While Joe Biden has spent much of the campaign criticizing US President Donald Trump’s policies toward China, his own platform sounds more like a change in tactics than a revision of strategy.
The former vice president, a longtime member of a foreign policy establishment advocating commitment to Beijing, has shifted along with the rest of Washington toward a more confrontational tone during Trump’s tenure, denouncing Xi Jinping as a “bully.” Still, the Democratic candidate has faced few questions about how he would handle China more effectively than his Republican opponent.
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What Biden has said so far points to a more multilateral approach that places greater emphasis on partnerships and human rights and is less dependent on tariffs and arms sales. This is where you are at some of the largest flash points between the world’s two largest economies:
Trade, tariffs
Biden has mocked Trump’s January trade deal with Xi calling it “empty” and blamed the president’s tariffs for accelerating the decline in American manufacturing. But he has made no commitment to either scrapping the pact or lifting tariffs, two key sources of influence over China for the next administration.
“I will use tariffs when they are necessary, but the difference between Trump and me is that I will have a strategy, a plan, to use those tariffs to win, not just to feign toughness.” – Biden, in a statement to United Steelworkers in May
Biden has launched a $ 400 billion “Buy American Products” plan to direct government purchases toward domestically made products. He has also pledged to “unite the economic power of democracies around the world to counter abusive economic practices”, something that critics of China in places like Brussels and Tokyo complained was not possible under the policies of “United States. United First “by Trump.
An important question is whether Biden will seek to rejoin the Pacific trade pact that many Chinese hawks saw as the best way to counter Beijing’s economic might before Trump withdrew as one of his first official actions. Biden supported the deal – now known as the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership – as part of former President Barack Obama’s administration, but said during a Democratic primary debate last year that he would insist on renegotiating “parts” of the pact.
TikTok, Huawei
Biden has also promised a more global approach to counter the influence of Chinese tech companies such as Huawei Technologies Co. and ByteDance Ltd., which owns TikTok. Trump for trying to make money from an agreement to ensure US control over the local business of the social network.
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“Only God knows what they are doing with the information they get from here. So, as president, I will delve into the subject. I will get the cyber experts to join me in giving me the best solution to deal with it. “- Biden, during a campaign stop in Duluth, Minnesota, in September
Biden said in February that he supported a ban on the use of Huawei equipment in the US, though he said little about whether he would continue the Trump administration’s “Clean Network” program to convince allies to give up Huawei products. in critical communications networks. It has said it would work with “other democracies” to develop global rules on cyber theft, data privacy and artificial intelligence.
The former vice president vowed to focus more on issues like theft of intellectual property that took a back seat to agricultural purchases in Trump’s “phase one” trade deal. He promised new sanctions against Chinese companies that steal US technology and threatened to prevent them from accessing the US market and financial system.
Rights, Penalties
Although the Trump administration has drawn increased attention to China’s human rights practices, those efforts have often been undermined by reports of praise from the president for Xi’s hardline approach. Biden has promised a more consistent message from the White House.
“I will put values back at the center of our foreign policy, including the way we approach the relationship between the United States and China.” – Biden, in a campaign statement in August.
He has vowed to “fully enforce” the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act signed by Trump last year and to meet with the exiled Tibetan leader, the Dalai Lama, if elected. Biden called China’s mass detention and reeducation program for the predominantly Muslim Uighur minority in the Xinjiang region “genocide” and called for an international effort to take a united position against the campaign.
The Democratic candidate said he would convene a “Summit for Democracy” to reach new commitments to combat corruption and authoritarianism and promote human rights. That would include pressuring tech companies to commit to “ensuring that their algorithms and platforms do not empower the surveillance state, facilitating repression in China and elsewhere.”
Defense, Taiwan
As vice president, Biden was an advocate of Obama’s “turn” to Asia. However, it is unlikely to replace Trump’s “Indo-Pacific Strategy,” which focuses on drawing India into a broader coalition of democracies to help offset China’s regional weight.
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Rather, Biden may seek to downplay the military component of the US engagement in Asia, which under Trump has prioritized arms sales. The party’s platform approved during the Democratic National Convention called for countering China “without resorting to counterproductive unilateral tariff wars or falling into the trap of a new Cold War.”
“Democrats are committed to the Taiwan Relations Act and will continue to support a peaceful resolution of cross-strait issues in accordance with the wishes and best interests of the people of Taiwan,” the Democratic Party said on a platform published in August. .
It is unclear how Biden would approach Taiwan, whose president, Tsai Ing-wen, has received unprecedented support from Washington as Trump stepped up his attacks on China. While Tsai’s ruling Progressive Democratic Party has more in common with Biden’s left-wing coalition on trade, environmental and social issues, the presidential contender has for decades championed “strategic ambiguity” that seeks to minimize the risk of direct conflict with China for Taiwan.
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