Every September, the annual UN general assembly session offers global leaders a prime opportunity to publicize their top priorities to an international audience—precisely what President Joe Biden did on the conclave’s opening day this week.
As Biden approached the podium, the representatives of China and Russia may have braced for an earful: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has produced Europe’s deadliest war in more than 70 years; and tensions over Taiwan, the South China Sea and trade have made blame-laden volleys between China and the US routine. As it turned out, however, Biden’s half-hour speech barely mentioned the US’s two biggest rivals.
Biden’s address included familiar themes from prior speeches, some dramatic flair, and the occasional cliche. The world, he said, was at an “inflection point in history”. Bullies and rule-breakers were continually testing international values and rules. Democracies were under threat in the Sahel and west Africa, where military-led governments have been popping up like weeds in a garden.
Although both Biden and the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who gave his own address, made appeals to globalism, Zelenskiy worked hard to place Moscow in the dock. In contrast, Biden seemed to have decided that a full-blown attack on Russia for invading Ukraine would not resonate with much of the global south, whose countries have been loth to openly condemn Moscow and have been anxious primarily about the war’s effect on critical imports, such as oil and food and the prospect that western support for Ukraine could diminish funding for their economic development.
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