China News Service, January 20 (Reporter Meng Xiangjun) On the 20th local time, U.S. President Biden held a press conference on the anniversary of his assumption of office, summarizing his year in power in terms of anti-epidemic, economic, military and other aspects. .
How has Biden done a year in the White House?
A reporter from Chinanews.com specially invited Wang Peng, a researcher at the National Governance Research Institute of Huazhong University of Science and Technology, to conduct an in-depth interpretation.
Data map: US President Biden in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington.
[Epidemic prevention: poor "efficacy"]
At present, the new crown epidemic in the United States has rebounded severely, with more than 65 million confirmed cases and a staggering total of nearly 900,000 deaths.
In 2020, more than 380,000 Americans have died from the new crown infection.
Although Biden said at the press conference that he had "exceeded expectations" in response to the epidemic, a recent poll showed that 55% of the American respondents were dissatisfied with the effectiveness of Biden's anti-epidemic measures.
Wang Peng pointed out that in terms of fighting the epidemic, compared with the state of "lying flat" and "straight diving" during the Trump period, the Biden administration has slogans, actions, and plans to fight the epidemic.
But in the end, it is still result-oriented and depends on the "efficacy".
"Unfortunately, it should be said that even if there is no Omicron mutant strain, I don't think Biden can control the epidemic, and I don't see him doing better."
Wang Peng further pointed out that there are still Republicans "singing the opposite stage".
Data map: Passengers take the subway in New York City, USA.
Photo by China News Agency reporter Liao Pan
[People's Livelihood: Soaring Inflation]
Wang Peng pointed out that poor epidemic prevention is a long-term factor that has caused Biden's approval rate to plummet.
From a short-term perspective, it is related to the rise in the US CPI.
In December 2021, U.S. inflation will reach its highest level in 39 years. As a "country on wheels", U.S. oil prices and prices have risen, and people's livelihoods have been impacted.
The Biden administration has introduced a policy of subsidizing the epidemic to the public, which looks good, but it is not.
Why do you say that?
Wang Peng analyzed that the US government has never been able to "cut the flesh from itself" when it sends money. In fact, it is printing dollars to transfer inflationary pressure to the world.
Such pressures are being felt by China and other countries that sell goods to the United States and buy U.S. debt.
For many Americans, they go to work at the risk of contracting the virus, and they have to pay taxes if they earn little money. They may not have received much from the original relief funds and special anti-epidemic subsidies, or the income gap is not large.
This has led to the people's "lay flat" mentality.
Wang Peng said that under the impact of the epidemic, there have been a large number of vacancies in key areas such as logistics that are related to the national economy and people's livelihood.
Many goods in the United States are too expensive to produce by themselves, and the quality is not good, so they can only be imported from China and other countries.
However, after the imported goods were shipped to the US ports, no one unloaded or transported them, resulting in the accumulation of goods, and the supermarkets had no goods to sell.
Wang Peng pointed out that the recent supply chain crisis has impacted the livelihood of the American people and has greatly dampened Biden's approval rate.
Data map: US soldiers plant flags on the tombstones of fallen soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery.
[National Defense: Binding of Interests]
Although on November 5, 2021, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a $1.2 trillion infrastructure construction bill, Wang Peng pointed out that this is a lot of discount compared to what Biden originally proposed.
When it comes to "bargaining" the bill by Congress, Wang Peng pointed out that this is a common phenomenon.
However, it is worth noting that the United States has seen a situation of "increase without reduction" in some military-related bills.
For example, the "2022 National Defense Authorization Act" passed in December 2021 is as high as $768 billion, which is not only $25 billion more than the Biden administration's spending, but also increased the U.S. defense budget by 5% over the previous year.
Among them, Wang Peng believes that there are many factors such as the US exaggerating the "threat" of China and Russia.
In the final analysis, Wang Peng said that this phenomenon shows that the US military-industrial interest groups have colluded with the military, political, financial and even academic circles to jointly "kidnap" the government and the public, sacrificing the welfare of the United States to satisfy a small group of interest groups. 's demands.
Data map: US President Biden.
[Diplomacy: Rebuilding Hegemony]
A slogan that Biden has frequently mentioned before is "America is back."
Wang Peng pointed out that the core of the Biden administration's foreign policy is "multilateralism" defined by itself, which is different from the Trump-era practice of explicitly denouncing multilateralism and frequently withdrawing from the group.
The diplomatic strategy of the Biden administration this year is mainly developed from two aspects.
One is the "multilateralism" outlined by Wang Peng, which is designed to serve the United States and engage in global ideological criticism.
For example, in 2021, the United States will hold a so-called "democracy summit" to gather some countries and political groups as much as possible to isolate other countries.
In Wang Peng's view, this is similar to "isolation of small gangs in kindergartens". The Biden administration wants to create an effect similar to 9:1 internationally, but it has not been achieved.
Second, it is "mini-multilateralism".
For example, Wang Peng, an important geostrategic tool newly created by the Biden administration, the US-UK-Australia "Trilateral Security Partnership" (AUKUS), is to reduce the number of actors as much as possible, and use the most refined "small multilateral" of the Sea Power Alliance to improve execution, Examples of activism aimed at reshaping the core of American global hegemony.
AUKUS, as the core tool for the United States to contain China, introduced the United Kingdom to realize the linkage between the Indo-Pacific and the world; and supporting Australia can also be regarded as the United States' left behind in the "Indo-Pacific" game against China.
In short, the "Indo-Pacific" strategy has become a testing ground for the "mini-multilateralism" of the United States, and it also includes the "Quartet Security Dialogue" mechanism of the United States, Japan, Australia and India.
In addition to the security layout, how to gather and solidify the Indo-Pacific countries in the economic framework and create a set of rules that can rigidly exclude China is also what the Biden administration seeks.
Wang Peng pointed out that although the United States currently needs to stop losses in terms of tariffs and has loosened its grip on China, he believes that there is no evidence that Biden is different from Trump in the technology trade war with China.
He said that the United States links economic and trade issues with national security, and the "Strategic Competition Act" passed by the Senate in April 2021 is to define Sino-US relations in terms of great power competition. Under this framework, he believes that the future of Sino-US economic and trade is difficult to have substance Sexual turnaround can only be seen in tricks and tricks.
However, in addition to chips, high-tech and other fields, in the vast majority of products, the United States now relies heavily on China's trade with China, so the United States will open up cooperation where it judges that it is beneficial to itself.
In addition, when it comes to relations between Europe and the United States, Wang Peng analyzed that during the Trump era, the EU demanded equal rights and obligations, and the contradiction between the United States and Europe intensified. Biden has eased the contradiction by visiting Europe to win over.
However, the EU has always emphasized strategic independence and wanted to get rid of the control of the United States. The United States and Australia also grabbed a large order for French submarines, and France was "very angry".
Data map: Ukrainian and NATO troops hold the "Sea Breeze" military exercise.
Wang Peng pointed out that at present, the United States is hyping Russia to "invade" Ukraine and threatens to impose sanctions on Russia, but Europe is experiencing an "oil and gas shortage".
On sensitive issues like Russia, the unity of transatlantic allies remains to be seen.
【What will happen in the future? 】
At present, Biden's overall approval rating is only 33%.
In general, Wang Peng concluded that Biden's governance performance this year was lackluster, and there was not much to be commended.
Regarding Biden's future governance, Wang Peng believes that the biggest problem he faces may be insufficient resources and many opponents.
Its team cohesion is also insufficient. It can be seen that Biden is "removing the east wall to make up the west wall", but the result is "pressing the gourd and floating the scoop".
And in November, the United States will usher in the midterm elections that are crucial to the Biden administration.
Wang Peng pointed out that according to the current situation, Biden has a high probability of losing the election and becoming a "lame duck" president.
(Finish)