The EconomistNovember 14th 2020 International 512
1nounced in July that America was pulling
out of the World Health Organisation
(who), the main global body for fighting
pandemics (among other things), grum-
bling that it was beholden to China. Mr Bi-
den says he will reverse this rash decision
on the first day of his presidency.
By executive order, he can stop the clock
on the withdrawal process, which was to be
completed by July 2021. It is unclear how
big the disruption will be. America is the
who’s biggest donor: in 2019 it provided
around 15% of its budget. With Mr Biden in
charge, America is also expected to join a
global coalition funding the development
of covid-19 tests, drugs and vaccines and
their distribution to poorer countries. In-
ternational co-operation is likely to work
better than “America First”. The pandemic
“won’t be over in the usif it’s not over in
Mexico,” notes a Mexican official.
Governments everywhere are asking
how Mr Biden will affect their national in-
terest. China’s state media have given him a
cautious welcome. Global Times, a tabloid,
even called him an “old friend”. China’s re-
gime may have relished the decline of
American soft power under Mr Trump, but
it also chafed at the capriciousness of his
China policy and the hawkishness of his
officials. In its view, the Trump administra-
tion is to blame for pushback in much of
the West against Chinese influence.
China does not expect a Biden presiden-
cy to reduce Western anxiety. But it hopes
for more predictability. Under Mr Trump,
China feared a sudden policy shift towards
Taiwan that might have brought the two
countries closer to war. It hopes that Mr Bi-
den will be more careful.
China would also like a less choppy
trade relationship. It doubts that Mr Biden
will ramp up tariffs in a futile effort to make
bilateral imports equal to exports, as Mr
Trump did. It hopes that he will cut some of
those tariffs. It does not expect any change
in America’s attitude towards Chinese in-
volvement in building 5gnetworks, or its
military build-up in the South China Sea.
India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi,
was quick to fire congratulatory messages
both to Mr Biden and to his running-mate.
Kamala Harris inspires “immense pride”
not just among her chittis (aunties) but
among all Indian-Americans, Mr Modi
gushed. Indian pundits speculate that he is
keen not to be punished for having bet
heavily on Mr Trump, his fellow populist.
He probably won’t be. Whoever is in
charge, bilateral ties have warmed in recent
decades. “The uscannot create an effective
balance of power against China without In-
dia,” notes Ashley Tellis of the Carnegie En-
dowment for International Peace, a think-
tank. Mr Biden’s campaign website took In-
dia to task for its backsliding on democracy
and human rights. India’s unspoken retort,
in the words of Sadanand Dhume of theAmerican Enterprise Institute, another
think-tank, is “Let us do whatever we like,
because we are with you on China.”
When it comes to asserting hard power,
America’s friends in Asia want Mr Biden to
be closer to Mr Trump than to Barack
Obama. Mr Obama drew red lines in the
South China Sea, but then did little when
China crossed them. The Trump adminis-
tration, by contrast, more vociferously re-
jected China’s claims in the sea and upped
the American naval presence. It reaffirmed
America’s defence commitment to Japa-
nese islands harassed by China. And it sold
arms to Taiwan. Bilahari Kausikan, former-
ly Singapore’s top diplomat, says that when
Mr Trump told President Xi Jinping of Chi-
na, his guest at Mar-a-Lago in 2017, that he
had just bombed Syria over its use of chem-
ical weapons, he did much to restore the
credibility in Asia of American power.Say it ain’t so Joe
Some Asians worry that Mr Biden might
make security concessions to China in pur-
suit of other goals, such as co-operation on
climate change. Where Mr Obama “put em-
phasis on engagement first, it’s time to put
deterrence first,” says Miyake Kunihiko of
the Canon Institute for Global Studies, a
think-tank in Tokyo. “They shouldn’t leave
China with any illusions it would be able to
attack Taiwan,” says Sasae Kenichiro, a for-
mer Japanese ambassador to the UnitedStates. Still, many would like to see Mr Bi-
den approach China in closer co-ordina-
tion with allies, and with less blind rage.
For all that Japanese policymakers wish to
constrain their huge neighbour, they are,
given China’s proximity and the two coun-
tries’ enmeshed economic ties, reluctant to
confront it. They dread the kind of open
break with China that the Trump adminis-
tration has seemed bent on.
Japan’s new prime minister, Suga
Yoshihide, surely hopes for a more conven-
tional relationship with his country’s main
ally. “It’s extremely important for us to
have professional consultations with the
United States, and with a head of govern-
ment who is knowledgeable about foreign
policy,” says Tanaka Hitoshi, a former dep-
uty foreign minister.
South Koreans would agree. Mr Trump
tore up a trade deal and constantly threat-
ened to withdraw American troops from
Korean soil if Seoul did not pay more for
their presence. Mr Biden, in an op-ed for
South Korea’s national news agency, called
such threats “reckless” and vowed to
strengthen the alliance. In a poll before the
election, almost two-thirds of South Kore-
ans said they wanted Mr Biden to win.
Likewise, in South-East Asia, Mr
Trump’s calls for an ideological crusade
against “Communist China”, to be fought
on every front, showed an administration
out of touch with diplomatic realities, ar-
gues Dino Patti Djalal, an Indonesian for-
mer ambassador to America, in the Dip-
lomat, a magazine. Yes, China causes
headaches in South-East Asia. But it has
posed no ideological threat for decades. For
now, he says, the region’s priority is to
overcome the pandemic (with China’s
help) and chart an economic recovery (in
which China will be the motor of growth).
The American presence is welcome, but
having to take sides is not—which is why
Indonesia recently refused to offer a home
to American spy planes.
As for Mr Biden, Asians are counting on
a return of what Kevin Rudd, an Australian
former prime minister, calls “strategic and
economic ballast” to America’s relation-
ship with Asia, and “a more nuanced diplo-
macy”. Is that likely? Mr Rudd thinks so. Mr
Biden is pulling together a team of Asia ex-
perts for whom “the granularity of the
Indo-Pacific is like second nature”.
During the Trump years the European
Union (eu) unexpectedly found itself the
guardian of multilateralism. After Mr Bi-
den’s victory, Europeans hope this burden
will be shared. Besides rejoining the Paris
agreement, they would like America to
stop undermining the World Trade Organi-
sation and to revive the Iran nuclear deal.
Mr Biden has suggested he will do so.
In grand strategic terms, the eu’s main
aim is to avoid being dragged into a hege-
monic struggle between America and Chi-Whitherwillhewander?
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