Ian Bremmer
By Ian Bremmer
America and China are the world’s two major powers, with the largest economies and militaries. The stakes are high for them to practise what they preach on foreign policy: their words and actions influence the global economy, as well as the behaviour of allies and enemies.
The problem: Xi Jinping and Barack Obama want to have their foreign policy cake and eat it, too. For both leaders, international engagement isn’t top of mind: they want to downplay their global leadership roles to focus on more pressing concerns at home.
The closest thing that Obama has to a foreign policy doctrine is the consistent lack thereof. In his recent speech at West Point, he argued against engaging in conflicts that are not core interests. He emphasised buy-in from a coalition of other partners and the use of the military option only as a last resort. “Just because we have the best hammer does not mean that every problem is a nail,” he said.
But when it comes to unconventional engagement, Obama hasn’t hesitated to wield the hammer; in fact, he’s been more assertive than his predecessor by a long shot. It’s estimated that thousands of people have died at the hands of drone strikes on his watch; these strikes have consistently breached the territorial sovereignty of other countries.
This Jekyll and Hyde foreign policy may actually be two sides of the same coin. It’s because Obama is so risk averse with conventional military engagement that he’s willing to resort to unconventional alternatives. Obama justifies this unilateral engagement by claiming that we can “take direct action when necessary to protect ourselves.” But how direct must the threat be before he can engage?
China’s Xi Jinping has his hands full with an ambitious set of reforms intended to shift China’s economic model. It’s an unprecedented experiment, and a big part of why China remains unwilling and unable to become a “responsible stakeholder” on the global stage. Xi would prefer to undersell China’s global strength until it is actually much stronger.
This hesitancy to engage internationally is why China has clung to a policy of noninterference in other countries’ affairs for decades. After Sunni militants sacked Iraq’s second-largest city, China didn‘t even make an official statement condemning the attacks. It abstained from the UN vote on the legality of Russia’s annexation of Crimea, and it stayed on the sidelines of the Ukraine crisis, not over-committing to Russia or the West. But when it comes to core interests beyond China’s borders, Xi is willing to throw these tenets out the window, and go it alone aggressively.
China lays claim to 90 percent of the South China Sea, stoking tension with every country in that neighbourhood. But Beijing took it to a whole new level when it sent an oil exploration rig deep into contested waters — and very close to the Vietnamese shore — accompanied by a flotilla of fishing boats. Xi wants to keep his undivided attention on China’s growing pains at home. But his foreign policy outbursts are a dangerous divergence — and they undermine China’s long-term economic interests.
Barack Obama and Xi Jinping have fundamental inconsistencies at the heart of their foreign policies. They are undermining their countries’ long-term health. For allies and neighbours, it’s the worst of both worlds. They can’t rely on the world’s two most powerful countries for global leadership, and yet they still need to account for them engaging unpredictably and unilaterally overseas. The countries that are caught directly in the cross-hairs, on the wrong end of a Chinese or American core interest, have it worst of all.
For Xi and Obama, their focus on domestic priorities is understandable. Smoothing out the contradictions in their foreign policies would help their cause at home. REUTERS
By Ian Bremmer
America and China are the world’s two major powers, with the largest economies and militaries. The stakes are high for them to practise what they preach on foreign policy: their words and actions influence the global economy, as well as the behaviour of allies and enemies.
The problem: Xi Jinping and Barack Obama want to have their foreign policy cake and eat it, too. For both leaders, international engagement isn’t top of mind: they want to downplay their global leadership roles to focus on more pressing concerns at home.
The closest thing that Obama has to a foreign policy doctrine is the consistent lack thereof. In his recent speech at West Point, he argued against engaging in conflicts that are not core interests. He emphasised buy-in from a coalition of other partners and the use of the military option only as a last resort. “Just because we have the best hammer does not mean that every problem is a nail,” he said.
But when it comes to unconventional engagement, Obama hasn’t hesitated to wield the hammer; in fact, he’s been more assertive than his predecessor by a long shot. It’s estimated that thousands of people have died at the hands of drone strikes on his watch; these strikes have consistently breached the territorial sovereignty of other countries.
This Jekyll and Hyde foreign policy may actually be two sides of the same coin. It’s because Obama is so risk averse with conventional military engagement that he’s willing to resort to unconventional alternatives. Obama justifies this unilateral engagement by claiming that we can “take direct action when necessary to protect ourselves.” But how direct must the threat be before he can engage?
China’s Xi Jinping has his hands full with an ambitious set of reforms intended to shift China’s economic model. It’s an unprecedented experiment, and a big part of why China remains unwilling and unable to become a “responsible stakeholder” on the global stage. Xi would prefer to undersell China’s global strength until it is actually much stronger.
This hesitancy to engage internationally is why China has clung to a policy of noninterference in other countries’ affairs for decades. After Sunni militants sacked Iraq’s second-largest city, China didn‘t even make an official statement condemning the attacks. It abstained from the UN vote on the legality of Russia’s annexation of Crimea, and it stayed on the sidelines of the Ukraine crisis, not over-committing to Russia or the West. But when it comes to core interests beyond China’s borders, Xi is willing to throw these tenets out the window, and go it alone aggressively.
China lays claim to 90 percent of the South China Sea, stoking tension with every country in that neighbourhood. But Beijing took it to a whole new level when it sent an oil exploration rig deep into contested waters — and very close to the Vietnamese shore — accompanied by a flotilla of fishing boats. Xi wants to keep his undivided attention on China’s growing pains at home. But his foreign policy outbursts are a dangerous divergence — and they undermine China’s long-term economic interests.
Barack Obama and Xi Jinping have fundamental inconsistencies at the heart of their foreign policies. They are undermining their countries’ long-term health. For allies and neighbours, it’s the worst of both worlds. They can’t rely on the world’s two most powerful countries for global leadership, and yet they still need to account for them engaging unpredictably and unilaterally overseas. The countries that are caught directly in the cross-hairs, on the wrong end of a Chinese or American core interest, have it worst of all.
For Xi and Obama, their focus on domestic priorities is understandable. Smoothing out the contradictions in their foreign policies would help their cause at home. REUTERS
