In trip to China’s backyard, Biden team tests its ‘values’ policy
When a catastrophic tsunami struck Indonesia’s Aceh Province in 2004, killing more than 200,000 people and uprooting hundreds of thousands more, the United States marshaled the forces of partners Japan, Australia, and India to launch one of the largest and most comprehensive disaster aid efforts ever undertaken.
The initiative saved lives and rebuilt communities across the affected Indian Ocean region. It demonstrated that alliances of nations could be as much about meeting human needs as about lofty hard-power defense strategies and big-power competition.
More broadly, it underscored that democracies working together from the basis of shared values offered a more comprehensive and equitable assistance and redevelopment model than the one proffered by an autocratic China.
In that sense, the U.S.-led assistance effort was an early stab at countering
“Vaccine diplomacy”Agenda of concernsShift to hard power?