My Take | Did Biden manage to contain China?
From a US perspective, the outgoing president and his foreign policy team did surprisingly well. But without a supportive successor – or rather with an actively hostile one – their work is likely to come undone
The symbolism was unmistakable. In a photo op earlier this week for world leaders attending the annual summit of the Group of 20 major economies in Rio de Janeiro, Joe Biden was conspicuously absent. Instead, the photo showed four Brics leaders – Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, India’s Narendra Modi, South Africa’s Cyril Ramaphosa and Xi Jinping – standing in the front row alongside Keir Starmer of Britain and Anthony Albanese of Australia.
Biden’s minders blamed “logistical issues”. The next day, in a “wait, we forgot grandpa” mea culpa, summit host Lula made sure Biden was put in the centre of the front row for a second photo shoot.
But the damage was done. If anything, the second photo op just showed Biden is now no more than a prop on the world stage.
Every US president ends up a lame duck. That’s the problem of having term limits, imposed by Republicans after Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt kept winning elections. But Biden has been described as the “lamest of ducks”, which is partly a reference to his declining mental facilities that ended his bid for a second term.
Biden has failed in Ukraine and criminally so in the Middle East. But arguably from an American perspective, he or at least his foreign policy team did reasonably well in containing China. But the barriers and safeguards they have put in place in the Asia-Pacific or Indo-Pacific are shaky and unlikely to last. One reason is the incoming Donald Trump, and the highly divisive domestic politics that has returned him to power.
This is not to say Trump will be less hostile to Beijing. But to use an inelegant metaphor, he will not use any of the well-established and proven martial arts, but a random fighting style all his own. Biden’s containment is built on alliances, but they are high maintenance and Trump has no time for them.
