Samantha Power: evaluation

Transcript context

…But say we had your preferred president, whoever that would be. No, no, no. It’s not as if the world doesn’t remember children in cages or people orphaned by the United States who now can’t find their parents or the Kim Jong Un love fest. It’s not as if that’s a blip. That’s going to be part of our national heritage in a funny way. But to bracket that question of how we recover from a Trump presidency and the human rights practices and affections of this president, I think that the core of the questioner’s concern is more geopolitical. It’s more, well, any country now can forum shop, and if they don’t like what they’re hearing from us, they’ll just say, “Okay, well, I’ll go and do my Belt and Road Initiative with China.” So that’s an enduring question, irrespective of whether we can clean up our act in the wake of Trump. And what I’d say is, I actually look at it a little bit differently, which is that, in an age of China’s increasing aggression beyond its borders, its crackdown and increase in assertiveness in the near abroad — I’m not sure you can call Hong Kong the near abroad, but the fact that China actually goes to Thailand to round up a critic of China, of its incarceration of the Uighurs, or the fact that it is prepared to act beyond its borders in very aggressive ways, whether in the South China Sea or, again, in order to keep itself insulated from criticism. China is now at the UN trying to alter the rules of the road and the core human rights principles that have undergirded the international system for more than 70 years. They’re trying to make the rules more pro-censorship, more about state consent and not about there being a set of higher principles against which states should be measured or judged. They’re out there being China, and they’re out there not yet in a full mode of “Let us export our domestic values internationally.” That is not their number-one game plan right now. Their number-one game plan is internal stability above everything else, and of course sustained economic growth and economic sustenance and provision for their people. But day by day, you’re seeing more and more of this exporting. So what the United States could do in deference to the logic of the question is to say, “Well, China’s out there doing its thing, and if we start whining about human rights, what good is that going to do? ” Or to look at our values, our democracy, our traditions, our respect for the dignity of individuals as a comparative advantage in what is a bit of a scrum geopolitically, and there, I think, we would actually have a lot of friends. What I hear most from European partners or democracies in Asia and Africa is, “We’re all alone. Now China is trying to change the rules of the road and we’re kind of scattered among ourselves. We’re trying to learn how to build coalitions without you, United States.” That’s not just because of Trump’s human rights practices. That’s also because of his lack of engagement with international institutions. to learn how to build coalitions without you, United States.” That’s not just because of Trump’s human rights practices. That’s also because of his lack of engagement with international institutions. And as democracies, if we believe in this model, if we believe everything we’ve been saying for a very long time about the links between democracy and prosperity and the links between democracy and stability over time, then it’s actually in our interest to see that model strengthened and not to go into retreat. So I actually think that you’re going to see American politicians and leaders talk more, not less, about values in an age of China’s rise.…

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