Biden talks tough to Myanmar’s military regime and China, hinting the US is firmly back in the saddle

Within a few days of taking office, US President Joe Biden is trying to set things right with the world, if any of his actions in the last few days is anything to go by. Biden has issued an executive order targeting Myanmar’s military regime with sanctions following a coup that ousted the democratically-elected Government led by Aung San Suu Kyi. “I again call on the Burmese military to immediately release democratic political leaders and activists including Aung San Suu Kyi and also Win Myint, the President,” Biden said. His order will keep the Generals from accessing $1 billion in assets held in the US and specific targets of the sanctions will be identified later this week. Biden made it clear that the sanctions are aimed at military leaders who directed the coup, their business interests as well as close family members and that the US would impose additional measures along with its global allies if it came to that. Thankfully, the sanctions for now will not affect the aid for healthcare programmes and civil society groups, which will spare increased hardship to the beleaguered citizens.

Similarly, Biden made it clear to China and the world that the US was firmly back in the seat as the global leader, a position that it had by and large relinquished during the Donald Trump regime which, in turn, had Beijing aspiring for the slot. Biden made it clear to President Xi Jinping that Big Brother would henceforth take a tough line on human rights abuses in Hong Kong and Xinjiang, coercion of Taiwan and assertive actions in the region. Though Xi put up resistance by telling Biden that China’s policies were related to its sovereignty and that confrontation between the two powers would be “a disaster”, he did call for the two sides to re-establish the mechanism to avoid misjudgments. This was a sane line for Beijing to take because the world, which is reeling under the socio-economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, can hardly afford disruption of peace at a time when all nations need to be working together for the good of humankind. Plus, with neighbouring India taking on the mantle of the facilitator of global good in the midst of the contagion, China, which has been blamed for unleashing the virus upon the world, can hardly be seen as being disruptionist. However, the fact remains that the US will always put its own interests first, and no one should ever forget that.