Your Evening Briefing: Biden’s Foreign Policy Bends to Default Threat

A key part of US President Joe Biden’s foreign policy these past few years has been to try and counter China’s growing influence across the western Pacific. Nations largely ignored by Washington for decades have been courted by Beijing as it seeks to cement both soft and hard power in the region. Now, thanks to the risk of a US default, Biden has had to abandon what was to be an historic visit aimed at advancing American efforts to reassert itself in a part of the world it once dominated. The crisis back home, brought on by Republican demands for future spending cuts as the party’s price for paying America’s debt, caused Biden to cut short his trip, centered on the Group of Seven summit in Japan. The GOP meanwhile says he shouldn’t go at all. Addressing America’s self-inflicted crisis—which is already doing damage to the economy—Biden nevertheless expressed confidence negotiators would reach an agreement to avoid a catastrophic default.

Japan is unlikely to be a cakewalk for Biden either. The G7 meeting is the latest focal point of the fight for global influence between the West and its allies and authoritarian nations such as China and Russia. The advent of a multipolar world comprising rival factions, most clearly seen in attitudes to Russia’s war on Ukraine, will be on show in a series of high-profile summits in the coming months. At stake is a so-called battle of offers over countries such as Brazil, Vietnam, South Africa and Kazakhstan.