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President Biden speaks at the White House on September 6. He is due to leave this week for a trip to India and Vietnam.
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President Biden speaks at the White House on September 6. He is due to leave this week for a trip to India and Vietnam.
Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images
President Biden is due to leave Thursday for India and Vietnam, two strategic neighboring countries of China. Like much of the president’s foreign policy, this trip is implicitly about China and its growing influence.
Biden’s first stop is New Delhi, where he will meet Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was warmly welcomed at a state dinner in Washington this summer.
Modi hosts the G20 summit bringing together the world’s major rich and developing countries. Biden plans to use the event to try to strengthen two institutions that provide loans and support to developing countries: the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
The move is widely seen as an effort to bolster alternatives to Chinese lending programs, including the Belt and Road Initiative, which has burdened some countries in Asia and Africa with debts they cannot afford. not refund.
“Given both the scale of the needs and, frankly, the scale of the PRC’s coercive and unsustainable lending under the Belt and Road Initiative, we need to ensure that There are high-quality, high-leverage solutions to the challenges countries face,” Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters, using the acronym People’s Republic of China.
A worker at a souvenir shop in Hanoi, Vietnam, packs a shirt bearing the likeness of President Biden on September 6, ahead of the US president’s visit to the city.
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A worker at a souvenir shop in Hanoi, Vietnam, packs a shirt bearing the likeness of President Biden on September 6, ahead of the US president’s visit to the city.
Nhac Nguyen/AFP via Getty Images
Vietnam and the United States draw closer
From New Delhi, Biden will travel to Hanoi, Vietnam, where he will focus on deepening economic cooperation. Vietnam, a one-party state ruled by the Vietnamese Communist Party, is expected to improve its relationship with the United States.
Experts believe this would be a substantial change, given that the two countries normalized relations only in 1995. Since then, the United States has become Vietnam’s largest export market. . Exports have surged since President Donald Trump imposed tariffs on China, and many American companies are now looking to Vietnam.
In Hanoi, Biden will meet with Communist Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong about technology, innovation and efforts to “increase peace, prosperity and stability in the region”, the House said. White in a press release.
The two legs of Biden’s trip demonstrate how invested his administration is in building friendships in the region to balance China, even if those friends don’t fully share the U.S. emphasis. on human rights or freedom of the press.
An armed security guard stands near a G20 logo in New Delhi on September 6.
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Tauseef Mustafa/AFP via Getty Images
An armed security guard stands near a G20 logo in New Delhi on September 6.
Tauseef Mustafa/AFP via Getty Images
China’s Xi won’t attend G20 summit
For the first time since taking power in 2013, Chinese President Xi Jinping is expected to skip the G20 summit. Russian President Vladimir Putin will not be there. Some experts say this could open up more of an opening for Biden’s agenda.
A key argument Biden brings with him to India is reform of the World Bank and IMF. Both institutions were established in 1944 to help with post-World War II reconstruction. Over the years, their missions have evolved. Today, the World Bank is involved in a diverse set of projects ranging from education to public health.
“These institutions (the IMF and the World Bank) can play a crucial role, helping to mitigate risks in developing countries and helping them to create stronger economic systems,” said DJ Nordquist, who represented the States. United on the Board of Directors of the World Bank from 2019 to 2021.
Historically, the United States has been the largest shareholder of the World Bank. But as the Chinese economy has grown, it has become the third largest banking player. At the same time, China has also created alternatives for lending money to low-income countries, especially in Africa and Asia.
“China has created, from around 2014, a very serious competitor – for lack of a better word – to the World Bank,” Nordquist said, pointing not only to the Belt and Road Initiative, but also the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.
China has created alternatives for lending money to low-income countries. An example is the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, headquartered in Beijing.
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Jade Gao/AFP via Getty Images
China has created alternatives for lending money to low-income countries. An example is the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, headquartered in Beijing.
Jade Gao/AFP via Getty Images
Biden wants $2 billion from Congress for his plan
Biden asked lawmakers for $2 billion for the World Bank and IMF — money the White House said would leverage billions more from G20 partners.
This is still only a fraction of what is needed, according to Rachel Kyte, former vice president of the World Bank. “But it’s important because the United States has to take the lead in this,” she said.
According to her, it is now recognized that the world needs a bigger and better system to lend money to developing countries.
“Over the past 20 to 30 years, the West – led by the United States – has underinvested in the infrastructure of the rest of the world. And while we weren’t, China really increased its lending to emerging markets in developing countries,” said Kyte, former dean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.
The challenge for the Biden administration as it approaches its entry into India is that it is trying to draw a very fine line on this issue. He said his plan would offer an alternative to Chinese lending which he calls “coercive”, while insisting that he does not specifically target China – a member of the World Bank – with this proposal.
“Increasing the size, relevance and ability of the World Bank to meet the needs of low- and middle-income countries is not against China,” Sullivan told reporters.
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