Secretary of State Antony Blinken says the Biden administration is aiming to lead the international bloc opposed to Russia's invasion of Ukraine into a broader coalition to counter what it sees as a more serious, long-term threat to global order from China.
In a speech outlining the administration's China policy Thursday, Blinken laid out a three-pillar approach to competing with Beijing in a race to define the 21st century's economic and military balance. The Biden administration's strategy, he said, can be summed up in three words: invest, align, compete.
While the U.S. sees Russia and Russian President Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine as the most acute and immediate threat to international stability, Blinken said the administration believes China poses a greater danger.
Blinken argued that the global response to Putin's invasion of Ukraine is a template for confronting China's efforts to mold a new and unpredictable world order to replace the rules and institutions that have guided relations between states since the end of World War II.
China, Blinken suggested, has benefited greatly from that international order but is now trying to subvert it under the leadership of President Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party.
"Rather than using its power to reinforce and revitalize the laws, agreements, principles, and institutions that enabled its success, so other countries can benefit from them, too, Beijing is undermining it," Blinken said. "Under President Xi, the ruling Chinese Communist Party has become more repressive at home and more aggressive abroad."
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