US: Kamala Harris visits Asia amid Afghan crisis
https://www.dw.com/en/us-kamala-harris-visits-asia-amid-afghan-crisis/a-58949210
Kamala Harris will become the first US vice president to Vietnam. Her visit, however, comes at a time of a humiliating withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan.
US Vice President Kamala Harris arrived in Singapore on Sunday, kicking off her trip to Southeast Asia where she is expected to offer reassurances of Washington’s commitment to the region.
The vice-president’s visit come just days after the chaotic withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan and the subsequent takeover of the country by the Taliban.
The return to power of the hardline Islamists in the conflict-ridden country has dented the United States’ credibility and cast a shadow over its resolve to defend its values.
During her visit, which began on Friday and includes stops in Singapore and Vietnam, Harris will likely seek to allay concerns about US dependability.
A foreign policy novice?
The trip will also provide Harris, an Asian-American whose mother was of Indian-origin, a forum to assert herself directly in foreign affairs.
The longtime district attorney and former senator is largely untested in diplomacy and foreign policy.
The vice president will meet Singapore’s leaders Monday, including the president and prime minister.
She will then make a stop at the Changi Naval Base, where she’ll address US sailors aboard the visiting USS Tulsa.
First US VP in Vietnam
Harris will arrive in Hanoi late Tuesday, becoming the first US vice president to visit Vietnam.
She will hold government meetings and attend the opening of a Southeast Asian branch of the US Centre for Disease Control.
However, her visit to the communist country has been particularly criticized for being tone deaf, as the US struggles to evacuate Americans and Afghan allies out of Kabul.
Visuals of the chaotic US evacuation from Kabul last week drew comparisons with a similar image of Saigon in 1975 where US helicopters ferried the last evacuees from the embassy roof.
Strategic importance of Southeast Asia
US officials said the trip was planned long before the collapse of Afghanistan and the main focus will remain Washington’s broader strategic goals in Asia.
In Hanoi, Harris will join a virtual meeting of Southeast Asian officials which will focus on the coronavirus pandemic.
Her trip aims to establish deeper ties with the region that Washington considers key to checking Chinese expansion.
Southeast Asia remains “strategically important and economically important to this country”, a White House official told the AFP news agency.
It comes against the backdrop of an increasingly assertive China challenging US hegemony in the Indo-Pacific region.
In July, free-speech advocates at the University of Connecticut took on a student body hellbent on destroying free speech on campus. A group of students pushed the university’s student government to adopt the “UConn Statement,” a petition for the university to uphold civil discourse on campus. According to the statement, UConn “has a solemn responsibility not only to promote a lively and fearless freedom of debate and deliberation, but also to protect that freedom when others attempt to restrict it.”
Such attempts at restriction came swiftly and viciously. The simple move to promote the First Amendment on campus was met with stunning bigotry and intolerance from UConn’s student body, and with it a barrage of hateful and violent threats. Students hurled accusations of white supremacy at UConn’s student body president, an immigrant from Honduras. One of UConn’s First Amendment advocates was harassed with racial slurs and even received a video of an ISIS beheading.
These students stared down an entire campus culture that had turned against them for their devotion to free speech. Though public sentiment remained negative and combative, people began voicing private support for UConn’s free-speech warriors. Both faculty and students expressed agreement with the UConn Statement, and the First Amendment coalition on campus is moving forward with speaker events and increased activism. Free-speech debacles such as UConn’s illustrate valuable lessons that advocates of conservatism would do well to bear in mind.
In my discussions with UConn students, both conservatives and those on the Left, I heard one description of the current political climate that piqued my interest. “Liberals give in to radicals too easily, and conservatives have some racism problems.”
Innumerable members of the political Right cheer on the former characterization — the latter is met with defensiveness, skepticism, and a hearty chorus of “but look at the Left.” This is why conservatives lose on the culture side. We know that the stereotype isn’t true. But the culture doesn’t, and we won’t fix it by yelling. Segments of the modern American Right have embraced a reactionary response to conservatism’s unwarrantedly negative cultural portrayal. But this tactic is not going to win over political moderates.
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Visceral reactions are perfectly understandable in response to the far Left’s blatant lies about conservatives. But we must change that tactic to persuade the persuadable. Moderates with deeply held biases against conservatism won’t be won over by our most extreme and caustic voices and arguments. If we are to make cultural headway, our strategy must be responsive, not reactionary. College students who advocate free speech are willing to do so with their ideological opponents, working with members of the opposite political party at institutions like UConn to advance the First Amendment. So should the movement more generally.
The battle for free speech is not limited to those on the political right. UConn’s free-speech warriors are not all conservatives. The First Amendment coalition on college campuses includes everyone from pro-Trump Republicans to classical liberals to libertarians to devoted Democrats. The idea that only the political Right is devoted to free speech is simply not true. The UConn situation is a perfect example of how the First Amendment has a unifying power beyond mere party.
We can’t hammer the moderate Left and expect to win in the current moment. These are people with legitimate beliefs in things such as free speech and American greatness. Why don’t they just join the Right? Cultural stereotypes, discussed above, play a large role.
This fight hasn’t broken down strictly along lines of Right and Left. The relevant categories are, instead, advocates and enemies of liberty. Lord Acton noted that “at all times sincere friends of freedom have been rare.” But they are not as rare as it may seem. If we can step off the reactionary pedal and unite against the enemies of liberty, we can create the kind of coalition that all authoritarians fear — a diverse, intellectually impenetrable, cultural powerhouse dedicated to the advance of liberty. The current moment is not about ignoring what divides us. It’s about accentuating what unites us and never apologizing for that strategy.
Given conservatism’s negative cultural portrayal and the necessity to join forces against freedom’s enemies, we conservatives have to make it clear that our doors are open. We have to expressly say that we’re willing to work with the politically moderate. The moderate Left is being eaten alive by the Democratic Party. Democratic legislators who stand up to the party’s radical gatekeepers are rapidly being beaten down. This gap between the radical Left and their moderate colleagues is our opportunity. We have to take it. Unapologetically.
UConn’s free-speech advocates realized that. Their no-nonsense approach gives First Amendment supporters a clear line of attack against the enemies of liberty who seek to suppress them. We can learn from that. We can overcome negative cultural stereotypes by being unafraid to work alongside other political moderates against the current radical moment. We can be responsive, not reactionary. And we can look the enemies of liberty in the eye and never apologize for what we’re about to do.
That’s how we can fight back: With many allies by our side.
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