15 February 2021, NIICE Commentary 6812
Dr. Hemant Adlakha
Obama’s “pivot” and Trump’s “trade war” defined the US (anti-)China policy. Maybe Biden’s is going to be continuation of both. President Joe Biden in his first foreign policy address has reaffirmed he will be tougher on China.
Within days following the US presidential elections ended last year, the editor-in-chief of the influential The Diplomat had dismissed in a podcast conversation released on November 14 what most international relations pundits in Beijing, Washington and elsewhere had predicted of Biden’s China policy. Shannon Tiezzi had observed, under pressure of the growing bipartisan consensus on Capitol Hill, President Biden (if elected) will be forced to think “out of the box” and find a new approach to checkmate a rising, threatening China.
Eventually, Joe Biden did become the US President last month on January 20. Unlike his predecessor, who took long sixteen months to step into the building only steps away from the White House, Biden did not even wait for two weeks to walk into the Secretary of State office to declare “US diplomacy is back.” Again, unlike the former President Trump who had exited as soon as he had entered the US foreign policy headquarters only to watch swearing-in of his second Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo. Joe Biden, the 46th US President chose the building of federal agency to deliver his the first speech addressed to the world. As Robin Wright, citing Jen Paski – the White House press secretary, explained in the New Yorker last Friday: “Joe Biden’s first love is foreign policy.”
Not surprisingly, on China, both international relations experts and China watchers in the US have welcomed Cold War “warrior” Biden’s tough stance. Miyeon Oh, the director and senior fellow of the Asia Security Initiative in Washington D. C., welcomed the speech as indicating that the Biden administration has buried “America First” into the past. She applauded the President for “placing China at the centre of authoritarian regimes” and for calling China a “rival.” Barry Pavel, senior vice president and director of the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, admitted President Biden succeeded in firing the first shot of a renewed American foreign policy for the 2020s. On China, Pavel noted: “now comes the real work of making tough strategic choices, particularly relating to the development of a strategy by the United States and its allies for China.”
Elsewhere in East Asia too, commentators did not miss the point. Japan’s Nikkei Asia observed: “Biden’s tough language toward China has set the tone for a foreign policy sharing many themes with Trump’s – such as viewing China as America’s biggest strategic competitor.” Owen Churchill, the Washington correspondent of the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong, interpreted the first foreign policy speech as clear indication, Biden was in no hurry to either meet with or hold telephone conversation with President Xi, whom once during last year’s presidential campaign, Biden had called a “thug.”
Again, unsurprisingly, early reactions in China both from its foreign ministry and strategic affairs community range from what can be interpreted as neither anxiety nor surprise. Wang Wenbin, the Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson merely reiterated what the country’s top foreign policy makers have been saying in recent weeks. “Notwithstanding existing differences between China and the US, their common interests outweigh their divergences,” is how Wang responded to President Biden’s speech. Not to forget remarks made by Yang Jiechi just two days before the speech. Yang, a member of the Chinese Communist Party’s political bureau, is China’s highest ranking diplomat who was recently appointed director of the office of the Party’s Foreign Affairs Commission. On February 2, Yang had stated: “The Biden administration has the unique opportunity to correct the mistakes of its predecessors and take advantage of the historic moment in which humanity is living.”
Typically, Chinese foreign policy experts are known to be far more forthcoming in expressing their views on external situation. Echoing the views of Shannon Tiezzi, cited above, a professor of international affairs at Shanghai’s Fudan University, Zhang Jiadong said: “Obama launched the US anti-China policy with his ‘pivot’ strategy. Trump built on it his ‘America First, Stop China’ strategy. No matter Biden agrees with Trump or not, he [Biden] has to come up with a new word first.” A signed commentary in the Chinese language online current affairs website Utopia – known for its nationalist and orthodox leftist views – listed seven anti-China points in the speech, namely China’s growing authoritarianism; China’s growing appetite to rival the US; China’s rising threat to the US prosperity, national security and democratic values; China’s “economic bullying;” Chinese aggressive behaviour; Chinese aggression in areas such as human right, IPR and in global governance; and the US will cooperate with Beijing only where interests converge.
Finally, a commentary in the widely circulated mobile phone news app Guancha.cn observed: “Biden’s speech and actions have been given the nod by the US hawks. His [Biden’s] China Policy is guided by the US bipartisan elite.” Beijing has not missed the point that even after two weeks of the new administration, neither the US President nor his top China picks have initiated to communicate with China’s top leaders. (As this article was going to the press, it was reported Yang and Blinken did communicate virtually on February 5. It is perhaps their initiated which finally led to the two presidents exchanging Chinese Lunar New Year greetings last Thursday). Many scholars have interpreted this delayed “silence” as bad for the world economy and not good for China-US relations. “We are in no illusion. Nor we have lost anything in the translation. It is very clear, why new administration is not talking to China,” the article in Guancha.cn averred. Perhaps a Guancha.cn reader summed it up the best: Only idiots will believe in Sino-US friendship!
