Democracy and Human Rights have become significant aspects of Joe Biden’s foreign policy. The current President of The United States of America has centered his foreign policy acknowledging the democratic backsliding and wants to restore US leadership in world politics. On December 9-10, 2021, Biden arranged a Democracy Summit. Later that week, under a new sanctions program, the US imposed sanctions on 15 individuals and organizations from 10 different countries on allegations of the violation of human rights. Since then, discussions and debates have been going on considering current global politics and the impacts of the sanctions.
Three months later, the Biden administration again used sanctions as a geo-economic measure to counter Russia in the Ukraine-Russia crisis. It seems that the sanctions have already complicated the global financial structure. Skeptics are now questioning the objective and motivation of the US sanctions. What is the actual objective of the US? Is it trying to ensure the public good or “weaponizing” democracy and human rights to fulfill geopolitical interests against China in the new Cold War?
In the beginning, Biden’s democracy Summit revealed several double standards and geopolitical calculations. While the US branded it as a “Global Summit,” it didn’t invite all the democracies. Instead, it followed a fashion of “picking and choosing” based on its own standards. The US refrained from inviting states that it perceives to be pro-China. Furthermore, in many cases, it neglected international standards. For instance, the it invited Congo but excluded Turkey, while according to the Global Democracy Index 2020, Turkey is 62 positions ahead of Congo. Such exclusions are based on geopolitical calculations.
Famous Journalist Debashish Roy Chowdhury, in his article in Time magazine, also identified another double standard of the US. While the US invited populist strongmen such as Narendra Modi and Rodrigo Duterte, it refrained from inviting Viktor Orban and Recep Erdogan. Mr. Roy believes such “picking and choosing” between “criticized” strongmen are also geopolitically motivated. The absence of Pakistan on the question of Taiwan also reveals the geopolitical side of the summit. On the other hand, the US had also excluded China, Russia, and Iran.
However, it seems that following sanctions after the summit is not also free from geopolitics. No doubt that, in the 21st century, democratic backsliding is increasing rapidly, especially after the financial crisis of 2008.
Harvard Scholar Yasha Mounk’s identification of the decay of democratic values also supports such a claim. Therefore, the question of democracy and human rights is an international question, and efforts should be made to uphold these values universally. But, the sanctions are clearly geopolitically motivated. The US also followed the process of “picking and choosing” in this respect. The targeted individuals and organizations are mostly from states which are pro-China or dependent on the Chinese development plan in the eyes of the US. Though serious violations of human rights are taking place in many parts of the world, the US has remained silent in many cases, such as about the Yemen crisis.
History suggests that the US itself has the least concern about democracy and human rights when these values contradict its interests and policy objectives. The unilateral withdrawal from Afghanistan and allowing Taliban- an extremist force to take over the country proves such a claim in the Biden era. Moreover, the USA’s indifferent role in the Yemen crisis is another fallacious aspect of Biden’s foreign policy. Yet amid this crisis, the USA has sold missiles and launchers worth $650 million to Saudi Arabia.
The US also supports Israel’s continuous violation of human rights in occupied Palestine in the name of security concerns. Furthermore, since 9/11, to conduct the “War on Terror,” the US had relied upon drone attacks, target killings, and secret prisons such as Guantanamo Bay. These elements of US foreign policy has raised serious questions about violations of human rights abroad at the hand of US officials. So, in the light of these records, critics ask why is the USA now prioritizing democracy and human rights in its foreign policy? To search for the answer, we need to look at the ongoing Sino-US rivalry.
One of the significant events of the past decade was the rise of China. After Xi Jinping’s ascension to China’s leadership and following the introduction of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), China has emerged as a superpower in world politics and inevitably developed a rivalry with the US and its allies. Moreover, China has also built a strong alliance with other rival forces of the US, including both Russia and Iran. The rapid spread of BRI projects all over the world has become a major concern for the US and its allies. Therefore, we see the creation of the Free and Open Indo-Pacific Doctrine (FOIP), the revival of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad), and the signing of AUKUS to reduce China’s growing influence over the Indo-Pacific region. Hence, currently, a new Cold War is at play in its initial phase.
In this new Cold War, the room for Ideological differences is very little, unlike the past one, which was “Liberalism vs. Communism”. In a neoliberal world, both the rivals follow the same principle of neoliberal developments in their foreign policy. The main conflicts of interest among them are mostly economic. Hence, this is a “mercantile war” in a new fashion.
Till now, China has been relying upon its economic muscle and diplomacy in this rivalry. After the financial crisis of 2008, China has emerged as a popular development partner in the Global South. With the announcement of BRI and mobilizing Chinese development finance, China has also globalized its development. According to Chin and Gallagher, availability, avoiding policy conditionality, and package deal policy has made Chinese development finance lucrative to receiving states. These elements also allowed China to compete with existing western development finance institutions. For regimes around the world, the coming of this “China Money” has allowed them to sustain themselves and achieve desired development by undertaking mega projects. At the same time, due to lack of policy conditionality and China’s refraining from interfering in domestic matters, authoritarianism is also growing, exploiting these Chinese finances.
In the past two decades, due to costly Middle-East policy, neglecting of peripheral regions, and Trump’s eccentric policies, the US stake in these peripheral regions and in overall international politics has declined significantly. While the US experienced its decline, China was quick to fill up the void flexing its economic muscle and diplomacy. Hence, a growing Chinese influence has taken place in these parts of the world.
To restore the western hegemony back in its place, the US and its allies want to counter the growing Chinese presence. In the political aspect, to do so, Biden wants to fill the ideological gap by painting the rivalry as “Democracy vs. Authoritarianism.”
According to Canadian Critical Scholar Radhika Desai, in the last 20 years, the military and economic capability of the USA has been declining significantly. The withdrawal from Afghanistan bears the testimony of this claim. Therefore, to address the lack of capabilities, the USA is not relying on democracy and human rights in its foreign policy.
Hence, the USA is actually “weaponizing” democracy and human rights. Therefore, in the age of “Realpolitik,” the USA is not making an effort to ensure the “Public Good”, rather, it is addressing its capability problem and is ensuring its weapon against China.
Existing double standards and geopolitical calculations in “picking and choosing” suggest the same. If the US wanted to ensure public good, it wouldn’t follow an exclusionary process; rather, it would adopt a multilateral and inclusive approach. Some public good may follow, but ultimately, public good would still be at the backseat while geopolitical objectives would be at the steering wheel.
As a result, such double standard and hypocrisy of US foreign policy will only polarize world politics and will reinforce authoritarianism as a norm all over the world. Hence, the US must address the double standards of its foreign policy.
*The writer is a Doctoral Researcher at the University of Groningen. Her areas of interest are Comparative Politics, Globalization, South Asian Studies, and Migration Studies.
April 4, 2022
The viewpoints expressed by the authors do not necessarily reflect the opinions, viewpoints and editorial policies of Aequitas Review.
