Getting what they wanted, good and hard.
[BenarNews] A seven-day overseas trip looks likely to prove the biggest test of U.S. President Joe The Big GuyBiden
...46th president of the U.S. Sleazy Dem machine politician, paterfamilias of the Biden Crime Family, the guy who bungled Afghanistan...’s foreign policy chops since he entered office last year, with four back-to-back summits culminating in what could be his first face-to-face meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping as president.
Biden departs Thursday for Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, for the 27th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, or COP27 meeting. He then attends the annual Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, and East Asia summits, which are this year in Phnom Penh, and the G-20 leaders meeting in Bali, Indonesia.
While the COP27 meeting will provide the president with a platform to promote his vision for fighting climate change, his administration’s capacity to make substantive pledges is expected to be restrained by shared power in Congress in the wake of Tuesday’s midterm elections.
More significant will be the summits in Southeast Asia starting Saturday.
Biden’s first task will be convincing ASEAN leaders in Phnom Penh that Washington remains a helpful counterbalance as Beijing seeks to assume the role of regional hegemon. Chinese Premier Li Keqiang arrived in Phnom Penh on Tuesday, and leaves the same day as Biden.
"Biden is going to Phnom Penh to demonstrate U.S. respect for and engagement with ASEAN, ASEAN-centrality and the role of ASEAN multilateral institutions in the security of the Indo-Pacific Region," Carl Thayer, emeritus professor at the Australian Defense Force Academy in Canberra, told Radio Free Asia, adding that China would be in focus.
"He will also try to assuage those ASEAN leaders who are swayed by China’s rhetoric that the U.S. is the root cause of regional instability," he said. "Biden will repeat longstanding U.S. policy that the United States will cooperate with China where it can, but resist China where it must."
During the summit in Phnom Penh, U.S.-ASEAN relations are expected to be upgraded to the status of a "comprehensive strategic partnership" — as China-ASEAN relations were during last year’s summit in Brunei — before Cambodia hands over the group’s rotating chairmanship to Indonesia.
The future of ASEAN member Myanmar is also expected to feature heavily during the summits, with human rights
...which often include carefully measured allowances of
freedomat the convenience of the state...
groups calling for the summit to enact embargoes on arms and jet fuel to Naypyidaw
...generally translated as
royal capital,
seat of the kingor
abode of kingsbecause the general in charge had a massive ego. It was founded in 2002 because Rangoon was worn out. Traditionally, Naypyidaw was used as a suffix to the names of royal capitals, such as Mandalay, which was called Yadanabon Naypyidaw in Burmese...
.