Biden gets muted reaction in China

China’s official reaction to Biden’s election victory has been relatively muted, with no public congratulations from Xi

by BLOOMBERG NEWS / pic by BLOOMBERG

UNLIKE Donald Trump, whom Chinese officials had little knowledge of before he took office, Joe Biden is well known in Beijing. But that history is unlikely to quickly repair a relationship between the global powers that has fundamentally changed over the past four years.

China’s official reaction to Biden’s election victory has been relatively muted, with no public congratulations from President Xi Jinping. The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs gave mostly vague answers at a daily briefing yesterday, saying that it hoped the new administration would “work in the same direction as us going forward” — but sidestepping questions about the trade deal, what tangible moves China expected from Biden and Beijing’s stance on relations with the US.

“We always believe that China and the US should enhance communication and dialogue, manage differences on the basis of mutual respect, expand cooperation on the basis of mutual benefit and promote the sound and stable development of bilateral relations,” Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told reporters.

State-run media outlets such as the China Daily have filled some of the void, as the newspaper expressed hope that relations could be “reset for the better”. The Global Times called on Beijing to communicate with the Biden team “as thoroughly as it can” to bring China-US relations to a state of “great predictability”.

“China should not harbour any illusions that Biden’s election will ease or bring a reversal to China-US relations, nor should it weaken its belief in improving bilateral ties,” the Global Times said in an editoral on Sunday night.

“China must become a country the US cannot suppress or destabilise, and make it that cooperation with China is the best option for the US to realise its national interests,” it added. “This is the ultimate principle.”

A supporter of engagement with Beijing since the 1970s, Biden held extensive meetings with Xi when both served as VP back in 2011. Yet, his stance toward the world’s second-largest economy hardened over the past decade: On the campaign trail, he blasted Beijing for its actions in Hong Kong, dubbed its policies toward Muslim minorities in the western region of Xinjiang “unconscionable” and called the Chinese president a “thug”.

Biden’s transformation on China mirrored a broader shift in Washington, where a bipartisan consensus began to see Beijing as a threat to the US-led world order as Trump imposed punitive tariffs on Chinese goods and took action on companies from Huawei Technologies Co Ltd to Bytedance Ltd, the creator of TikTok. In office, Biden will likely continue Trump’s pushback against Chinese assertiveness while working more closely with US allies to rein in Beijing — extending an intensifying strategic competition.

“The new administration will need to protect its flank from charges of being soft on Beijing,” said James Green, who served as a US diplomat in Asia during both the Obama and Trump administrations. “A return to US-China relations of the mid-2010s is not in the cards.”

Biden’s biggest shift from Trump will likely be his approach to allies. While Trump has attacked traditional American partners like Japan, South Korea and Europe for free-riding on defence commitments and cheating at trade, Biden has promised to work with them closely to compel Chinese cooperation on priorities ranging from business ties to Hong Kong to 5G technology.

“Biden may try to improve relations with allies, and band together to try to suppress China,” said He Weiwen, a former official at the Chinese consulates in San Francisco and New York. “Right now, US relations with Europe are deteriorating, so it’s difficult to bring allies together to suppress China. If Biden improves relations with European allies, this will be harmful for China.”

China is preparing for the worst no matter what. Xi has repeatedly called on China to strive for “self-reliance” in key economic sectors, with Communist Party officials stressing last week that the country needed to build its own core technology instead of looking to buy it elsewhere. Central to that endeavour is the ability to produce its own chips, the building blocks for innovations from artificial intelligence to 5G networks and autonomous vehicles.

Xi also recently used the 70th anniversary of China’s entry into the Korean War to suggest that his country isn’t intimidated by American military might, a message that comes as Beijing steps up threats against Taiwan. The war “shatters the legend that the US Army is not defeatable”, Xi said in an address last month at the Great Hall of the People attended by party dignitaries, military representatives and veterans.

An early test of how Biden may treat Hong Kong differently could come soon, with the Trump administration facing a mid-December deadline to name any banks that have conducted transactions with Chinese and Hong Kong officials who were singled out for undermining the territory’s autonomy. Sanctions against any major Chinese lenders could escalate tensions and ripple through the global financial system.

On the campaign trail, Biden didn’t offer many specifics of which Trump-era policies he would change. He hasn’t committed to either scrapping the “Phase one” trade deal Trump reached with China in January or withdrawing the tariffs he imposed.

Tony Blinken, a senior Biden advisor seen as a potential secretary of state, said in September that a President Biden would use tariffs where necessary and seek commitments from China on subsidies and cyber theft — areas left out of Trump’s accord after the two sides repeatedly failed to reach agreement.

When it comes to Chinese technology, Biden has voiced similar concerns about national security as Trump did — making it likely that his administration would maintain efforts to curb access to US intellectual property and data for certain Chinese technology companies.

Still, trade policy under Biden would be “less chaotic and predictable”, said Wendy Cutler, a former senior trade official in the Obama administration who is now the vice president of the Asia Society Policy Institute. “Most importantly, a Biden administration will look to build collective responses with other countries towards China, rather than unilateral actions which have largely failed to date.” — Bloomberg