The US democracy which the Biden-Harris administration is taking over is a severely wounded one.The biggest hurdles the administration face is a deeply polarized US society. A society in which minorities have been marginalized and racial schisms promoted. Gun violence has been condoned and the accumulation of wealth in the hands of a few at the expense of the poor promoted.
A hallmark of the past regime has been promotion of anti-immigrant sentiment, alienation of allies abroad and the mishandling of the Covid-19 pandemic which left over 400,000 Americans dead.
In the end the tensions boiled over and led to the unprecedented attack on the heart of US democracy -the storming of the Capitol. An attempt to halt the verification of the US presidential election results
During the past four years the US which has for better or for worse, (and most of the times its actions has been for the worse) dropped its self-assumed role of leadership in international affairs. The country has been isolating itself with an America first policy and withdrawing from international agreements such as the Paris environmental accord and the internationally agreed Iran Nuclear Accord.
With every US presidential election the world hopes the new administration will be more successful than its predecessor. The immediate past administration saw a petulant rabble-rouser stoke antagonism with both US allies abroad as well as those countries the US views as ‘its enemies’. It also oversaw an escalation of tensions with China and initiated a trade war with that country, which has hit the US farming community, the US economy and poorer nation states badly.
These are, but a few of the problems the incoming Biden-Harris administration faces.
What raises some hope that this particular administration will be successful is the fact that President Biden is not an idealistic newcomer. He is a seasoned veteran with a well developed sense of priorities in addition to being the former Vice President of President Barak Obama.
Vice President Kamala Harris too will make history today. She becomes the first US Female Vice President, the first woman of colour and the first female of South Asian descent to hold that post. Because of the sheer number of challenges facing the Biden-Harris administration, Harris will be forced to involve herself in the major targets Biden set for himself and his running mate - tuning round the economy, tackling the COVID-19 pandemic, rebuilding racial equanimity and addressing climate change.
However, what will be of greatest concern to us Sri Lankans; will be the administration’s impact on our own country. Biden has promised to strongly engage with multilateral institutions and strengthen the US role in the same... The 2015 UNHRC Resolution on Sri Lanka was co-sponsored by the US with our past regime, (a time when Biden was Vice President).
The accord was never implemented. Our present government unilaterally withdrew from our own co-sponsored resolution! We therefore - most probably – will face pressure from the new administration, especially from Kamala Harris who has spoken out strongly on Human Rights issues.
Being of Tamil descent, with a Tamil population of 238,000 or more in the US, she will probably raise Tamil grievances in Sri Lanka, given her ethnic background and the Tamil voter base in the US. Again the present Sri Lanka regime does not look favourably on devolution and has all but ruled out any discussion on this subject.
Even more important are US-China relations, our own close relations with China, sanctions imposed on Chinese companies by the Trump administration and how our government will navigate a path between the two warring global giants. What will be the effect of the recently imposed sanctions of the Trump regime on Chinese companies operating in Sri Lanka?
According to Asanka Abeygoonasekera writing in the ‘Observer Research Foundation’, 24 Chinese state-owned enterprises, including subsidiaries such as China Communications Construction Company (CCCC) that are involved in Colombo Port City and BRI-related projects in the island, faced sanctions from the Trump regime. Will these sanctions continue under the Biden Presidency and to what degree? The US-China rift however affects countries worldwide and not only a small nation like Sri Lanka.
We hope that under the Biden-Harris administration, we will see a reduction in the confrontation between the two economic super powers replaced with a search for a compromise based on shared values of co-operation which benefit most especially, the smaller and weaker nations of this world.
