(Washington) The White House announced on Wednesday the choice of Kurt Campbell, architect of Joe Biden’s firm policy towards China, as future number two in American diplomacy.
The Senate, where the president has a very slim majority, must now confirm this Asia specialist as deputy secretary of state.
Kurt Campbell is considered the great architect of Joe Biden’s policy towards China, with which the United States has extremely tense relations.
At a time when the American executive is on the front line facing the war in Ukraine and the conflict between Hamas and Israel, his appointment signals that the rivalry with Beijing remains, despite everything, the priority axis of the president’s foreign policy Biden.
The latter has repeatedly said that he wants to engage China in fierce competition, whether ideological, strategic, economic or technological, while preventing this competition from turning into conflict.
In effect, this has resulted in massive investments in America’s industrial base, as well as fierce diplomatic activity to deepen and broaden America’s alliances in Asia – something that Beijing views very unfavorably. .
Already very tense, relations between the two superpowers deteriorated at the start of the year, after a Chinese balloon flew over American territory.
However, diplomatic activity subsequently resumed, and Joe Biden hopes to have a face-to-face meeting with his counterpart Xi Jinping in mid-November, on the sidelines of a summit in San Francisco.
Kurt Campbell burst into the diplomatic and political spotlight during Barack Obama’s presidency, articulating what was later described as the “pivot” to Asia in U.S. foreign policy. This is also the title of one of the many books published by the diplomat.
An essential personality on the scene of foreign policy “think tanks” in Washington, founder of a consulting company, he traveled the Asia-Pacific region for several years, and came away with the conviction that the United States should take more take Chinese ambitions seriously.
This native of California, who went to study music and political philosophy in Yerevan when Armenia was a Soviet republic, is therefore considered as the representative of a hard line against China, which earns him some sympathy in the Republican camp.
Kurt Campbell, who like many senior American officials has moved back and forth between the public and private sectors throughout his career, is the husband of Lael Brainard, also a key figure in the Biden administration.
She chairs the National Economic Council, the White House team of economic advisors.