Illustration: Liu Rui/GT

While the US is getting involved in the most important foreign policy adventure since the beginning of the Obama presidency, Vice President Joe Biden is apologizing to Turkey and the United Arab Emirates for comments he made regarding their alleged role in supporting and facilitating terrorists.

Biden recently gave a speech at Harvard University in which he blamed his country's regional allies for some of the current troubles in the Middle East.

Whether this is true or not is disputable. His decision, however, to publicly say so in such a critical time for the fight against the Islamic State might create rifts in the regional network Washington is attempting to establish.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, for instance, was very aggressive before receiving the apology of the US vice president.

Biden did not only talk about the rise of terrorists in the Middle East and his perceived reasons for this phenomenon at Harvard. He also referred to other aspects of US foreign policy mirroring Washington's thinking and modus operandi.

One of the most important observations he made was relevant to the role the US played in influencing the EU to impose sanctions on Russia.

As Biden explicitly asserted, "it was America's leadership and the president of the US insisting, of times almost having to embarrass Europe to stand up and take economic hits to impose costs."

This phrase has now been widely used and reproduced in the Russian media discourse, where it is being taken as a sign that Brussels was virtually forced to compromise its bilateral relations with Moscow due to external pressure.

In so doing, Russian journalists attempt to put Europe in an awkward position by emphasizing the importance of the EU-Russian economic cooperation.

They subsequently implied that the EU is currently acting against its own interests and that it has to reconsider its stance as far as the policy of sanctions is concerned.

More importantly, the comments framed the EU as a weak international actor satisfying US political demands, coming from a figure who is certainly an authority in world politics.

Although Biden has publicly outlined an existing and unquestionable problem of EU foreign policy, his comments could not but embarrass and offend European policymakers.

An experienced politician such as Biden should have been more careful in acknowledging inconvenient truths in front of an audience and media representatives.

Biden's speech was also remarkable for his reference to China. In the view of the US vice president, Washington is seeking cooperation and not competition with Beijing. As he explicitly explained, "nowhere is it written that there must be conflict between the US and China."

But apart from this observation, Biden was keen on criticizing China on issues such as the declaration of its Air Defense Identification Zone.

All in all, he praised US peacetime military engagements in the Asia-Pacific region and estimated that by 2020, 60 percent of US naval assets and 60 percent of its air power will be stationed in the region.

Clearly, Biden has provided his version of the Sino-US relationship where Washington's position remains adamant.

This is a fair point for US interests, but China, as a rising superpower, will be also committed to its own version of events. Subsequently, it is the need to find a modus vivendi, rather than the public acknowledgment of contradictory views, that will guarantee future constructive cooperation between the countries.

The era of US supremacy has started to come to an end, as many Western scholars have agued.

In principle, Biden was right in many of his remarks during his speech at Harvard University. The strengthening of alliances, the establishment of relationships with emerging states, the defending of international rules, and the fight against violent extremism should be priorities for US foreign policy indeed.

Nevertheless, these priorities can hardly be implemented if no efficient public diplomacy is exerted. The coming midterm elections do only partly constitute a justification for Biden's tone.

The author is a research fellow at the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn