Donate NowWe welcomed former CIS scholar John Lee. Recently writing in The Australian, John highlighted the new US administration has not removed Trump’s tariffs and other economic measures against China. Instead it has reaffirmed a previous assessment by then secretary of state Mike Pompeo that genocide is being committed in Xinjiang and the US Navy recently sailed a guided-missile destroyer through the Taiwan Straits.
Despite former national security advisor, John Bolton’s 2019 speculations that a Biden administration would behave in much the same way as the second-term Obama administration (Which was not a compliment), Biden is going out of his way to dispel fears about a lack of resolve.
We explore Biden’s commitment to reinvigorate US alliances and partnerships, about the importance of domestic renewal and protecting oneself from external threats and advancing sovereign capabilities, in the face of rising global competition.
John Lee is an adjunct professor and non-resident senior fellow at the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney and the Hudson Institute in Washington, DC. From 2016 to 2018 he was senior adviser to the Australian foreign minister, Julie Bishop.