Linda Thomas-Greenfield, US President Joe Biden’s nominee for US ambassador to the UN, on Wednesday called China “a strategic adversary” that threatens the world, and expressed regret for a speech she gave in 2019 that praised Beijing’s initiatives in Africa and made no mention of its human rights abuses.
During her confirmation hearing at the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, the veteran diplomat was pressured by US senators Ron Johnson and Ted Cruz about the speech at Savannah State University’s Confucius Institute on “China-US-Africa Relationships.”
In it, she praised Beijing’s US$1 trillion Belt and Road global infrastructure program in Africa, and called for “a win-win-win situation” where the US and China would promote good governance, the rule of law and other values on the continent.
Photo: Bloomberg
Asking her why she had said the US is not in a new cold war with China, Johnson pointed to Hong Kong, where China has cracked down on democracy activists, and Taiwan, where Beijing says flights by its warplanes near the country last weekend were a warning against foreign interference in any independence moves.
“China is a strategic adversary, and their actions threaten our security, they threaten our values and they threaten our way of life, and they are a threat to their neighbors and they are a threat across the globe,” Thomas-Greenfield said.
She said that in the speech, which she wrote, she was referring to Africa, which was “sort of a pawn in the Cold War, and my conversation there was to say that Africans can no longer allow themselves to be a pawn. But this is not a cold war for them, they have to take control of their own futures.”
Cruz was tougher, expressing concern at “a pattern of Biden administration nominees of consistently moving towards and embracing the Chinese Communist Party.”
He said this became worse with Thomas-Greenfield’s speech at the Chinese-funded Confucius Institute, which he said has had “repeated problems of espionage and propaganda.”
“This speech is cheerleading for the Chinese Communist Party” and makes no mention of China’s human rights violations, he said.
Beijing has been sharply criticized for putting more than 1 million Uighurs and members of other Muslim minority groups into camps, among other rights abuses.
“It was not my intention, nor do I think that I cheered on the Chinese Communist Party,” Thomas-Greenfield said.
“This is one speech in my 35-year career, and I do regret that speech,” she added.
“I am not at all naive about what the Chinese are doing and I have called them out on a regular basis,” she said. “I see what they’re doing at the United Nations as undermining our values... I will be working aggressively against China.”
Thomas-Greenfield was also questioned about a host of other issues, including the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and major powers, which former US president Donald Trump pulled out of in 2018.
She said the US would be working not only with allies, “but to see where we can find common ground with the Russians and the Chinese to put more pressure on the Iranians to push them back into strict compliance.”
In opening remarks, Thomas-Greenfield spoke of China’s diplomatic inroads during the Trump administration, which pursued an “America First” policy that weakened international alliances. She made clear that there would be a change under Biden to re-engaging internationally and promoting US values.
US leadership must be rooted in the country’s core values — “support for democracy, respect for universal human rights, and the promotion of peace and security,” she said.
In the sweltering streets of Jakarta, buskers carry towering, hollow puppets and pass around a bucket for donations. Now, they fear becoming outlaws. City authorities said they would crack down on use of the sacred ondel-ondel puppets, which can stand as tall as a truck, and they are drafting legislation to remove what they view as a street nuisance. Performances featuring the puppets — originally used by Jakarta’s Betawi people to ward off evil spirits — would be allowed only at set events. The ban could leave many ondel-ondel buskers in Jakarta jobless. “I am confused and anxious. I fear getting raided or even
Eleven people, including a former minister, were arrested in Serbia on Friday over a train station disaster in which 16 people died. The concrete canopy of the newly renovated station in the northern city of Novi Sad collapsed on Nov. 1, 2024 in a disaster widely blamed on corruption and poor oversight. It sparked a wave of student-led protests and led to the resignation of then-Serbian prime minister Milos Vucevic and the fall of his government. The public prosecutor’s office in Novi Sad opened an investigation into the accident and deaths. In February, the public prosecutor’s office for organized crime opened another probe into
RISING RACISM: A Japanese group called on China to assure safety in the country, while the Chinese embassy in Tokyo urged action against a ‘surge in xenophobia’ A Japanese woman living in China was attacked and injured by a man in a subway station in Suzhou, China, Japanese media said, hours after two Chinese men were seriously injured in violence in Tokyo. The attacks on Thursday raised concern about xenophobic sentiment in China and Japan that have been blamed for assaults in both countries. It was the third attack involving Japanese living in China since last year. In the two previous cases in China, Chinese authorities have insisted they were isolated incidents. Japanese broadcaster NHK did not identify the woman injured in Suzhou by name, but, citing the Japanese
RESTRUCTURE: Myanmar’s military has ended emergency rule and announced plans for elections in December, but critics said the move aims to entrench junta control Myanmar’s military government announced on Thursday that it was ending the state of emergency declared after it seized power in 2021 and would restructure administrative bodies to prepare for the new election at the end of the year. However, the polls planned for an unspecified date in December face serious obstacles, including a civil war raging over most of the country and pledges by opponents of the military rule to derail the election because they believe it can be neither free nor fair. Under the restructuring, Myanmar’s junta chief Min Aung Hlaing is giving up two posts, but would stay at the