Eduardo González
The Secretary of State for Global Spain, Manuel Muñiz, yesterday applauded the “gestures” of the new US Administration of Joe Biden in favour of an “open and liberal international order that is well threaded with the interests and values of Spain and Europe” and warned, therefore, that the EU cannot opt for “equidistance” in the rivalry between Washington and Beijing.
“In the last ten to fifteen years there has been a weakening of the liberal multilateral architecture that has manifested itself, on an international level, in the weakening of the commercial architecture and of the UN and, within countries, in a regression in rights and freedoms in a world that is increasingly nationalistic, more closed and less democratic”, Muñiz declared during his participation in the first session of the series The new stage in the USA from an economic and commercial perspective, organised by Casa de América.
For this reason, Muñiz applauded the “gestures” of the new administration of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, such as the return to the Paris Agreement on climate change, the unblocking of the appointment of the director of the WTO, their express will to return to the nuclear agreement with Iran, the elimination of the clause that prevented the global agreement on the Google Tax, the return to the WHO or the reaffirmation by the president, “as soon as he arrived at the Presidency”, of his “commitment to article 5 of NATO”, which enshrines the principle of collective defence.
“The list is long, especially bearing in mind the short time he has been in office, to give us an idea of the change of direction” that will characterise Biden’s Presidency and which will allow “progress towards multilateralism and underpin and strengthen the open and liberal order that is well threaded with the interests and values of Spain and Europe“, Muñiz continued during the event.
For his part, José Viñals, Chairman of Standard Chartered Bank, stated at the same event that relations between the US and China will be “one of the key factors” in the economic recovery of 2021 after the COVID-19 crisis and warned, in this regard, that “contrary to what is thought”, the arrival of Biden in the White House will not “loosen the pulse” between the two countries, although it will change “the way” in which they relate to each other.
In this respect, Manuel Muñiz affirmed that “the United States is preparing for a sustained and structural collision with China” based, above all, on the difference in values such as democracy and human rights or in “the use of technologies to prop up non-democratic systems”. For this reason, he warned, “Europe cannot be equidistant between the United States and China, and anyone who defends an equidistant position is mistaken”. “We share with the United States an enormous catalogue of values, such as freedoms and rights, a political model, the value of democracy and the role of women in society; we share an Atlantic civilisation”, he said.
“Europe must build a medium- and long-term strategic relationship with China on central shared issues, such as climate change, the financial system or the fulfilment of the 2030 Agenda, but it must also have a component of rivalry and systemic collision on elements such as human rights, security or international law”, values that “must be central to relations with China”, he added.
