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RI not holding its breath as US welcomes new govt
The United States will swear in president-elect Joe Biden on Wednesday at a time of waning global influence. Indonesia, as is likely the case with the rest of the world, is less hopeful about the change, so long as the US looks to continue escalating its rivalry with China.
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hile the upcoming United States regime change has promised some welcome respite from years of hostile rivalry with China under President Donald Trump, Indonesian expectations have all but dissipated thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, with the US’ poor handling sure to take up most of president-elect Joe Biden’s attention.
On Wednesday, Biden and his deputy, Kamala Harris, will be sworn into office at the US Capitol, the site where hundreds of Trump supporters rioted earlier this month in an attempt to prevent lawmakers from formalizing the results of the US election, leaving fi ve dead and the world questioning the state of the superpower’s democracy.
In a single presidential term, Trump’s “America First” experiment has greatly damaged the US reputation overseas and has left the incoming administration with the difficult task of restoring trust among partner countries.
However, Trump also seemed to attract bipartisan support for raising security and economic stakes in the US-China rivalry, analysts have said. This heightening of tensions has created geopolitical instability and left nations on the sidelines with few other choices than to pick a side, at a time when strong global collective leadership is required to overcome the COVID-19 pandemic.
Since “foreign policy starts at home”, Indonesia knows better than to put too many expectations on Biden’s administration to restore the balance of power with China. Biden faces the “incredible challenge” of resolving uncontrollable COVID-19 outbreaks, a wide divide between the political elite and society at large, as well as a democracy in decline, said Siswo Pramono, the Foreign Ministry’s head of policy analysis and development.
On the foreign policy front, the US has also lost a lot of ground on both transatlantic relations with Europe and trans-Pacific relations with Asia, especially in the economic sphere. The signing of a comprehensive agreement on investment between China and the European Union has apparently surprised the US.
Meanwhile in the Pacific, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand signed the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), an ASEAN-led trade deal that includes China. The Barack Obama administration had tried to offer an alternative to the RCEP through the Trans-Pacific Partnership – but it failed as soon as Trump pulled the US out of the deal.
“This is why the US has to be more careful, it has to intensively reengage diplomacy with Europe and the Pacific amid a very unstable domestic political situation,” Siswo told The Jakarta Post on Monday.
However, Biden’s choice for the next US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, seems intent on turning up the heat in the rivalry with China, with his prepared remarks stating that the US would “outcompete” a rising China while reviving frayed alliances, AFP reported.
Siswo said that tensions between the two superpowers should not carry over, because no country could afford any more instability arising from the rivalry, with concerns about the pandemic overshadowing progress. He estimated that it would take about four years for all countries to completely recover from COVID-19 and that it would be a very fragile four years, since they had all taken out loans that were due in that time.
“So, the big question is, when the conditions are this difficult, do you still want to continue the trade war? If the rivaling countries choose to continue, then it would be foolish, because it is destroying the world and destroying themselves.” he said.
Prior to the pandemic, the US had engaged China in a tit-for-tat tariff war that proved detrimental to the global economy.
Dewi Fortuna Anwar, a research professor at the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), said that, while the US-China trade war was subject to review, there was no guarantee that it would stop under Biden, as the stance on China was a bipartisan one.
New US presidents have often seized on their inaugural addresses to make soaring statements of US international purpose, but Biden’s will take place in a far darker atmosphere with virtually no crowd — due both to the pandemic that has claimed 2 million lives worldwide and ultra-tight security after the mob attack on Jan. 6 at the very building where Biden will take the oath.
