An embarrassing week for US diplomacy

This week was probably the biggest diplomatic flop ever seen in Washington. The United States' announcement of a diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Beijing Winter Games and its hosting of two-day "Summit for Democracy," which is really a Summit for Division, a series of developments have shown that Uncle Sam no longer has the same esteem it once did.

For starters, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution last week calling for an "Olympic Truce" for the games in February. This was co-sponsored by 173 countries, i.e. by an overwhelming majority of the international community, not just a few countries allied with the United States. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres' office even announced on Thursday that the UN chief would attend the games in Beijing.

America's oldest ally, France, announced that it would not take part in the "insignificant" boycott alongside the United States. Now, to be fair, top officials left the door open for a common European approach to this issue. However, on the second day of Washington's Summit for Division China and France announced a date for the eighth China-France High-Level Economic and Financial Dialogue.

There's still some time before the games kick-off, however, at this point, the "boycott" is not some kind of collective international action against China but just an Anglophone temper tantrum at this point since only the UK, Canada and Australia have joined the US

What's ironic about the "boycott" is that, as the French government said, it's not even a full boycott since these countries are sending athletes – plus, per the rules of the Olympics, politicians have to be allowed in by the host country. China obviously didn't invite these countries' diplomats, which makes the "boycott" meaningless in the first place.

There's also the fact that the "boycott" is about alleged human rights abuses in China's Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region. The US has claimed that there is an ongoing genocide, but since its own lawyers don't believe there's evidence of this it has downgraded this to "cultural genocide" which is poorly defined on purpose. Ironically, each of the countries "boycotting" the Bejing games have literally committed genocide, lead the world in crimes against humanity and can't even admit it.

With this as the backdrop, the US is wrapping up its Summit for Division that has angered many countries for the fact that it is clearly not about democracy but US fealty. So transparent is this politicization and division that Pakistan declined an invitation to the summit, pretty much no one besides reporters watched it online and the results have been an American-style nothingburger.

On the other hand, China re-established diplomatic relations with Nicaragua, a country that has been squeezed by US imperialism for decades and just had an election re-affirming the mandate of its socialist leadership – but was not invited to the Summit for Division. Now it looks like Nicaragua will not only join the Belt and Road Initiative but might even continue work on a canal with the help of China to compete with the US-controlled Panama Canal.

Likewise, Lithuania, a US client state that is going all-in with upping ties with separatist forces in Taiwan, is also getting its just deserts. In response to the creation of a Taiwan "representative office" in Vilnius, China is essentially cutting Lithuania out of the international supply chain.

I was pretty sure that the Summit for Division would fall flat and continue to expose the US as a failing hegemony because, frankly, the idea of the summit is a joke to begin with since, for example, America's youth don't even believe their democracy works. But this week was truly an extraordinary failure by US diplomacy, who had hoped it would have been a series of wins.

Washington was hoping that its recent steps would create an international anti-Chinese coalition and instead has boxed itself into a corner with a handful of other countries that are united by a common language and penchant for crimes against humanity. The rest of the world is clearly not paying any attention to this nonsense.

Bradley Blankenship is a Prague-based American journalist, columnist and political commentator.

The opinions expressed here are those of the writer and do not represent the views of China Daily and China Daily website.

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