As the new Biden administration takes office, many expect a “reset” of U.S.-China relations. However, U.S. China experts say that whether the Biden Administration will continue the Trump administration’s hard line against the Chinese Communist Party depends not on Biden, but on Communist Party leader Xi Jinping. Given the current behavior of the CCP, they say, whoever becomes U.S. president will take tough measures against the CCP.
Biden Administration Cabinet Members Agree on Trump’s Tough Policy Toward Beijing
Antony Blinken, Biden’s choice for secretary of state in the new administration, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s confirmation hearing on his nomination Tuesday that he believes President Trump is right to be tough on the Chinese Communist Party.
He also supported Secretary Pompeo. He also supported Secretary Pompeo’s decision to find the Chinese Communist Party guilty of “genocide” in Xinjiang.
Biden’s nominee for Treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, said the same day at a nomination hearing before the Senate Finance Committee that the Chinese Communist Party has long used a range of policies to “cripple American companies,” including illegal subsidies, product dumping, intellectual property theft and other trade barriers. She said China is the United States’ most important strategic competitor and that the Biden administration will use all available tools to combat China’s unfair trade practices. She also argued that the Chinese Communist Party has committed “horrific human rights violations” in Xinjiang.
Speaking before the Senate Armed Services Committee’s nominating committee, retired Army General Lloyd Austin, the nominee for U.S. defense secretary, said the Chinese Communist Party is the number one threat to the United States. “I will continue to focus our resources on making sure we are prepared to meet any challenge, as well as continuing to show a real deterrent to the Chinese Communist Party or any other aggressor that dares to challenge us and let them know it would be a very bad idea.”
At the Senate Intelligence Committee hearing, Biden’s pick for director of intelligence, Avril Haines, said she “will provide the intelligence necessary to support bipartisan efforts to defeat the Chinese Communist Party.”
She said she agreed with the senators that the Chinese government’s intelligence efforts are trying to infiltrate the U.S. base at any cost. The goal is to win over local officials who could become U.S. leaders to agree with the CCP’s policies in the future, or even to develop pro-China policies.
Whether the Biden administration continues to pursue a hard-line China strategy depends on Xi Jinping
U.S. experts on China believe that whether the Biden administration will continue to pursue the Trump Administration‘s hard-line policies toward China depends more on what China does.
Danielle Pletka, a senior fellow for foreign policy at the American Enterprise Institute, told the Voice of America at a seminar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace on Tuesday that the Biden and Harris administrations’ China Policy would not see a major change from the Trump years.
On China, I think a lot of it depends not on Biden, just as it used to depend not entirely on Trump, but to a much greater extent on Xi Jinping,” she said. …… Xi Jinping has created a situation to which the United States must respond. It’s not about Biden, or Trump, whoever is president of the United States has to do something about it.”
She noted that the Trump administration’s emphasis on “fairness” in its policies toward China, especially trade, resonates throughout the United States.
We brought China into the international trading system, we brought China into the international community, so that China could play by the rules of those systems, and yet China accepts those rules and uses them and ignores them when it wants to,” she said. This resonates throughout the United States, at all levels, whether it’s academia or government.”
Douglas Paal, a Carnegie Endowment for International Peace scholar and former director of the American Institute in Taiwan‘s Taipei office, said in an interview with Voice of America television that there have been more and more points of friction and conflict between the U.S. and China since Xi took office, “so it’s natural for whichever president is in power to be tough on China. “
Since Xi took office, the CCP has challenged the United States and American values on political, military, economic, national security and human rights issues. Xi Jinping has exercised a monopoly of power and oppressive rule internally, and has adopted a policy of risky and provocative behavior externally.
The New Crown (CCP virus) Epidemic, especially the fact that Europe and the United States are still mired in a health crisis, has emboldened him.
On January 11, 2021, Xi Jinping sounded more hesitant than ever in his address to China’s key provincial and ministerial leaders. In his speech, Xi reiterated the notion that the world is undergoing a major change unprecedented in a century, but stressed that in this “major change,” “Time and momentum are on our side, and this is where our strength and strength of mind lie, as well as our determination and confidence.
Clyde Prestowitz, who served in the Reagan administration, is the author of The World Turned Upside Down: America, China, and the Struggle for Global Leadership. Global Leadership,” said Tuesday at an Asia Times symposium that the Chinese Communist Party poses a greater threat to the United States than Hitler’s Germany in World War II or the Soviet Union in the Cold War. He said, “Because of China’s integration into the global economy, the Chinese Communist Party has the power to coerce.”
He explained that the Communist Party’s use of economic sanctions against Australia, South Korea and Norway are good examples of this. In 2017, South Korean retail giant Lotte Group angered the Chinese Communist Party by offering land for the deployment of the SAD missile defense system and was boycotted by the Communist Party; in 2010, the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded a prize to After the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to imprisoned Liu Xiaobo, the Chinese Communist Party stopped importing salmon from Norway.
Prestowitz even wanted new President Biden to warn the nation and the free world about the CCP threat at his own inauguration. However, the new president’s inaugural address seemed to focus more on the domestic threat in the United States.
In an interview with Voice of America, Stanford University international studies fellow Oriana Skylar Mastro said, “The United States needs to make it clear that we welcome the integration of a constructive, peaceful China into the international community. We need to take a tough stance on China only when Beijing acts irresponsibly and aggressively.”
U.S. Toughness on China Began in the Obama Administration’s Second Term
Contrary to what many people think, U.S. toughness on China did not begin in the Trump administration, but in the second term of the Obama administration.
The beginning of Obama’s second term came just before and after Xi Jinping took power. In November 2011, during his trip to the Asia-Pacific region, President Obama made a high-profile declaration that the United States was a “Pacific nation” and would “stay” in the region. In January 2012, the U.S. Department of Defense released the New Military Strategy Report, formally introducing the concept of “Asia-Pacific Rebalance,” establishing a strategic shift in military resources from the dual strategic focus of the Asia-Pacific and Middle East after the September 11 attacks to a focus on the Asia-Pacific. Obama also attempted to form an economic alliance, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, to contain China, but this agreement was abandoned after the Trump administration took office.
Kurt Campbell, the former assistant secretary of state appointed by new President Joe Biden as the Indo-Pacific coordinator, was the architect of the Asia-Pacific rebalancing strategy. Ely Ratner, who served in the administration, wrote in Foreign Affairs that the U.S. policy of engagement with China has failed.
Bonnie Glaser, director of the China Power Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a U.S. think tank, said in an interview with the Voice of America that these former Obama administration officials will keep their eyes open when they deal with China again.
Many on his team have seen China become more assertive and in some cases even belligerent in the latter years of the Obama administration,” she said. They’ve also experienced China making promises that it later failed to keep. So they’ve had that experience. And I think they’ll come into office with their eyes wide open.”
She advised the Biden administration not to hold a premature head of state summit or high-level dialogue with Beijing until it has resolved U.S. domestic issues.
She said, “We know that China takes advantage of other countries when they see their power declining. And we know that China sees the new crown pandemic as accelerating the changing pattern of the global balance of power. In that pattern, China is becoming a great power, and they see the United States as being in decline. So I don’t think we should have summits or serious negotiations with China until we have regained China’s respect.”
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