‘No cold war’: Joe Biden to pledge a shift in US foreign policy direction

Joe Biden says the US wants to avoid a cold war with China, telling the UN it will pivot from continuous post-9/11 conflicts to an era of American-led diplomacy.

US President Joe Biden, right, with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in New York. Picture: AFP

Joe Biden says the US wants to avoid a cold war with China, telling the UN it will pivot from continuous post-9/11 conflicts to an era of American-led diplomacy.

In his first speech as US President to the annual UN ­General Assembly in New York, Mr Biden will argue that the US is stepping in to save the world from the Covid pandemic, leading on ­climate crisis measures and ­rebuilding democratic ties frayed under Donald Trump.

And he will insist that his drive to deepen the US footprint in Asia – the new nuclear submarines pact with Australia is only the latest building block – does not have to mean confrontation with China.

In his speech early on Wednesday morning Australian time Mr Biden will say “he does not­ ­believe in the notion of a new cold war with the world divided into blocks. He believes in vigorous, intensive, principled competition,” a senior US official said.

“The President will essentially drive home the message that ending the war in Afghanistan closed the chapter focused on war and opens a chapter focused on personal, purposeful, effective American diplomacy,” the official said.

Mr Biden faces a tough reception at the UN in the face of French hostility at what it calls backstabbing by Washington in the new defence pact with Canberra and London in which Australia will acquire US nuclear submarine technology, while ditching previous plans for French conventional submarines.

Mr Biden has spent his presidency branding countries such as China and Russia as the opposing side in a generational, global struggle between autocrats and democracies. Throw in the hangover from the traumatic Afghanistan exit last month, and Mr Biden can ­expect some scepticism.

But reinforcing the theme of a US wanting to turn the page on two decades of conflicts, the President will vow a shift to diplomatic leadership.

He will stress US pledges in tackling both the pandemic and climate change.

On Covid-19, Mr Biden will likely recall that the US is easily the biggest donor of vaccines around the world, while acknowledging that considerably more needs to be done before vaccine imbalances can be ironed out.

Many African countries, for example, have got only a trickle of their populations fully vaccinated, and international donations are nowhere near enough to change the dynamic.

On Thursday Australian time, Mr Biden will host a virtual global summit on the pandemic response, calling for “an all-hands-on-deck effort that can end this pandemic much more rapidly”, the US official said.

The President’s climate envoy, John Kerry, pledged at the UN on Monday that the US would “do its part” to reach a $US100bn annual climate target paid for by industrialised nations to help developing countries to reduce emissions.

Mr Kerry suggested that an announcement could be made by the President in his speech saying: “Stay tuned and we’ll see where we are.”

Alok Sharma, Britain’s president of Cop26, the global climate conference in Glasgow in ­November, described Mr Kerry’s ­remarks as “particularly important” and indicated that Mr Biden “may say something very constructive”.

Ahead of the Paris Agreement in 2015, developed countries pledged $100bn a year from 2020 to support poorer nations with climate adaptation, but there is currently a $20bn shortfall.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson rebuked some of his closest allies for so far committing ­“nowhere near enough” money to reach the $100bn target.

Speaking to a round table of world leaders on the sidelines at the UN, he said he was “increasingly frustrated” at the failure of countries such as Australia, the US and Italy to increase their commitments to the fund.

“Too many major economies are lagging too far behind,” he said. “Tinkering around the edges simply won’t achieve the change the planet needs.

“Everyone nods and we all agree that ‘something must be done’. Yet I confess I’m increasingly frustrated that the something to which many of you have committed is nowhere near enough.”

AFP