2 May 2021, NIICE Commentary 6987
Dr. Amit Gupta
Four months into the Biden presidency, it is clear that there will be both continuity and change in America’s foreign policy and that is especially reflected in its policies towards China. The Biden Administration tacitly acknowledges that the Trump Administration made things easier for them by changing the parameters of the relationship with China and by reducing American commitments elsewhere. Both Bush and Obama had sought to make China the principal concern of US foreign and national security policy but events in the Middle East kept dragging the United States back into that quagmire. Trump, however, reduced America’s footprint in the Middle East and paved the way for better focusing on the China challenge and the Biden Administration is building on the shift achieved by Trump. It will, nevertheless, at least by early indications, try to pursue a policy where conflict is not inevitable but, instead, be one described as challenge, compete, and cooperate.
Much like the Obama and Trump Administrations, the Biden Administration will challenge China’s claims in the East and South China Seas and, will try galvanizing an Asian coalition of nations to ensure that Freedom of Navigation continues in these areas. Further, in the case of the vexed dispute over islands in the South China Sea, the Biden Administration will push for negotiations between the aggrieved parties based on established international maritime law. China has already said that it would like to negotiate with the other parties to the dispute, but this means assuming a less aggressive stance than was taken vis-à-vis the Philippines after Manila took the dispute to international arbitration. China simply disregarded the ruling of the arbitration since it was viewed as being unfavorable to Beijing. In contrast, not only did India agree to go for international arbitration of its maritime dispute with Bangladesh but it also decided to abide by the ruling which was more favorable to Dhaka.
The United States will also continue to build up its capabilities to maintain nuclear deterrence across a spectrum of contingencies against China and there will also be a build-up of America’s conventional deterrent. The enhancement of the country’s military capabilities has bilateral support in Washington and, therefore, will give new teeth to America’s efforts to challenge and contain China’s attempts to achieve regional hegemony. The US, in fact, is developing a non-strategic nuclear capability to fill the gap in the deterrence ladder that Washington believes China can exploit by using salami tactics to make incremental gains against the United States.
Competition between the two countries is going to be heightened in the realm of conventional technologies particularly 5G networks and the development of Artificial Intelligence (AI). The Trump Administration was able to get Britain to back off from permitting Huawei to participate in country’s 5G network, get the Australians to ban Huawei, and to get the Germans to reduce the participation of Huawei in the development of their 5G infrastructure. The Biden Administration may make some concessions to China but will continue the restrictive policy towards Chinese participation in Western 5G networks, directed towards both; addressing the potential security concerns and at the same time constraining China’s technological advantage in the race to develop such infrastructure. Vital to this competition, therefore, will be to ensure that European and Asian nations do not get locked into the Chinese 5G system, since this allows China to gain the technological dominance it desires.
In terms of Artificial Intelligence, the American belief is that while the country still leads in the development of AI, the Chinese are catching up fast. Faced by growing Chinese competition, and the fact that Chinese 5G is starting to spread around the world, America’s National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence has come out with a comprehensive plan for the development of AI in both the military and civilian realms and how the US government can facilitate such technological growth. Directing the financial and intellectual power behind such a projects is believed to help maintain US global leadership in this field. Simultaneously, the globalized nature of the economy, especially for the manufacture of technological products, means that the United States will have to continue to cooperate with China in the economic realm. American companies profit from China’s purchase of semiconductors as China buys about USD 300 billion worth of semiconductors annually. China, being a manufacturing hub, also permits an economy of scale that reduces costs and makes the technology ubiquitous—witness the global crash in the prices of solar panels once the Chinese began to mass produce them. There are those in the US security establishment who would like to reduce the dependence on China but in the short to medium term it would be difficult and costly to move the production of hardware out of China—not to suggest that it could not be done.
Trade between the two countries, despite the best efforts of Trump, did not go down substantially because the cost of manufacturing in America would price most goods out of the market. In addition, the Chinese are the only country in the world that can manufacture goods quickly, in volume, with high enough levels of quality, and at competitive prices. America’s retail outlets, therefore, continue to depend on suppliers from China and when the pandemic struck, those supply chains were slowed down causing shortages in industries as varied as automobiles to home construction.
The US-China entente will also need to deal with climate change and the Biden Administration tacitly acknowledged this by reentering the Paris climate accords. George W. Bush’s treasury secretary, Henry Paulsen, repeatedly pointed out that no meaningful climate change deal could be achieved without having the Chinese on board and Washington will work with Beijing to strengthen and implement the climate accords.
Lastly, if we have learnt one lesson from COVID-19, it is that national solutions, xenophobia, and deglobalization will not serve as solutions to future pandemics. Cooperating with other nations to track the spread of a virus, engage in multinational efforts to develop vaccines, and to learn the efficacy of preventive measures from each other are the most likely trends of the future. The Biden Administration, therefore, is playing a mixed motive game with China—much in the same way as China is.
