President Joe Biden has made a major error in not attending the 2023 Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit in Indonesia this week.
ASEAN's importance has increased as China escalates its efforts to dominate the waters and political allegiances of the region. Biden is sending Vice President Kamala Harris in his place, but that will do little to calm the perception of American arrogance his absence has provoked in Jakarta. The only U.S. solace? Xi Jinping is not attending the ASEAN summit either.
AIR FORCE SECRETARY SAYS US NOT READY FOR CHINA WAR — HE'S RIGHT
It's not the only major summit that the Chinese president is skipping in the coming days. Beijing has just confirmed that Xi will also miss the G20 summit in India this coming weekend. Along with leaders from the world's other major economies, Biden will travel to New Delhi (Vladimir Putin is sending his sometimes theatrical Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov).
Xi's failure to attend the G20 summit is notable.
While it's true that India-China relations have become increasingly difficult due to various border disputes, both New Delhi and Beijing recently signaled interest in cooling those tensions. Moreover, Xi's attendance at the summit would have allowed him to bolster China's diplomatic profile (something that Beijing desperately needs) and influence sympathetic Western leaders such as France's Emmanuel Macron and Germany's Olaf Scholz. So why is Xi staying home?
Most likely because Xi is embracing more aggressive efforts toward forging an alternate international order. Xi's long-term strategy is to dissect America from its allies in Europe and weaken America's influence with its Pacific allies in Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, and Australia. At the same time, China is investing great effort in unifying African, Middle Eastern, and Latin American nations in its favor. Xi underlined the importance he places on this effort with his recent attendance at the recent BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) summit in South Africa.
Although China's economy faces great difficulty and its influence is declining with some foreign governments, Xi's BRICS agenda has found success. China has wooed Brazil's anti-American President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Xi is also successfully drawing U.S. allies such as Egypt, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia into the BRICS partnership (another reminder that obsessing over Jamal Khashoggi has been profoundly counterproductive to U.S. interests). Xi sees these relationships as a way both to deflect American efforts to constrain his imperial agenda and as a means of developing a Beijing-centric alternative to the post-1945 democratic international order.
In that sense, the key takeaway from Xi's absence from New Delhi is what it says about his plans. Contrary to Beijing's claims that it seeks only "win-win cooperation" with the world, Xi wants to reshape the rules of the international road fundamentally. If he succeeds, the democratic rule of law and free trade will give way to a new order of Beijing-led feudal mercantilism. An order in which Beijing doles out economic favor in return for political obedience.
Put another way, an order in which democratic sovereignty is dead. Biden should be attending every summit that Xi decides to miss.