WASHINGTON - America's most profound national security challenge is getting its own house in order, top national security official Jake Sullivan said on Friday (Jan 29) as he called domestic renewal the first major step the US needs to take to compete effectively with China.
"(President) Joe Biden has really reinforced for us that foreign policy is domestic policy and domestic policy is foreign policy," Mr Sullivan, Mr Biden's National Security Adviser, said at an event held by the Washington-based United States Institute of Peace.
And America right now faces serious challenges at home: a Covid-19 pandemic, an economic crisis, a climate crisis, acute threats to its basic constitutional republic and deep divisions, he said.
"We have to put ourselves in a position of strength to deal with the challenges we face around the world. Establishing that position of strength has to be the fundamental early work of this administration," said Mr Sullivan.
Framing foreign policy in terms of domestic policy has emerged as a key characteristic of the Biden administration, which champions "a foreign policy for the middle class".
This centering of domestic concerns is unsurprising given the upheaval at home, and the nationalism that propelled the previous Trump administration's streak of isolationism. But Mr Sullivan made clear that Mr Biden would twin this with an embrace of international institutions.
In brief remarks, he laid out a vision of how the Biden administration would tackle US strategic competition with China: through domestic renewal, and reinvigorating alliances.
"Step one... is to refurbish the fundamental foundations of our democracy. That goes for everything from our democratic system itself to issues of racial inequity, economic inequality - all of the things that have contributed to the shine coming off the American model over the course of time," he said.
Chinese leaders are now explicitly making the case that the Chinese model is better than the American model, pointing to dysfunction and division in the US to argue that its system does not work, said Mr Sullivan.
Second, America has to move in lockstep with democratic allies and partners, he said.
Doing so would give the US both the economic leverage to produce outcomes, and "a chorus of voices" standing up for its principles in the face of Chinese aggression, he added.
Mr Sullivan said that the Biden administration will build on the Quad - the informal grouping of the US, Australia, India and Japan - and sees it as "foundation upon which to build substantial American policy in the Indo-Pacific region".
Third, America has to make sure it leads the world in key technologies of the future, by working with other countries and making aggressive public investments at home to stay on the cutting edge, he said.
Lastly, America also has to be prepared to impose costs on China for its policies in Xinjiang and Hong Kong, and the "bellicosity of threats it is projecting towards Taiwan", Mr Sullivan said, without elaborating on what these costs might entail.
"This administration is intent at every level, from the President across to the State Department, the Defence Department, every embassy around the world, to speaking with that clarity and consistency of voice," he said.
