World Leaders Meet, Talk
Two meetings of world leaders are in the news this week – President Biden’s Asia trip, including the G20 meeting in India, and North Korea’s Kim Jung Un meeting with Russia’s Vladimir Putin in Vladivostok. These are both consequential meetings, but I’m going to write only about the substantive meetings that President Biden had with world leaders in India and during the other stops on his tour.
This is what Politico had to say about President Biden’s trip:
President Joe Biden’s trip to Asia had its share of successes. But the way he achieved those wins re-raised the criticism that Biden sidelines human rights in pursuit of strategic interests.
Realpolitik was on full display in the Indian and Vietnamese capitals. Washington’s ties to New Delhi and Hanoi are tighter now than before the president traveled to the region. A G20 joint statement, referring to the Ukraine-Russia war, said all nations should respect the “territorial integrity and sovereignty” of other countries — though the Kremlin-approved declaration didn’t blame Moscow for starting the conflict. A new “economic corridor” could further connect India through the Middle East and into Europe. Movement also was made toward reforming multilateral institutions that serve developing countries and curbing climate change.
But Biden irked human rights advocates, and prompted questions from reporters, by how he got all that done.
Biden met and backslapped with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the G20 host who has overseen his nation’s slide away from democracy. Ahead of the gathering, Indian authorities bulldozed New Delhi slums for optical purposes. Asked by NatSec Daily whether Biden brought that up with Modi during their one-on-one chat Friday, deputy national security adviser Jon Finer didn’t directly say “yes.”
“The broad category of issue that that falls into — democratic governance and its state in the United States and in India — was very much on the agenda,” he responded.
Then at the G20, Biden and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman shook hands following the announcement of the “economic corridor” involving Saudi Arabia. Pictures show a beaming Modi placing his hands atop MBS’ and Biden’s pressed palms.
Biden continued his journey in Hanoi for an official upgrade in the U.S.-Vietnam relationship. The two countries have moved closer to one another for years, and the bonhomie has grown following Beijing’s regional aggressions and Vietnam’s desire to court American business fleeing China. But there was no public rebuke of Vietnam’s human rights abuses by the president or anyone in his entourage.
The president and his team often say that prioritizing human rights doesn’t mean cutting off ties to abusive actors. The best thing to do, they insist, is to get out on the road, engage those governments and raise the issue while still getting stuff done.
It’s a play Biden has run in trying to mediate conflict in the Middle East and to rebuild partnerships with countries he once labeled global “pariahs.”
And this weekend Biden repeated often that he — in private — discussed America’s human rights concerns with Modi and Vietnamese leaders.
But advocates wanted Biden to state — out loud — that closer relations with the U.S. were dependent on improved human rights conditions. That didn’t happen, and instead both India and Vietnam got what they wanted from the U.S. at minimal cost.
“International alliances, while pivotal, should not sideline human rights for the sake of realpolitik,” said Nancy Okail, president and CEO of the progressive Center for International Policy. Biden’s trip delivered “a worrying and costly message: that American interests eclipse the fundamental rights of individuals elsewhere.”
Nguyen Phu Trong, the general secretary of Vietnam’s Communist Party, certainly didn’t seem deterred by Biden’s warnings. During a joint news conference on Sunday, Nguyen emphasized the importance of “non-interference in domestic affairs.”
The president in his retort said he’ll further raise his concerns in “candid dialogue.”
You may not have seen much about Biden’s trip on your news programs or on your news feed. If you saw anything at all, it was probably a 30-second clip of Biden speaking extemporaneously (and not well) at a press event at the end of a day of travel and meetings. Biden did a fair amount of Biden-ing at this conference, and if you take it out of the context of the entire day’s worth of meetings (and the entire five-day trip of meetings and events), it unfortunately feeds the “Biden’s too old” messaging that is driving ratings in all corners of the current polarized media environment. We should not be misled by this. In a podcast I also listened to this week, this is how they phrased this issue: We need to acknowledge that both President Biden and former President [#P01135809] are old: Biden is 80 and #P01135809 is 77. The difference is that Biden is old and sane and #P01135809 is old and batshit crazy. The choice is clear.