Editing ANALYSIS-China Struggles To Fill Trump apos;s apos;America First apos; Leadership...

<br>By Tony Munroe<br> <br>BEIJING, Oct 22 (Reuters) - As Donald Trump has pulled the United States inward under his "America First" presidency, China has had only halting success at capitalising on a global leadership vacuum, presenting openings for a more internationalist Joe Biden administration if he wins next month's election.<br> <br>Under Trump, Washington abandoned the Paris climate pact, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the UN Human Rights Council and UNESCO, and ditched the Iran nuclear deal.<br><br>It has announced that it will withdraw from the World Health Organization (WHO) next July and has crippled the World Trade Organization by blocking appointments to its appeals panel.<br> <br>Beijing, which accuses Washington of being "addicted to quitting", has struck a more globalist posture under President Xi Jinping: Chinese officials head four of the 15 UN agencies, and Beijing has boosted its WHO commitment by $2 billion.<br> <br>As it has sought a seat at the table more befitting its status as the world's number-two economy,  [https://www.kynghidongduong.vn/blog/tham-quan-tu-cam-thanh-nguy-nga-va-huyen-bi.html kynghidongduong.vn] China has also formed its own multilateral institutions, including the Belt and Road Initiative and Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB).<br> <br>"China has been trying its best to take advantage of the U.S. retreat to advance its own goals," said Paul Haenle, director of the Carnegie-Tsinghua Center for Global Policy in Beijing.<br><br>"Nevertheless, China has had difficulty translating its growing influence into foreign policy success," he said.<br> <br>While China has all-but-quashed the spread of coronavirus and is a leader in vaccine efforts, its early mishandling of the outbreak that began in Wuhan has triggered a global backlash.<br> <br>Beijing's clampdown on Hong Kong, its mass detention of Uighur Muslims, its island-building in the South China Sea and sabre-rattling towards Taiwan as well as more aggressive "wolf warrior" diplomacy, have also eroded sentiment towards China - even as Trump's policies have undermined U.S.<br><br>standing.<br> <br>China has struggled to leverage the exasperation of some U.S. allies towards Washington under Trump, with State Councillor Wang Yi,  [https://www.kynghidongduong.vn/blog/tham-quan-tu-cam-thanh-nguy-nga-va-huyen-bi.html tử cấm thành bắc kinh] the government's top diplomat, facing pushback over Hong Kong and other issues during a recent five-country visit to Europe.<br> <br>"Many see the U.S. retreat from global institutions under Trump as ceding fertile ground to China in this area, but what is striking is how much China's so-called 'wolf-warrior' diplomacy has undercut their ability to take advantage," said Susan Thornton, the top U.S.<br><br>diplomat for Asia early in the Trump administration.<br> <br>GLOBAL OPINION<br> <br>A survey by the U.S.-based Pew Research Center found that unfavourable views towards China in advanced economies including the United States had soared over the past year.<br> <br>In April, an internal Chinese report warned that Beijing faced a rising wave of hostility in the aftermath of the coronavirus, with global anti-China sentiment at its highest since the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, Reuters reported in May, citing people familiar with the matter.<br> <br>If Biden wins, he is expected to maintain a tough stance on China but also to engage with allies and international bodies in a more traditional way.<br><br>He has said he would keep the United States in the WHO and rejoin the Paris climate accord.<br> <br>"On many issues of global governance, there is still much room for cooperation between the two countries," such as climate and COVID-19, said Jia Qingguo, a professor at Peking University School of International Studies who has advised China's government.<br> <br>MIXED SUCCESS<br> <br>Despite its growing economic and military might, China has been a sometimes-awkward multilateral leader, insisting that it is still a developing country and does not want to replace the United States.<br> <br>Its diplomatic ties tend to be transactional, with a policy of non-interference in the domestic affairs of other countries and a demand that it gets the same treatment, blasting what it calls Washington's "long-arm jurisdiction."<br> <br>Its Belt &amp; Road initiative has been criticised for a lack of transparency, environmental concerns, and the financial sustainability of projects, although the AIIB has been credited with adhering to global standards.<br> <br>China's success at putting one of its own as head of France-based police coordination agency Interpol ended disastrously when the chief, Meng Hongwei, resigned after going missing in China, where he was sentenced to jail this year for graft.<br> <br>"China's explicit ambitions to 'lead the reform of the global governance system' have not been clearly defined," said Julian Gewirtz, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.<br><br>"These statements are often swaddled in gauzy platitudes - and that means the rest of the world should judge China by its track record rather than its promises." (Reporting by Tony Munroe; additional reporting by Gao Liangping; [https://slashdot.org/index2.pl?fhfilter=editing editing] by Richard Pullin)<br>