Biden’s uncertain turn towards China

Although the current vice president of the United States, the Republican Mike pence, accused the democrat Joe biden From being “the cheerleader for communist China” and wanting “the economy to surrender to China again”, the now-elected President was tough on Beijing during his campaign for the White House: he called Chinese leader Xi Jinping a “bully” , and promised to “pressure, isolate and punish” the Asian giant. But, as Time magazine recalls, Biden previously boasted of spending “more time in private meetings” with Xi “than with any world leader,” which is equivalent to “25 hours of private dining.” Xi, in turn, called Biden “my old friend” in 2013, with high praise in the speech of the Communist Party of China (CCP).

In light of this background, it is difficult to know the approach that Biden will take with China once he is installed in the White House, on January 20. Especially after the signals that Beijing has given after the election of the democrat. Just on Friday, almost a week after the main US media gave it the victory in the elections, Beijing congratulated Biden, being one of the last powers to do so. “We respect the choice of the American people,” said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin. “We congratulate Mr. Biden and Ms. (Kamala) Harris,” he added, without offering a reason for the delay in their recognition.

And today, relations between China and the US are at their worst in decades due to various disputes, ranging from technology and trade, to Hong Kong and the coronavirus. Added to this is the barrage of sanctions that the Trump administration has applied against China.

In that sense, experts believe that Biden will seek to cooperate with China on fronts abandoned by Trump, such as the fight against climate change, the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons or the fight against Covid-19. However, it is highly unlikely that the trade war that the now-outgoing President started more than two years ago will end suddenly.

Other analysts cited by the private digital daily Caixin suggest that the next US president will not focus on the trade imbalance as Trump did (according to Time, the Republican focused on reducing the US $ 345.6 billion trade deficit of EE. With China, but actually grew during his tenure), but will instead attach more importance to the protection of intellectual property or the subsidies with which Beijing keeps large state-owned companies strong. Guidance that Biden revealed in an article written earlier this year in Foreign Affairs magazine: “USA. must get tough on China. If China has its way, it will continue to rob the US and US companies of their technology and intellectual property. ” “The most effective way to meet this challenge is to build a united front of US allies and partners to tackle China’s abusive behavior and human rights violations, even as we seek to cooperate with Beijing on issues where they converge. our interests, such as climate change, non-proliferation and global health security, ”he added.

Although Xulio Ríos, director of the Chinese Policy Observatory in Beijing, affirms that “still President Trump based his political strategy on one main idea: confrontation,” he believes that “in substance, Biden will not change US policy. To China, “he told Third.

A similar perception is manifested by Bonnie Glaser, senior adviser for Asia and director of the Chinese Power Project of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), who believes that “there will be no fundamental change in relations between the US and China.”

“Dominant views toward China among average Americans, the business community, and other groups, including members of Congress, have become more negative. In general, China is seen as presenting challenges and threats to the US that cannot be ignored, ”he told this media.

Along the same lines, Victoria Hui, an academic in the Department of Political Science at the University of Notre Dame, said that “the radical change in relations between the US and China in 2019-20 reflects a bipartisan consensus on China.” “The Biden administration will continue to take a hard line with China,” he assured Third.

In an August article published in the Los Angeles Times, international policy and economic analysts Don Lee and Tracy Wilkinson explained that a Biden administration may end up closer to Trump’s hardline approach than to less confrontational strategy. of Barack Obama. Outwardly, Biden is unlikely to pursue the kind of effusive, hyper-enthusiastic romance that Trump initially sought with Chinese President Xi Jinping, nor will he participate in the angry tweets and warlike threats against China that followed. Biden will seek to work with other nations, instead of seeking fights with allies or taking unilateral actions like those that have marked the Trump presidency, ”they note in the note.

“It will be a great challenge for the US to reestablish the kind of relationship it used to have with China. It’s unclear if Biden would want that, in any case. Therefore, we should expect continued tensions in the relationship, ”says Margaret Myers, director of the Inter-American Dialogue Program on Latin America and Asia.

According to Ríos, Biden will bet on “a mix that will integrate cooperation, containment and confrontation and the doses of each one will evolve according to geopolitical competition. It is not foreseeable, therefore, that the United States will abandon political pressure towards China in matters such as human rights, Hong Kong, etc. ”, he predicts. Likewise, the Spanish sinologist says that “it is likely that Biden will be more demanding on these issues, in keeping with the Democratic tradition. But it is not likely that it will come off the economic, commercial and technological pressure towards China, although it may show greater negotiating will ”.

“China can benefit from Biden’s attitude on the Taiwan issue, the most delicate bilateral issue,” Ríos also highlights. “In recent years, Trump played this card to influence the Chinese course. Biden will be more cautious, no doubt. It will keep distances with the sovereignty of the island ”.

Additionally, Glaser highlights that Biden “inherits many new laws and policies that are unlikely to change unilaterally in the absence of changes in Chinese policy. These include sanctions, fees and visa restrictions ”. “A Biden administration will not want to appear weak so that Beijing does not take advantage of it,” he says.

Amid this “increasingly expansive global role of China,” Myers tells Third that “unlike Trump’s Latin America policy, which focused almost exclusively on defeating China, Biden’s is likely to be much more comprehensive, seeking to reestablish key partnerships and advance a hemispheric agenda aimed at promoting growth in the entire region and combat a wide variety of common challenges ”.

However, Ríos believes that “China wants to empower itself to the point that it is indifferent who governs in Washington. Their reflection: if they can’t beat us, they’ll have to cooperate with us ”. “In short, even if the forms give a truce, the underlying hostility will remain intact,” he concludes.