On Tuesday (Jan. 26), the Senate voted 78 to 22 to confirm Antony Blinken as the next secretary of state. Blinken’s foreign policy, especially with China, has attracted much attention.
The Senate’s confirmation makes Blinken the 71st U.S. secretary of state and the top U.S. diplomat after Mike Pompeo. Blinken said his focus will be on building the diplomatic corps and revitalizing core alliances.
Blinken has served in both the Clinton and Obama administrations.
Blinken and Biden have a 20-year friendship
Blinken, 58, was a member of President Bill Clinton’s National Security Council staff from 1994 to 2001.
Blinken began a long relationship with Biden in 2002, when he became staff director of the U.S. Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, of which Biden was chairman.
When Biden became vice president in 2009, Blinken also served as Biden’s national security adviser and then as deputy national security adviser to President Obama.
Obama later nominated Blinken to be John Kerry’s deputy secretary of state, and the Senate confirmed Blinken on Dec. 16, 2014, when the vote was 55 to 38.
When Biden decided to run for president of the United States in 2020, Blinken left the geopolitical and policy consulting firm he founded to join the Biden campaign as a senior foreign policy adviser.
Over the past 20 years, Blinken and Biden have maintained close ties, meaning he is likely to be a Secretary of State with a large influence on Biden’s decision.
Blinken supports a multilateralist foreign policy
Blinken believes that diplomacy needs to be complemented by deterrence, and it was with Blinken’s aide that Biden, then a senator, voted for the Iraq war in 2003, but Biden later argued that the vote to go to war was wrong. Blinken also supported military action in Libya and urged the U.S. to take more aggressive action in Syria.
Republican Sen. John Barrasso (R-Texas) said at the Blinken confirmation hearings, “I think it was a grave mistake to confirm a secretary of state who has a record of making repeated bad decisions on U.S. foreign policy and national security.”
Whether dealing with terrorism, climate change, epidemics, trade, nuclear proliferation or China, Blinken’s foreign policy has taken a more multilateralist approach. Since taking office, Biden has pledged to rejoin the Iran Nuclear Agreement, build relations with Cuba and push for a new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) nuclear deal with Russia.
In addition, Blinken supports the Abraham Accords, a number of agreements to normalize relations between Israel and Arab countries.
Blinken agrees with “basic principles” of Trump‘s China Policy, but not specific initiatives
In his Senate committee confirmation hearing last week, Blinken said President Trump was right to take a tough stance on China (the Chinese Communist Party). He also agreed with former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s determination that the Chinese Communist Party has committed genocide against Uighur Muslims, and expressed his belief that the Chinese Communist Party has misled the world about the Epidemic.
“There used to be a widespread belief that economic liberalization in China would lead to political liberalization, but that didn’t happen.” He told the Senate hearing, “There is no question that of all the nation-states in the world, (the Chinese Communist Party) poses the greatest threat to the United States.”
Blinken said he supports former Secretary of State Pompeo’s latest determination that the CCP committed genocide against the Uighurs in Xinjiang; he also supports the military and global diplomacy efforts to assist Taiwan and work to ensure Taiwan’s ability to defend itself against the CCP military threat; he also questioned the future of Hong Kong as a global business center that would consider providing sanctuary to Hong Kong people; and criticized the CCP authorities for the origin of the virus misled the outside world and somehow contributed to the spread of the outbreak.
However, Blinken stated that he only agrees with the “basic principles” of Trump’s China policy, but not with the specific actions Trump has taken. He stressed that, unlike the Trump Administration, he would focus more on working with other democratic countries to jointly pressure Beijing.
In addition to U.S.-China competition, Blinken has repeatedly expressed the need for U.S.-China cooperation on global issues such as climate change, arms control, and epidemics. He stressed, however, that U.S.-China cooperation is contingent on the United States “being in a position of strength to engage China.
At a U.S. Chamber of Commerce event last September, Blinken called it a “mistake” to completely decouple the U.S. and China. He said it was “unrealistic” and ultimately counterproductive.
Biden’s inauguration began with frequent provocations from the Chinese Communist Party
On Jan. 20, after President Trump left office and Biden was sworn in, the Chinese Communist Party issued a statement announcing sanctions against 28 officials in the Trump administration, including Pompeo.
Republican Senator Jim Risch then tweeted that the ruling Chinese Communist Party is testing the Biden Administration‘s resolve to see if it wants to continue to take tougher, more competitive measures against China (CCP).
Senior Republican Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), vice chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, tweeted, “The Biden Administration must make clear immediately that it will not tolerate (the CCP’s) coercive behavior.”
On Saturday (Jan. 23), eight Chinese Communist bombers and four fighter jets entered Taiwan’s southwest air defense identification zone (ADIZ) on the largest scale ever. The U.S. State Department then issued a statement urging Beijing to stop pressuring Taiwan.
A State Department spokesman said Monday that President Biden will work to ensure that Chinese companies cannot misuse and misappropriate U.S. data, and will ensure that U.S. technology does not ultimately support “malign activities” (malign activities) by China (the Chinese Communist Party).
“We need a comprehensive strategy and a more systematic approach that really addresses all the issues in a comprehensive way, rather than the piecemeal approach of the last few years.” A State Department spokesman said in an emailed comment.
But the secretary of state did not spell out what initiatives would be taken to protect Americans’ data.
On January 21, the policy issues section of the State Department website was found to have removed six core issues, including the China (Communist Party of China) threat, 5G security, and illegal immigration. The new Biden administration’s State Department website shows only 17 policy issues, including: anti-corruption and transparency, arms control, climate and environmental protection, and the new crown (Chinese Communist Party) virus.
Comparing to the policy section of the State Department website during the Trump administration, six items topics were eliminated: 5G security, China (CCP) threat, illegal immigration, threatening regime Iran, Nicaragua’s return to democracy, and Venezuela’s democracy crisis.
Blinken’s schooling experience and Family situation
Anthony Blinken was born in New York City in 1962. As a child, he lived in France with his mother for a long Time after his Parents‘ divorce, and attended a bilingual school in Paris, where he became fluent in French. During his college years, Blinken returned to the United States to attend Harvard University and earned his J.D. from Columbia University in 1988.
In addition to his father, uncles and sisters, his wife, Evan Ryan, was an assistant to Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden, and also served as assistant secretary of state for Education and cultural affairs. Hillary Clinton was even a guest of honor at the Blinkens’ wedding.
Outside of his diplomatic career, Blinken is also a guitarist. According to his own account, he plays mostly blues and rock, with some jazz in his youth. His band has released two singles, “Patience” and “Lip Service,” on the Music streaming site Spotify. Politico, a U.S. political media outlet, jokingly said, “The titles of the two songs may subconsciously suggest the kind of foreign policy Blinken would promote as secretary of state.”
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