a rising China: the Trump administration deserves credit for focusing attention on it.
But rather than attack with unilateral tariffs, Mr Biden’s team will focus on building a
multilateral coalition to counter China. Expect talk of a transatlantic grand bargain,
where America assuages European concerns about its tech giants, particularly the
personal data they gather and the tax they don’t pay, in return for a joint approach
towards Chinese tech companies. Expect talk of a new global alliance, binding Asian
democracies into the Western coalition to counter China—the basis, conceivably, of a
new kind of American-led world order.
The opportunity is there. The question is whether Mr Biden will grasp it. The risk is that,
both at home and abroad, a Biden presidency proves to be long on soothing words and
short on effective action; that, whether or not he is constrained by a Republican Senate,
Mr Biden himself is too focused on repairing yesterday’s world rather than building
tomorrow’s, and too keen to protect existing jobs and prop up ossified multilateral
institutions to push for the kind of change that is needed. The biggest danger is not the
leftist lurch that many Republicans fear—it is of inaction, timidity and stasis. For
America and the world, that would be a terrible shame.
Zanny Minton Beddoes: editor-in-chief, The Economist
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