The News
US Vice President Kamala Harris will likely shelve President Joe Biden’s democracy-vs-autocracy foreign policy framing if she wins next month’s election, multiple reports suggested, in favor of an approach where Washington works more closely with allies regardless of their domestic political systems.
Analysts think Harris will trumpet her support for a rules-based international order over Biden’s framing, which has proved particularly unpopular in Asia, where Washington-friendly countries such as Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam have been excluded from the White House’s democracy summits. Unlike her boss, Harris not used the word “autocrat” since being named the Democratic candidate for the presidency, The Economist noted.
SIGNALS
Harris’ ‘pragmatic approach’ may be a response to an increasingly realist world order
Harris’ turn away from her boss’ more idealist democracy-vs-autocracy foreign policy vision may reflect her coming to terms with a world that’s increasingly “playing by the rules of realism” at a time of rising conflict, rivalry, and uncertainty, a realist geopolitical expert told Nikkei Asia. But in practice, the Biden administration hasn’t been so ideologically purist either: Many American allies, particularly in the Indo-Pacific, aren’t liberal democracies, another expert added. Security concerns — and to a lesser extent, economic interests — have been the “dominant driver” of Washington’s close relations with authoritarian states, relations that are likely to deepen as tensions with China and Russia escalate and the US seeks to bring more countries into its camp, two experts argued for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
The rules-based international order also demands respect for human rights
A terminology shift won’t help Harris “dodge the hypocrisy” that characterizes US foreign policy, the former executive director of Human Rights Watch argued in Foreign Policy. Harris, a former prosecutor, should know laws can’t be cherry picked, he added, and that championing a rules-based international order is as much about international human rights and humanitarian law as it is about state sovereignty. The crisis in Gaza crystallizes this double standard as Israel commits alleged war crimes while the US turns the other cheek, he wrote. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s description of the US’ rules-based order as disguised American exceptionalism is itself hypocritical, but resonates with audiences globally, a columnist argued in Bloomberg. The Biden administration should therefore drop any reference to the rules-based order and instead “pledge fealty to international law,” he added.
There is meaningful daylight between Harris and Biden’s foreign policy approaches
Harris and Biden are broadly in alignment over China, but diverge on the Russia-Ukraine war, US political scientist Ian Bremmer argued in Project Syndicate: Whereas Biden views the conflict as a moral struggle, Harris is more legalistic, which could make her less likely to pressure Ukraine into unwanted negotiations while its territory remains illegally occupied, he wrote. She’s also been more outspoken than him on Israel’s conduct in Gaza, though offered “little indication of how her rhetorical empathy may translate into policy,” NPR reported.