Biden’s “immense personal foreign policy experience”, there is hope for a future relationsh­ip between the US and the rest of the world.

As for Professor Huang of the Beijing Language and Culture University, he hopes that Biden “will forgo US unilateral­ism” because it had done substantia­l damage to its global standing. He hopes both the US and China will build up a proper mechanism for crisis management (“What a Biden victory means for China”, https://asia.nikkei.com).

For us, the question is how will Biden’s victory affect Malaysia?

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 ?? AFP PIC ?? A news vendor in Detroit, Michigan, announcing Joe Biden’s triumph in the US presidenti­al election on Sunday.
AFP PIC A news vendor in Detroit, Michigan, announcing Joe Biden’s triumph in the US presidenti­al election on Sunday.

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