{"id":84367,"date":"2021-03-19T04:59:47","date_gmt":"2021-03-19T04:59:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dissidentvoice.org\/?p=114613"},"modified":"2021-03-19T04:59:47","modified_gmt":"2021-03-19T04:59:47","slug":"from-the-earth-to-the-moon-bidens-china-policy-doomed-from-the-start","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/03\/19\/from-the-earth-to-the-moon-bidens-china-policy-doomed-from-the-start\/","title":{"rendered":"From the Earth to the Moon: Biden\u2019s China Policy Doomed from the Start"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>A much anticipated American foreign policy move under the Biden Administration on how to counter China\u2019s unhindered economic growth and political ambitions came<\/a> in the form of a virtual summit on March 12, linking, aside from the United States, India, Australia and Japan.<\/p>\n

Although the so-called \u2018Quad\u2019 revealed nothing new in their joint statement<\/a>, the leaders of these four countries spoke about the \u2018historic\u2019 meeting, described<\/a> by \u2018The Diplomat\u2019 website as \u201ca significant milestone in the evolution of the grouping\u201d.<\/p>\n

Actually, the joint statement has little substance and certainly nothing new by way of a blueprint on how to reverse – or even slow down – Beijing\u2019s geopolitical successes, growing military confidence and increasing presence in or around strategic global waterways.<\/p>\n

For years, the \u2018Quad\u2019 has been busy formulating a unified China strategy but it has failed to devise anything of practical significance. \u2018Historic\u2019 meetings aside, China is the world\u2019s only major economy that is predicted to yield significant economic growth this year – and imminently. International Monetary Fund\u2019s projections show<\/a> that the Chinese economy is expected to expand by 8.1 percent in 2021 while, on the other hand, according to data from the US Bureau of Economic Analysis, the US\u2019 GDP has declined by around 3.5 percent in 2020.<\/p>\n

The \u2018Quad\u2019 – which stands for Quadrilateral Security Dialogue – began<\/a> in 2007, and was revived in 2017, with the obvious aim of repulsing China\u2019s advancement in all fields. Like most American alliances, the \u2018Quad\u2019 is the political manifestation of a military alliance, namely the Malabar Naval Exercises. The latter started<\/a> in 1992 and soon expanded to include all four countries.<\/p>\n

Since Washington\u2019s \u2018pivot to Asia\u2019; i.e., the reversal of established US foreign policy that was predicated on placing greater focus on the Middle East, there is little evidence that Washington\u2019s confrontational policies have weakened Beijing\u2019s presence, trade or diplomacy throughout the continent. Aside from close encounters<\/a> between the American and Chinese navies in the South China Sea, there is very little else to report.<\/p>\n

While much media coverage has focused on the US\u2019 pivot to Asia, little has been said about China\u2019s pivot to the Middle East, which has been far more successful as an economic and political endeavor than the American geostrategic shift.<\/p>\n

The US\u2019 seismic change in its foreign policy priorities stemmed from its failure to translate the Iraq war and invasion of 2003 into a decipherable geo-economic success as a result of seizing control of Iraq\u2019s oil largesse – the world\u2019s second-largest proven oil reserves. The US strategy proved to be a complete blunder.<\/p>\n

In an article published in the Financial Times<\/em> in September 2020, Jamil Anderlini raises<\/a> a fascinating point. \u201cIf oil and influence were the prizes, then it seems China, not America, has ultimately won the Iraq war and its aftermath – without ever firing a shot,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

Not only is China now Iraq\u2019s biggest trading partner, Beijing\u2019s massive economic and political influence in the Middle East is a triumph. China is now, according to the Financial Times<\/em>, the Middle East’s biggest foreign investor and a strategic partnership with all Gulf States – save Bahrain. Compare this with Washington\u2019s confused foreign policy agenda in the region, its unprecedented indecisiveness, absence of a definable political doctrine and the systematic breakdown of its regional alliances.<\/p>\n

This paradigm becomes clearer and more convincing when understood on a global scale. By the end of 2019, China became the world\u2019s leader in terms of diplomacy, as it then boasted<\/a> 276 diplomatic posts, many of which are consulates. Unlike embassies, consulates play a more significant role in terms of trade and economic exchanges. According to 2019 figures which were published<\/a> in \u2018Foreign Affairs\u2019 magazine, China has 96 consulates compared with the US\u2019 88. Till 2012, Beijing lagged significantly behind Washington\u2019s diplomatic representation, precisely by 23 posts.<\/p>\n

Wherever China is diplomatically present, economic development follows. Unlike the US\u2019 disjointed global strategy, China\u2019s global ambitions are articulated through a massive network, known as the Belt and Road Initiative, estimated<\/a> at trillions of dollars. When completed, BRI is set to unify<\/a> more than sixty countries around Chinese-led economic strategies and trade routes. For this to materialize, China quickly moved to establish closer physical proximity to the world\u2019s most strategic waterways, heavily investing in some and, as in the case of Bab al-Mandab Strait, establishing<\/a> its first-ever overseas military base in Djibouti, located in the Horn of Africa.<\/p>\n

At a time when the US economy is shrinking and its European allies are politically fractured<\/a>, it is difficult to imagine that any American plan to counter China\u2019s influence, whether in the Middle East, Asia or anywhere else, will have much success.<\/p>\n

The biggest hindrance to Washington\u2019s China strategy is that there can never be an outcome in which the US achieves a clear and precise victory. Economically, China is now driving global growth, thus balancing out the US-international crisis resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. Hurting China economically would weaken the US as well as the global markets.<\/p>\n

The same is true politically and strategically. In the case of the Middle East, the pivot to Asia has backfired on multiple fronts. On the one hand, it registered no palpable success in Asia while, on the other, it created a massive vacuum for China to refocus its own strategy in the Middle East.<\/p>\n

Some wrongly argue that China\u2019s entire political strategy is predicated on its desire to merely \u2018do business\u2019. While economic dominance is historically the main drive of all superpowers, Beijing\u2019s quest for global supremacy is hardly confined to finance. On many fronts, China has either already taken the lead or is approaching there. For example, on March 9, China and Russia signed<\/a> an agreement to construct the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS). Considering Russia\u2019s long legacy in space exploration and China\u2019s recent achievements in the field – including the first-ever spacecraft landing<\/a> on the South Pole-Aitken Basin area of the moon – both countries are set to take the lead in the resurrected space race.<\/p>\n

Certainly, the US-led \u2018Quad\u2019 meeting was neither historic nor a game changer, as all indicators attest that China\u2019s global leadership will continue unhindered, a consequential event that is already reordering the world\u2019s geopolitical paradigms which have been in place for over a century.<\/p>The post From the Earth to the Moon: Biden\u2019s China Policy Doomed from the Start<\/a> first appeared on Dissident Voice<\/a>.\n

This post was originally published on Dissident Voice<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A much anticipated American foreign policy move under the Biden Administration on how to counter China\u2019s unhindered economic growth and political ambitions came in the form of a virtual summit on March 12, linking, aside from the United States, India, Australia and Japan. Although the so-called \u2018Quad\u2019 revealed nothing new in their joint statement, the [\u2026]<\/p>\n

The post From the Earth to the Moon: Biden\u2019s China Policy Doomed from the Start<\/a> first appeared on Dissident Voice<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":68,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[834,190,305,51,273,24,14210,595,57],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84367"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/68"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84367"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84367\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":84368,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84367\/revisions\/84368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}