The Economist - USA (2020-11-21)

38 China The EconomistNovember 21st 2020

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for caution in handling strategic matters.

He will be constrained by a Congress that

has become far more hostile to China in re-

cent years. A Senate that may remain in Re-

publican control will restrict his freedom

to appoint people whom hawks fear will fa-

vour more engagement with China (see

next article). Public opinion may affect his

policy, too—negative views of China have

reached an historic high.

Of the many disputes between China

and America that have grown more fraught

under Mr Trump, trade is among the most

bitterly contested. Mr Biden will inherit a

smouldering trade war with China that was

launched by Mr Trump in a vain attempt to

reduce a soaring bilateral trade deficit. Un-

like Mr Trump, America’s leader-in-wait-

ing is no fan of using tariffs to achieve such

goals. But he is unlikely to move swiftly to

dismantle Mr Trump’s tariffs on Chinese

goods—even though they are, in effect, a

tax that is mostly paid by American con-

sumers. Some of Mr Biden’s advisers hope

that retaining them, at least for now, will

give America leverage in negotiations with

China over trade and other matters.

In the Obama era, Mr Biden supported

efforts to forge a trade deal among 12 coun-

tries, including America, around the Pacif-

ic—hoping it would eventually draw in

China and bind it to Western trading

norms. Mr Trump withdrew from that pro-

ject. There is little chance that Mr Biden

will resume interest in it. Winning approv-

al from the Senate for multilateral trade

pacts would be daunting, if not impossible.

Avoiding a hot war with China will also

be a priority for Mr Biden. In recent months

the China has stepped up exercises in the

Taiwan Strait and sent fighter jets on nu-

merous sorties into Taiwanese airspace. Mr

Biden will continue arms sales to Taiwan,

which have picked up pace under Mr

Trump. But he may scale back symbolic

shows of support, such as high-level trips

to Taiwan by cabinet members (in August

Alex Azar, the health secretary, became the

highest-ranking American to visit the is-

land since America severed official ties

with it in 1979). Some of Mr Biden’s advisers

see these as needlessly provocative.

But Mr Biden is likely to retain some of

Mr Trump’s toughest measures against

China related to national security. He will

persist with efforts to strangle Huawei, a

Chinese telecoms giant that America re-

gards as a security threat, by keeping

Trump-era restrictions on doing business

with the firm (see Briefing). Mr Biden will

stress the need for America to keep ahead

of China in technology. “Decoupling” in

high-tech areas will remain the trend. This

may involve government support for mak-

ing semiconductors in America to avoid

reliance on ones made in China.

Despite its disregard for multilateral fo-

rums, the Trump administration did try to

buildtheQuadrilateralSecurityDialogue,a

group of four China-sceptic countries—

America, Australia, India and Japan—into

something sturdier. A military exercise in-

volving all four members of the club took

place this month in the Bay of Bengal. Mr

Biden can be expected to continue efforts

to beef up the Quad, as it is known (see Ban-

yan). He will also maintain “freedom of

navigation” patrols by the American armed

forces in the South China Sea and Taiwan

Strait. Mr Obama was reticent about these,

but they became routine under Mr Trump.

Mr Biden will assure China’s neighbours

that America will be active in Asia; some al-

lied diplomats in the region had grumbled

that Mr Obama’s “pivot” to Asia was too

half-hearted.

Making values great again

Unlike Mr Trump, Mr Biden is expected to

take a personal interest in the challenge

posed by human-rights abuses in China,

including repression in Xinjiang and Hong

Kong. He may make more effort to contest

China’s influence in the un, where Mr Xi

has sought to insulate himself from criti-

cism of his human-rights record. Mr Biden

is likely to maintain sanctions on China

imposed by the Trump administration, in-

cluding those on officials and companies

deemed complicit in violating human

rights. Soon after taking over he may stage

an international “Summit for Democracy”

to make his values clear.

But the next president will avoid giving

the kind of fiery ideological speeches fa-

voured by the likes of Mike Pompeo, Mr

Trump’s secretary of state, and William

Barr, his attorney-general, who have de-

scribed the Chinese Communist Party as an

existential threat to the free world. Such

rhetoric does not mesh well with his belief

that America can still co-operate with Chi-

na in some areas.

Mr Biden will abandon aspects of Mr

Trump’s China policy that he views as

harmful to openness and tolerance. He

may remove visa-related impediments, in-

troduced by the Trump administration, to

study in America by people from China. Mr

Biden believes that more foreigners should

be recruited to American campuses, and

that America gains from their presence. In-

vestigations will continue into suspected

espionage involving Chinese researchers,

but Mr Biden’s administration may tone

down Trumpian rhetoric that instilled

fears among ethnic Chinese living in

America of a “red scare” fuelled, in part, by

racial hostility towards them.

Mr Biden will certainly avoid Mr

Trump’s use of racially charged language to

describe covid-19’s links with China. He

can also be expected to rejoin the World

Health Organisation and try to resume the

stationing in China of specialists from

America’s Centres for Disease Control, who

used to work with their Chinese counter-

parts on public health.

In the battle against climate change, Mr

Biden may seek to persuade China to stop

building carbon-belching projects such as

coal-fired power plants in other countries.

Such efforts will be made easier by Ameri-

ca’s rejoining, under Mr Biden, of the Paris

agreement on climate change. In Septem-

ber Mr Xi announced a goal of reaching net-

zero carbon emissions by 2060. Some cli-

mate experts say Mr Biden should an-

nounce an even more ambitious climate

target, and encourage a race with China to

develop a green economy. That would

mesh well with what Mr Biden’s advisers

believe should be a pillar of his China strat-

egy—strengthening America itself, includ-

ing by spending more government money

on renewable energy. But the Senate, if it

remains in Republican control, could frus-

trate such ambitions.

It is not only Republicans who will limit

Mr Biden’s room for manoeuvre on China.

Much of the machinery of government—

from the Commerce Department to intelli-

gence agencies—has been recalibrated in

response to China’s growing challenge,

with more staff and energy focused on the

country and its transgressions than ever

before. New laws, sanctions and other poli-

cies specifically targeting China are in

place. This helps to keep China at the fore-

front of political debate and makes it more

difficult for leaders to turn a blind eye to

the Communist Party’s bad behaviour. “It’s

very different from the past when a new

president came in and could very quickly if

they wanted make significant changes,”

says Bonnie Glaser of the Centre for Strate-

gic and International Studies, a think-tank.

In keeping with the new mood, Mr Bi-

den is expected to send early signals that he

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