In order to check the influence of China, the Biden administration said it is focusing less on the Middle East and more on the Indo-Pacific region.
In keeping with the president’s vision, Vice President Kamala Harris is planning meetings in Vietnam this week. However, she delayed Tuesday’s meetings by more than three hours — due to a possible case of Havana Syndrome.
The syndrome isn’t well understood, and it refers to a collection of symptoms: nausea, headache, hearing loss, memory loss, intense pressure in the face, and a perception of grating, piercing noises.
Experts have wondered whether the symptoms are part of a covert foreign attack against American diplomats.
It was first observed in Cuba around 2016 by staff at the American and Canadian embassies. The Journal of the American Medical Association published a study on symptomatic diplomats, and the study attributed the symptoms to some sort of brain injury.
No one has identified the cause of the injuries yet, and the Pentagon is still investigating, with bipartisan approval from Congress. An official from the U.S. intelligence community privately suspects the Russian military to be the culprit, the official told The New Yorker.
Russia has denied any involvement.
In 2018 some U.S. diplomats in China reported similar symptoms, and this week, officials recognized two possible cases of the syndrome in Hanoi, Vietnam.
The U.S. embassy in Hanoi spoke of a “recent possible anomalous health incident.” The embassy has not described any details yet, but it used the language of Havana Syndrome. It also announced that the vice president decided to travel to Hanoi “after careful assessment.”
The vice president’s chief spokesperson, Symone Sanders, refused to explain the three-hour delay. Sanders then described Harris as being in good health, even though no reporter had asked.
Havana Syndrome is only one of many obstacles facing Harris’s team on her visit to Asia.
The visit has been overshadowed by the ongoing crisis in Afghanistan. The Biden administration is focusing on allies in the Indo-Pacific region, but some diplomats worry that this new focus comes at the expense of American allies in the Middle East.
Last week Biden said that a conflict in Afghanistan would distract the Pentagon from “true strategic competitors” like China and Russia.
Meanwhile, the Chinese government was using violent images from Afghanistan in order to criticize U.S. foreign policy.
Wang Wenbin, a representative from China’s Foreign Ministry, said, “What is happening in Afghanistan now clearly tells people what rules are touted by the United States and what is the so-called order of the United States.”
“The United States always tries to use rules and order to justify its selfishness and bullying,” he continued. “But now how many people will believe it?”
Harris failed to overcome similar hurdles on her previous international visit. She visited Mexico and Guatemala to address the role of public corruption in mass migration, but her visit was overshadowed by chaos at the U.S. border.
David Axelrod, once an adviser to former President Barack Obama, attributed Harris’s fumbles to a lack of experience.
“She’s relatively new, doesn’t have that experience,” he said.
In any case, Harris needs to stop stumbling over these obstacles if she wants to restore the country’s reputation with American allies in the Indo-Pacific region.
“A big part of the history of the 21st century will be written about this very region,” Harris herself said in Singapore.
The Horn editorial team