TheEconomistNovember 21st 2020 371E
arly in hiscampaign for the presiden-
cy, Joe Biden rejected the notion that
China was much of a worry. He argued that
no leader in the world would trade the chal-
lenges facing China for their own. “China’s
going to eat our lunch? Come on, man,” Mr
Biden scoffed. “I mean, you know, they’re
not bad folks, folks. But guess what?
They’re not competition for us.” He was
speaking in May 2019. Tempered by his
contest with Donald Trump, who tried to
rally support by highlighting the threat
posed by China, Mr Biden now avoids such
words. But as president, will his policy to-
wards China be very different from Mr
Trump’s? He has yet to spell out his plans,
but he will throw fewer wild punches.
Mr Biden’s political rivals attacked his
remarks in Iowa City, accusing him of be-
ing naive about China. Even some of his
own advisers were troubled. At the time,
Mr Biden was still bragging about the many
hours he had spent with Xi Jinping when heserved as vice-president under Barack
Obama (he is well remembered in Beijing
for dropping in at a neighbourhood eatery
in 2011—see picture, next page). He was also
being less blunt about China’s hard au-
thoritarian turn under Mr Xi. Since Mr
Trump became president in 2017, relations
between China and America have become
much more hostile. But Mr Biden seemed
stuck in the mindset of the Obama admin-
istration, which described its co-operation
with China as “unprecedented” in scope.
During the campaign Mr Biden had to be
“reprogrammed” on China, says an adviser.
It seems to have worked. Mr Biden has
since called Mr Xi “a thug”. He has criti-
cised Mr Trump for praising Mr Xi (for ex-ample, during the early days of the covid-19
outbreak) and being indifferent towards,
even tolerant of, China’s human-rights
abuses. In August his team accused China
of “genocide” against ethnic Uyghurs in the
far-western region of Xinjiang. Mr Biden
finished his campaign sounding nothing
like the candidate who started it or the ad-
ministration he had once served. He was
vowing to be “tough on China”.
China may be wondering whether all
this is bombast. Before Mr Trump’s presi-
dency, there had been a long tradition of
candidates berating China on the cam-
paign trail, only to tone down their rhetoric
and try to keep relations on an even keel
once in office. Mr Biden’s remarks give him
wriggle-room to do the same. Despite refer-
ring to China as America’s “biggest compet-
itor”, he has not called it the biggest threat.
That, he says, is Russia (although the Biden
administration is expected to keep the la-
bel of “strategic competitor” used under Mr
Trump to describe China). Advisers to Mr
Biden’s team say there will be “no reset” in
the relationship. But the president-elect
does talk about co-operation with China on
issues such as climate change and global
health, which Mr Trump eschewed.
What can be discerned of Mr Biden’s
China policy looks like an amalgam of Mr
Trump’s and Mr Obama’s: a Trumpian wari-
ness of China combined with a preferenceJoe Biden’s China policyTo a different tune
NEW YORK
For America’s president-elect, handling China may be the biggest foreign-policy
challenge. Two stories look at his likely response and those who will guide itChina
39 MrBiden’sChinateam
40 Chaguan: No more love lettersAlso in this section