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.
Four people jailed in the landmark Hong Kong national security trial of "47 democrats" accused of conspiracy to commit subversion were freed today after more than four years behind bars, the second group to be released in a month. Among those freed was long-time political and LGBTQ activist Jimmy Sham (岑子杰), who also led one of Hong Kong’s largest pro-democracy groups, the Civil Human Rights Front, which disbanded in 2021. "Let me spend some time with my family," Sham said after arriving at his home in the Kowloon district of Jordan. "I don’t know how to plan ahead because, to me, it feels
‘A THREAT’: Guyanese President Irfan Ali called on Venezuela to follow international court rulings over the region, whose border Guyana says was ratified back in 1899 Misael Zapara said he would vote in Venezuela’s first elections yesterday for the territory of Essequibo, despite living more than 100km away from the oil-rich Guyana-administered region. Both countries lay claim to Essequibo, which makes up two-thirds of Guyana’s territory and is home to 125,000 of its 800,000 citizens. Guyana has administered the region for decades. The centuries-old dispute has intensified since ExxonMobil discovered massive offshore oil deposits a decade ago, giving Guyana the largest crude oil reserves per capita in the world. Venezuela would elect a governor, eight National Assembly deputies and regional councilors in a newly created constituency for the 160,000
North Korea has detained another official over last week’s failed launch of a warship, which damaged the naval destroyer, state media reported yesterday. Pyongyang announced “a serious accident” at Wednesday last week’s launch ceremony, which crushed sections of the bottom of the new destroyer. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un called the mishap a “criminal act caused by absolute carelessness.” Ri Hyong-son, vice department director of the Munitions Industry Department of the Party Central Committee, was summoned and detained on Sunday, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported. He was “greatly responsible for the occurrence of the serious accident,” it said. Ri is the fourth person
At a calligraphy class in Hanoi, Hoang Thi Thanh Huyen slides her brush across the page to form the letters and tonal marks of Vietnam’s unique modern script, in part a legacy of French colonial rule. The history of romanized Vietnamese, or Quoc Ngu, links the arrival of the first Christian missionaries, colonization by the French and the rise to power of the Communist Party of Vietnam. It is now reflected in the country’s “bamboo diplomacy” approach of seeking strength through flexibility, or looking to stay on good terms with the world’s major powers. A month after Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) visited,
RSS