Joe Biden assured Tuesday before the UN that he did not want a “new Cold War” with China, and defended his attachment to multilateralism against European allies who accuse him of going it alone.
“We do not want a new Cold War, or a world divided into rigid blocks,” said the President of the United States for the first speech of his term in the United Nations General Assembly.
However, the United States will “participate with vigor” in the “competition”, he warned without directly naming the rival power.
President Biden also pledged to “defend democracy” as well as its “allies” and to “oppose attempts by stronger countries to dominate weaker ones.”
His speech at the prestigious New York tribune of the UN was followed by that of Chinese President Xi Jinping, by pre-recorded video.
“Era of diplomacy”
This duel from a distance has remained muted, once is not customary.
The Chinese did not name the United States either, but multiplied the allusions.
“Democracy is not a special right reserved for a single country,” he said, calling for “cooperation” and “dialogue”.
He also made a new climate pledge, promising that China would no longer build coal-fired power plants abroad.
As a prelude to this exchange, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres called on Washington and Beijing to “dialogue”, warning against a deterioration of global crises that would be “much less predictable than the Cold War”.
For Richard Gowan, of the conflict prevention organization International Crisis Group, “Biden handled the question of China intelligently, without ever naming it” but by “multiplying allusions to Chinese misdeeds”.
Republican Nikki Haley, former minister of Donald Trump and potential candidate for the White House, on the contrary considered that the Democrat had thus “ignored the reality and the gravity of the threats and the enemies of America”.
The global diplomatic meeting, which opened on Tuesday and will last a week, was particularly anticipated this year, after the mainly virtual version of last year due to the pandemic.
Joe Biden used his speech in the temple of multilateralism to highlight America’s “return” as a reliable partner to its allies battered during the Trump era.
“Over the past eight months, I have prioritized rebuilding our alliances,” he pleaded.
As proof of his contribution to the common good, he promised to “double” Washington’s international financial effort against climate change and announced future “new commitments” against the Covid-19 pandemic.
Above all, he was committed to opening an “era of diplomacy” after the end of the war in Afghanistan.
Open crisis with France
But the withdrawal from Afghanistan, which ended in chaos at the end of August to the chagrin of many European countries, then the open crisis with France in the submarine affair, which erupted last week, have completely scrambled his message.
Paris does not take offense at the announcement by the United States, on September 15, of a security pact concluded with Australia and the United Kingdom to counter Beijing, nicknamed AUKUS. This new partnership ignited the transatlantic powders, because it was done behind the backs of the French, who lost a huge contract for submarines ordered by Canberra.
During a meeting in New York, President Biden and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison tried to reassure by asserting that their pact would “extend” to other allies.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian once again denounced a “breach of confidence”.
Sign of persistent tensions, France was represented at least in the New York hemicycle, during Joe Biden’s speech, and indicated that the telephone interview between French President Emmanuel Macron and his American counterpart expected from here the end of the week would be about “clarification” rather than “reconciliation”.
Among the other speakers on Tuesday, the new Iranian president Ebrahim Raïssi did not give a clear indication of his intentions during his international debut.
He said he was in favor of resuming negotiations to save the Iran nuclear deal, which had been interrupted since his election in June, but insisted that their “final objective” be “the lifting of all oppressive sanctions”.
Joe Biden told him again that he was ready to return to this agreement that Donald Trump had left in 2018 if Tehran also returns to the nuclear restrictions from which Iran has freed itself.
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Reference-feedproxy.google.com