Foreign affairs

 

Joe Biden’s bid to rally the ‘free world’ could spawn another axis of evil

Joe Biden’s big idea – a US-led global alliance of liberal democracies ranged against authoritarian regimes and “strongman” leaders – sits at the heart of his American restoration project. His proposed “united front” of the great and the good is primarily intended to counter China and Russia. Yet it could also antagonise valued western allies such as India, Turkey and Poland. For this and other reasons, it seems destined to fail.

Biden pledged during this year’s election campaign to hold a “summit for democracy” in 2021 “to renew the spirit and shared purpose of the free world”. It would aim “to strengthen our democratic institutions, honestly confront nations that are backsliding, and forge a common agenda”, he said. It was needed because, partly due to Donald Trump, “the international system that the US so carefully constructed is coming apart at the seams”.

It’s a laudable aspiration. Recent years have seen a marked growth in oppressive, mostly rightwing regimes that ignore international law and abuse UN-defined universal rights, including democratic rights. But how will Biden decide who qualifies for his alliance? Totalitarian North Korea and Syria’s criminal regime are plainly unwelcome. Yet illiberal Thailand, Venezuela and Iran all maintain supposedly democratic systems. Will they get a summit invite?

Diplomats are already predicting Biden’s grand coalition will end up as a rehash of the G7 group of leading western economies – the US, Canada, Germany, France, Italy, the UK and Japan. One wheeze is to add India, Australia and South Korea – a notional “D-10”. But that simply creates another elite club from which many actual or aspiring democracies are excluded.