Leland Lazarus
Last year, during the same week that President Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping met in Bali, a group of 10 Black foreign-policy professionals who specialize in understanding China gathered in Washington, D.C., as part of the African-American China Leadership Fellows Program. I was lucky to be among them. Each day, we met with leaders from Congress, the Departments of State and Defense, private companies, and think tanks. Our discussions included U.S. strategy toward China, controls on microchip exports, Taiwan scenarios and standing up the State Department’s new China House.
In a field long dominated by White males, we were the majority in the room discussing United States-China relations and recommending how policy should be carried out. In the process, I realized that Black and Brown foreign policy professionals provide unique perspectives. Washington needs such fresh views at this crucial moment of diplomacy between the two superpowers.
As the United States and China compete for global leadership, each government tells a story about itself that’s meant to win hearts and minds around the globe. In the U.S. narrative, race relations have always threatened to overshadow its image as a shining “city on a hill.”
Since the nation’s founding, adversaries ranging from the British in the Revolutionary War to the Nazis in World War II to the Soviet Union during the Cold War have exploited U.S. racial tensions at home to weaken its credibility abroad. During the Vietnam War, “Hanoi Hannah” tried to persuade Black G.I.s to defect by pointing out U.S. economic and racial inequalities.
For decades China has sought to build solidarity with the Global South by comparing the West’s colonialism, imperialism and racial discrimination with its own suffering during the “century of humiliation.” Mao Zedong hosted Black leaders such as W.E.B. Du Bois and even some members of the Black Panthers.
Year after year, China releases its own report documenting U.S. racial discrimination, even as the United States continues to call out China’s human rights abuses against Uyghurs and political dissidents. In 2020, China seized on the George Floyd protests to highlight what it considered U.S. hypocrisy: condemning China for suppressing the 2019 Hong Kong protests yet, months later, dealing harshly with nationwide Black Lives Matter protests.
I was a Foreign Service officer in Barbados when Floyd’s killing sparked global protests for justice. During that time, Black and Brown diplomats were called upon to openly and honestly share the nation’s long struggle with racism and admit that we are a country of contradictions, a home of hypocrisies. We also explained that Americans have always possessed the capacity to change, to right our wrongs, to bend with every ounce of our strength that moral arc of the universe toward justice.
To persuade the broader world of U.S. greatness, however, it is essential to make sure our representatives abroad look like people in the United States.
Black and Brown Americans are uniquely qualified to represent our country. Many of them grew up in bilingual households, which means the government may spend less time and resources training them in regional studies or language lessons. Many are engaged with diaspora communities, whose deep connections abroad serve as a foreign policy force multiplier. Biden acknowledged this during last year’s U.S.-Africa Summit, announcing the creation of the Advisory Council on African Diaspora Engagement.
Most important, Black and Brown personal stories reflect America’s story. When I served as an American diplomat in China, I gave presentations to Chinese citizens about my own family history — how my grandparents migrated from Panama to the United States — and the challenges of being an Afro-Latino.
The State Department does work to recruit and retain people of color to represent the United States overseas — via the Pickering and Rangel programs. USAID similarly offers the Payne Fellowship, and several departments actively recruit at historically Black colleges and universities, Hispanic institutions, and other minority-serving schools.
To redouble these efforts, agencies should reach out to young people of color even earlier in the career pipeline. Many high school and college students aren’t aware that international careers are an option. Organizations such as the Fulbright Association, World Affairs Council of America and Diversity Abroad seek to expose young people to the idea of studying abroad.
Agencies and even political campaigns should also work closely with diverse professional groups to recruit and retain talent — including Black Professionals in International Affairs, the American Mandarin Society, the National Association for Black Engagement with Asia, the Black China Caucus and the Latinx China Network.
The United States can take advantage of its own diversity — by recognizing it as one of the greatest soft-power tools it can deploy in the global competition of ideas.
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