The UN general assembly summit this week will be dominated by a struggle – between the US and its allies on one side and Russia on the other – for global support over the fate of Ukraine, as the global south fights to stop the conflict from overshadowing the existential threats of famine and the climate crisis. With a return to fully in-person general debate, presidents and prime ministers will be converging on New York, many of them direct from London, where the diplomacy got under way on the sidelines…
Tag: Joe Biden
What happens if Putin goes nuclear in Ukraine? Biden has a choice to make
There has been much excited talk of a “turning point” following Ukraine’s rapid military advances in north-eastern Kharkiv region and what Kyiv cheerily calls its “de-occupation” by fleeing Russians. Less comforting for the western democracies is an alternative theory: that the war is approaching “a moment of maximum danger”. Worries that a cornered, desperate Vladimir Putin may resort to nuclear, chemical or biological weapons have resurfaced in the US and Europe, along with the argument, articulated by France’s Emmanuel Macron, that Russia’s president, despite his terrible crimes, should not be…
Joe Biden has picked a fight with tyranny. The west must hope he wins | Simon Tisdall
It was a deadly week for democracy. US president Joe Biden launched a rescue effort to save the “soul of the nation” that the dementor-in-chief, Donald Trump, AKA Lord Voldemort, is conspiring to steal. Russia lost a great man whose titanic struggle for reform was fatally torpedoed by a pint-sized usurper named Vladimir Putin. And China was saddled with indefinite dictatorship under the dead hand of Xi Jinping. Is there hope of resurrection? Perhaps. The more the western democracies are threatened externally by totalitarian regimes and internally by populist extremism,…
Friend or foe: what world leaders think of Liz Truss
She has caused uproar by questioning whether the French president, Emmanuel Macron, is a trusted ally and pursued a policy in Northern Ireland that has upset the White House. Should Liz Truss become prime minister on 5 September, she will come with some unhelpful baggage to the top table on the international stage at a fraught time. The challenges will come thick and fast. From the war in Ukraine, the global energy crisis and the urgent calls for more and deeper action on the climate crisis, the world is looking…
Putin and Xi ‘could meet in September’ at summit in Samarkand
Xi Jinping could meet Vladimir Putin in mid-September at a regional summit in the Uzbek city of Samarkand, it has been reported. According to the Wall Street Journal, preparations are being made for the Chinese president to travel to Samarkand on 15 September for a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO). Xi’s office signalled he might attend in person, the report said, and that as well as Putin, bilateral meetings could also be held with the leaders of Pakistan, India and Turkey. However, officials cautioned that the Chinese leader’s…
US and Chinese officials discuss Biden-Xi meeting amid Taiwan friction
US and Chinese officials have been discussing a face-to-face meeting between Joe Biden and Xi Jinping, amid a significant escalation in friction over Taiwan. Kurt Campbell, the coordinator for Indo-Pacific affairs in Biden’s national security council, confirmed on Friday that the two leaders had raised the possibility of an in-person meeting when they last talked by phone in late July “and agreed to have their team’s follow up to sort out the specifics”. Campbell said there were no new details to announce, but both leaders are expected to take part…
Chinese president Xi Jinping to visit Saudi Arabia next week
The Chinese president Xi Jinping will visit Saudi Arabia next week, where plans are under way for a gala reception to match that given to Donald Trump on his first trip abroad as president. The welcome being prepared for the Chinese leader is in stark contrast with that afforded to Joe Biden in June, when the US president received a low-key reception, reflecting strained ties between the two countries and personal distaste between Biden and the de facto Saudi leader, Mohammed bin Salman. Xi, however, is instead expected to receive…
Xi Jinping tells Joe Biden not to ‘play with fire’ over Taiwan in two-hour call
The Chinese president has warned Joe Biden against “playing with fire” over Taiwan in a highly anticipated phone call that lasted more than two hours on Thursday, as tensions remain high over the House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s potential trip to the island next month. “Those who play with fire will be perished by it. It is hoped that the US will be clear-eyed about this,” Xi Jinping, according to a Chinese statement. He also urged the US to implement the three joint communiques that serve as the foundation for relations…
Nancy Pelosi’s Taiwan trip ‘not a good idea right now’, says Biden
Joe Biden has cautioned against the reported trip to Taiwan next month by the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, saying the US military had assessed “it is not a good idea right now”. The Financial Times reported earlier this week that Pelosi would lead a delegation to Taiwan in August to show support for the democratically ruled island, which Beijing claims is a breakaway province. The trip was initially scheduled for April but was postponed due to Pelosi testing positive for Covid at the time. “Well, I think that the military…
Joe Biden lands in Saudi Arabia seeking to halt shift towards Russia and China
Joe Biden landed in the Saudi Arabian port city of Jeddah to a tepid welcome from the Saudi crown prince whose country he once pledged to make a “pariah” on the world stage. While Saudi Arabia announced it would open its airspace to flights from Israel, making Biden the first US president to fly directly from Tel Aviv to the kingdom, expectations of further gains during his visit remained low. The US national security adviser Jake Sullivan told journalists onboard Air Force One not to expect any bilateral announcements in…