President Biden and his aides come into office with deep experience in transatlantic issues. But for four years, they also focused on the Pacific, where China is poised to become a dominant player. Their main effort is building alliances to counter China.
President-elect Donald J. Trump has already signaled a different approach toward China. he invited Chinese leader Xi Jinping attended the inauguration ceremony on Monday. The two sides spoke by phone on Friday, and Xi said I am sending Chinese Vice President Han Zheng attended the ceremony, breaking with China’s tradition of having its ambassador in Washington attend.
The Biden administration’s eventual activities toward China stand in sharp contrast. Mr. Biden made a phone call Last Sunday, he met with the leaders of Japan and the Philippines to strengthen the new trilateral security arrangement he helped build. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken visited South Korea and Japan this month on his final official trip.
Biden and his aides say they give Trump a competitive edge against China, the United States’ biggest rival.
Within Biden’s foreign policy, historians can ultimately see the approach toward China as existing as a continuum. The administration built its own system on the competitive foundation laid by Mr. Trump’s team, and now it is upending it.
It’s unclear what Trump will do about it. He admires the autocratic Mr. Xi and views China primarily through the lens of economic negotiations. Trump’s billionaire advisers, including Elon Musk, want to maintain and possibly expand business deals with China.
But his top foreign policy aide choice is more in line with Biden, insisting that the United States must use all security and economic tools to rein in China on many fronts. I am doing it.
One early test will be whether Mr. Trump will push through with a ban on TikTok, a Chinese social media app popular with young Americans.
Biden last year signed a bipartisan bill banning TikTok based on national security concerns unless parent company ByteDance sells it to investors with no ties to “foreign adversaries.” ByteDance still owns TikTok and the White House announced on Friday It will be up to Trump to decide whether to enact a ban. Trump said on Saturday. would probably give TikTok The ban will be suspended for 90 days, and the company’s chief executive will attend the inauguration. Nevertheless, the US company removed the app from its online store on Saturday night, hours before the federal law took effect.
Trump’s signature China policy during his first term was to impose tariffs on some Chinese products. Mr. Biden and his aides have maintained these, while expanding policy along three key pillars: strengthening alliances and building new security partnerships in the Asia-Pacific region. Restrict technology exports to China. and the revitalization of US industrial policy.
In other words, Mr. Biden sought to transform China policy into global policy.
Relations that were already strained during Biden’s term included House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, a de facto independent island claimed by China, and Chinese reconnaissance balloons drifting over the United States. There was a sharp decline. However, his team hastened to resume high-level communications, including between the two militaries.
The U.S. and China are “competing, and obviously competing intensely, but there are still elements of stability in the relationship and we are not on the brink of a downward spiral at this point,” White House National Security Adviser said. said Officer Jake Sullivan. He said this in an interview in a conference room in the west building.
“This is a significant four-year evolution in how both parties manage their relationship,” he added. He said the Chinese Communist Party now accepts the Biden campaign’s “managed competition” framework for relations.
What energized the Biden administration was idea that china I want to kick the US out. China bureau chief Rush Doshi, who served on the National Security Council early in the Biden administration, said China is the world’s dominant power. Many Republican lawmakers and policymakers share that view.
Mr. Sullivan said Mr. Biden and his aides realized in his inauguration that there were significant gaps in important areas such as the U.S. defense industrial base.
In his words, the administration has established two “big pillars” of policy. It’s an investment aimed at revitalizing U.S. manufacturing, innovation and supply chains. And it is investing in alliances and partnerships “to really expand our China strategy into a regional and global strategy.”
Sullivan pointed out that there are partnerships in Europe as well as Asia. Mr. Biden’s team persuaded European countries to withdraw from some trade deals with China and persuaded NATO to issue stronger statements against China and signal support for Taiwan.
Cooperation between China and Russia during President Vladimir V. Putin’s all-out invasion of Ukraine helped push European countries in that direction, as did Chinese cyberespionage.
But transatlantic allies do not see China as a threat as much as the United States. Some European politicians still prioritize trade ties with China, the world’s second-largest economy. And if Trump turns against European countries, it could jeopardize the Biden administration’s efforts.
Moreover, if Trump follows through on his threat to impose universal tariffs on allies as well, US allies could encounter China’s weapons.
Mr. Trump also said that allies are ripping off the U.S. military and that they must either pay the U.S. for defense or fend for themselves. In Asia, this idea applies not only to Taiwan but also to Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines.
The Biden administration is taking the opposite stance. A web of new security agreements among U.S. allies in Asia seeks to strengthen ties between their militaries and those of the United States, but Biden’s team says it will It is said that this will lead to the prevention of
Biden also moved to strengthen the military presence of several allies and the U.S. military presence in Asia. Tomahawk missiles were sent to Japan. Work with the UK to begin equipping Australia with nuclear submarine technology and the submarines themselves. and expand US military access to Philippine bases near Taiwan.
In private conversations in Washington, Chinese officials complained that this was a containment policy.
A difficult question to answer, and one that matters to Trump’s team, centers on whether the Biden administration has struck the right balance between deterrence and provocation. Is China accelerating its military buildup and becoming more aggressive in the region because of US moves in its backyard?
The Chinese government took note of Biden’s four statements that the U.S. military would defend Taiwan in the event of an invasion by China.
Jessica Chen Weiss, a professor at Johns Hopkins University who briefly worked at the State Department under Mr. Blinken, said the administration’s policies did not cause conflict and that some diplomacy helped.
“We were able to avoid an extreme situation,” she said. “Whether that disruption was ambitious enough to thwart the underlying trend remains to be seen.”
At the summit, Mr. Xi directly criticized Biden’s signature policy that Chinese authorities say is part of containment efforts: export restrictions imposed on advanced semiconductor chips, including the types needed to develop artificial intelligence.
After deploying the first tranche in 2022, Sullivan said explained it The company’s policy is to prevent its “basic technology” from falling into the hands of rivals by creating a “narrow garden and high fence.”
Some experts argue that policy It backfired And it has actually encouraged China to accelerate innovation. And the less Chinese companies rely on American technology, they say, the less American influence there will be.
Sullivan said the criticism “gets the chronology wrong.”
“Our semiconductor export controls were actually a response to China’s very public and very systematic policy of domesticating its semiconductor manufacturing capabilities,” he said.
Some former officials point to other policy flaws. Ryan Hass, director of China affairs on President Barack Obama’s National Security Council, cited three things: Biden and his team lack a serious trade agenda for Asia; It appears to be timid in its response and appears to be more comfortable interacting with developed democracies on China policy along with developing countries.
But overall, he said, the policy worked, saying, “The United States is in a stronger competitive position with China than it was when President Biden took office.”
