WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden is looking to demonstrate to the world at the Group of 20 summit in India and during a stop in Vietnam that the United States and its like-minded allies are better economic and security partners than China.
White House officials said Biden, who was set to depart for New Delhi on Thursday evening, will use this year's G20 gathering as an opportunity for the United States to highlight a proposition for developing and middle income countries that would increase the lending power of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund by some $200 billion.
That is an attempt to offer a significant, albeit smaller, alternative to China's massive Belt and Road infrastructure initiative, which the U.S. views as a Trojan horse for China-led regional development and military expansion. Chinese President Xi Jinping plans to skip the summit, where Premier Li Qiang will represent the country.
Afterward the summit, Biden and Vietnamese General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong will meet in Hanoi and are expected to announce plans to tighten economic cooperation.
Vietnam and China have robust trade relations, but also deep differences. Vietnam, like Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Brunei, has been in a tense territorial standoff for decades with China, which has claimed authority over waters in the South China Sea that are hundreds of miles from the Chinese coastline.
“I think Xi's absence at this particular summit, if that comes to pass, really is a big missed opportunity for the Chinese," said Colleen Cottle, deputy director at the Washington think tank Atlantic Council's Global China Hub. “And I think it affords the Biden administration even more of a chance to go on the offensive in terms of stepping up and showing … what their value proposition is to the Global South."
Heading into the summit, the U.S. has criticized China for reducing the transparency of its reporting on basic economic data in recent months and for cracking down on companies in China that had been providing such data.
At the same time, the White House has tried to improve ties. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, who recently returned from China, was the latest administration officials to engage Beijing amid disputes over technology, security, Taiwan and other issues.
Raimondo told The Associated Press that “the world is looking for the U.S. and China to responsibly manage our relationship." She said the administration's goal is to have a stable economic relationship in which there is consistent engagement. But Xi's decision to not attend the G20 shows that “we have work to do" regarding communication between the countries, she said.
“Communication is of course, a two-way street," Raimondo said. “Communication does need to lead to action."
Biden said he was disappointed that Xi will not be in New Delhi, where the summit is expected to focus on climate, development and the future of the grouping of leading economies. Biden decided to skip this week's gathering of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in Jakarta, Indonesia, and sent Vice President Kamala Harris.
The U.S. has criticized China's lending practices under Belt and Road as “coercive," saying the $1 trillion infrastructure effort that provides Chinese loan assistance to poor countries often comes with strings attached that restrict the restructuring of debt with other major creditor nations. China also frequently retains the right to demand repayment at any time, giving Beijing leverage over other countries.
A recent Associated Press analysis of a dozen countries most indebted to China, including Pakistan, Kenya, Zambia, Laos and Mongolia, found paying back that debt is consuming an ever-greater amount of tax revenue. Countries in AP's analysis had as much as 50% of their foreign loans from China and most were devoting more than one-third of government revenue to paying off foreign debt.
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said the effort to bolster the lending capacity of the World Bank and the IMF would provide a “credible alternative" to China.
Biden included $3.3 billion for both institutions in the supplemental budget request he has sent to Congress. The administration said the money would help leverage nearly $50 billion from the U.S. alone in lending for middle-income and poor countries and up to $200 billion around the world.
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