Blinken sets humble tone in Asia as US aims to boost ties

Bloomberg

The latest swing of senior US officials through Asia indicates the Biden administration is taking a humbler tone in the region than the former president, with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken noting that every democracy was a “work in progress.”
On his first official visit to India, Blinken sought common ground with New Delhi in their disputes with China and warned of “rising global threats to democracy,” but told reporters “when we discuss these issues, I certainly do it from a starting point of humility.”
Blinken’s language shows the difficult balancing act President Joe Biden faces when it comes to taking on China over values. It is seeking to rally friendly nations against an increasingly autocratic Beijing, while grappling with the aftermath of the January 6 insurrection at home and the questions about the human rights records of key allies, including India.
The more self-effacing approach could help neutralise China’s efforts to deflect international criticism of its own human rights practices back at the US. For more than a year, top Chinese diplomats have quickly sought to pivot from denials that their government is carrying out genocide in Xinjiang to attacks on what they say is Western hypocrisy, citing everything from the murder of George Floyd to the Holocaust.
“The US is struggling to find the right balance between a strong democracy vs autocracy message in Europe with something different in much of Asia, where talk of values is less well-received,” said James Crabtree, IISS–Asia executive director and author of “The Billionaire Raj: A Journey Through India’s New Gilded Age”.
“Certainly in Asia even democratic US allies like Japan and South Korea don’t much like talk of an alliance of democracies because they want to keep good ties with many of the region’s non-democratic states too.”

China Challenge
His trip comes as the US administration vows to challenge what it describes as China’s aggression and while countries across South and Southeast Asia battle a surge in Covid-19.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is also in Asia with the message that America is committed to engagement in the region, while stressing that the US and its partners faced a common challenge in China. And Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman had a contentious meeting with her counterparts in Tianjin, China this week.
Beijing was quick to respond to Blinken’s comments.
“Democracy is a common value of humanity. It not patented by any country,”
Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman Zhao Lijian said at a regular press briefing on Wednesday in Beijing. “It is not democratic at all to undermine others while portraying oneself as superior.”
Blinken met his Indian counterpart Subrahmanyam Jaishankar and National Security Advisor Ajit Doval ahead of a meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. India’s border tensions with China, the growing security crisis in Afghanistan triggered by the impending final US troop withdrawal and Covid-19 were high on the agenda.
Jaishankar pushed back against Beijing’s criticism of the grouping known as the Quad that includes the US, India, Japan and Australia. “People need to get over the idea that somehow other countries doing things is directed against them,” Jaishankar said in a joint press conference with Blinken. “I think countries do things that are in their interest, for their good and the good of the world. And that is exactly what is the case with the Quad.”