WASHINGTON (AP) – Less than two weeks in office, President Joe Biden is facing two crucial tests to see if the deadly riot at the Capitol has damaged America’s position as a beacon for democracy.
Protests in Russia and a military coup in Myanmar emerge as American credibility on the world stage has been scuttled after the storming of the Capitol last month by a pro-Donald Trump gang seeking to stop the certification of Biden’s election victory.
That adds to Biden’s weight as he tries to fulfill a campaign promise to dramatically reposition the US as a world leader after Trump’s four years of foreign policy, driven by an ‘America First’ mantra. This policy was characterized by the frequent denigration of Democratic allies and the occasional embrace of authoritarian leaders.
Biden’s top diplomat, Antony Blinken, acknowledged the difficulty.
“I think there is no doubt that the attack on our own democracy on January 6 creates an even greater challenge for us to carry the flag of democracy and freedom and human rights around the world, because, sure, people in other countries say to us, “Well, why don’t you look at yourself first?” Said the minister in an interview with NBC News.
Blinken added, “The difference between us and so many other countries, however, is that when we are challenged, even when we challenge ourselves, we do it in full daylight with full transparency.”
In the early days of his presidency, Biden sought to get the message across in a series of calls with foreign leaders that America is back.
He has reassured Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga that the US has its backing in an ongoing territorial dispute with China over islands in the East China Sea. He has attempted to mend a relationship with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who Trump has denounced as ‘dishonest and weak’. And he has told Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador that the US would send $ 4 billion to aid development in Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala – countries whose hardships have led to migration from Mexico to the United States.
“The United States remains a country in the world looked to for leadership,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters. “It will take a while, but he has certainly worked for it.”
But the crises in Myanmar and Russia present Biden with difficult tests of his promise to restore global leadership, which will likely be far more complicated than repairing fences with traditional allies.
Biden threatened with new sanctions against Myanmar on Monday following a coup in which the military arrested civilian government leaders, calling the episode “a direct attack on the country’s transition to democracy and the rule of law.”
In his first meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin As counterparts, Biden last week expressed concern about the detention of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny and the crackdown on supporters supporting his arrest. The mass arrests have only accelerated in the days since the two leaders spoke, as protests continue across the country.
“For Putin, he looks at the uprising in the Capitol and sees it as further evidence of his worldview, a continuation of the degradation of liberalism in the world,” said Michael McFaul, who served as US Ambassador to Russia in the Obama administration. . Biden’s election doesn’t tell him much about his theory of liberal democracy. While Putin’s opponents are very much encouraged by the election of President Biden because it shows that the American democratic institutions were resilient. “
To this end, Navalny’s supporters wrote to Biden over the weekend urging him to take meaningful measures with sanctions against members of Putin’s inner circle to demonstrate that he is serious about defending the US’s role as a champion of democracy. to reclaim.
“Their argument is, if you just punish a bunch of low-level nameless colonels … that’s exactly what Putin expects,” McFaul said. “They want the Biden administration to punish the economic actors in Putin’s regime, and they’ve made it easy for the Biden administration by mentioning them all in their seven-page letter.”
Rep. Adam Schiff, a California Democrat and chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, drew a line from Trump to the Myanmar coup. Trump had made unfounded allegations of widespread voter fraud that were rejected by multiple courts and Trump’s own Justice Department.
An announcement on Myanmar-owned Myawaddy TV explained that the seizure was necessary because the government had failed to act on the military’s baseless allegations of fraud in the Southeast Asian country’s recent elections and because it election despite the coronavirus pandemic.
“When America speaks and acts, the world watches, and when our leaders propagate conspiracy theories and undermine democracy here at home, it’s a dangerous example to the rest of the world,” Schiff said.
Opponents like China, Iran and Venezuela pointed to the uprising in the Capitol as evidence of the fragility of American democracy. Even some allies said the scene was disturbing and has led them to rethink the United States’ position as the self-proclaimed beacon of democracy.
“After something like this, I think it would be very difficult for the world to see the United States as a symbol of democracy,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelinskiy said in an interview with “Axios on HBO”.
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Associated Press writer Darlene Superville contributed to this report.