Article #5
We
Need a New, Ethically Focused Foreign Policy for the 21st Century
In its November 18, 2023
editorial, “A (small) step forward for the United States and China,” the
editorial board of the Star Tribune gave evidence of a stance that can
be witnessed in daily articles and opinions appearing in the publication: an uncreative view of foreign policy that
parrots a version of the realpolitik approach that has carried so much weight
since the unfortunate tenure of Henry Kissinger as secretary of state under
presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford during the 1970s.
The board touted the practical
advances that seemed to result from the four-hour discussion that Biden and Xi
had during last week’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting in San
Francisco: restoration
of military communication, termination of shipments of component parts for the
production of fentanyl, and the establishment of working groups on artificial
intelligence and climate change. The
board also expressed a view claiming the critical importance of the China
market for Minnesota industry and agriculture, respectively citing University of
Minnesota scholars Sri Zaheer and Ed Usset as to the
impact of trade in those sectors.
Much more briefly did the editorial board indicate that Biden rightfully prioritizes defending democracies in a
global atmosphere of rising authoritarianism and laments China’s complicit
support for Russia's invasion of Ukraine and failure to curb North Korea’s many
dangerous maneuvers in the Pacific region.
And only near the end of the editorial did the board write that “no
nation, especially the United States, should overlook China's human-rights
record, regional maritime aggression, support of repressive regimes and other
destabilizing policies.”
The United States needs a new foreign policy,
though, that moves beyond latter-day Kissinger realpolitik, inspired by 19th
century statespersons Metternich (Austria) and Bismark (Germany). Realpolitik has hardly created a safer world,
as could have been predicted by Metternich’s failure to sustain a
post-Napoleonic social order led by aristocrats and monarchs; and certainly Bismark’s dismal futility in
creating a balance of power that would lead to peace, rather than calamity of
the sort that in fact materialized in World War I.
We need in fact a foreign policy that follows the
advice of Salvatore Babones, writing in Foreign Policy (“Yes, you can go
ahead and use the T-Word to describe China,” April 10, 2021) to describe
forthrightly the totalitarian nature of Chinese society. In that sense, Joe Biden’s acknowledgment in
a press conference after he and Zi Jinping had met that he still regards Xi
Jinping as a dictator did not go far enough:
Xi Jinping is in fact no mere dictator but rather
the leader of a totalitarian regime that, because utilizing technology far more
advanced than any utilized by Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin, exerts more
control over Chinese citizens than the two prototypical totalitarian stalwarts
analyzed by historian Hannah Arendt could exert respectively over the German
and Soviet populations.
In the province of Xinjiang, the Xi regime has
detained over one million Uighurs under forced labor conditions and has taken
children from their homes and installed them in state-run schools in an effort
to Sinicize Uyghur children and eradicate Uyghur culture. Similarly brutal policies have been used in
Tibet, and anyone in China who dares to denounce any policy of the regime is
subject to “reeducation” in detention facilities and prisons. There is no scope in China to promote women’s
rights, gay marriage, LGBTQ rights, or the advancement of indigenous, non-Han
Chinese people. China ranks 156th
among 167 nations on the Economist Democracy Index.
Long-time United States ally Taiwan, by contrast,
ranks number 10 on that index, well ahead of the United States at 30. Taiwan since 1996 has evolved into one of the
most democratic, open societies in the world.
Presidential and legislative elections are free and highly competitive,
and the judiciary renders verdicts with factually justified and fair
rulings. The Taiwanese government has
recognized same-sex marriage since 2019.
LGBTQ rights are recognized in employment and society; a transgender person by the name of Audrey
Tang has held a position in female president Tsai Ing-wen’s cabinet since
2016. Sixteen indigenous languages are
recognized, and great strides have been made in the last decade to address concerns
and land rights of indigenous people.
The foreign policy that the United States should
advance for the 21st century should exalt relationships such as that
maintained with democratic Taiwan. The
foreign policy for this century should be one that seeks dialogue of the sort
that Xi and Biden had at APEC but only while pressing human rights concerns
that strenuously object to the treatment of the Uighurs and the Tibetans,
exalting the democratic model that is Taiwan, and maintaining firm commitment
(as Biden has expressed at his best) to defend Taiwan from any military attack
launched by the Xi administration on the island of 23 million people who at
birth behold futures in an advanced condition of human rights.
Foreign policy for the 21st century
should pursue national interest contextualized by broad human interest, not
recoiling from the ethical obligation to oppose abuses while remaining open to
dialogue if the opponent is not too offended by that gravely endangered value:
Truth.
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