President Joe Biden‘s core China team includes officials who have worked together for a long Time in the past, but there are differences in goals and strategies between the left and right of the core team. Pictured is the White House. (Pixabay)
President Joe Biden’s core China team includes officials with whom he has worked for a long time, but there are differences between the left and right sides of the core team on goals and strategies.
The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday (Feb. 3) that Biden’s China Policy is dominated by dissident team members, and how they work together could determine whether the new administration has a unified China policy or one that is fraught with differences and easily exploited by Beijing.
The National Security Council, the main body of the Biden Administration, includes former Secretary of State John Kerry and Kurt Campbell, the White House’s China coordinator, both of whom have very different perceptions of China.
As Biden’s climate envoy, Kerry is pushing for an international climate agreement that advocates cooperation with China, the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases. Meanwhile, Campbell, Biden’s appointed China coordinator, wants to push back hard against China (the Chinese Communist Party).
In addition, former Obama national security adviser Susan Rice, who is now Biden’s domestic policy adviser, may also weigh in on some China issues.
Add to that the opinions of the heads of the Treasury Department, State Department, Commerce Department and Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, which are often divided, and the final opinion will go to national security adviser Jake Sullivan. Sullivan and a number of current Biden administration officials have worked together under Obama.
Allies expect cracks in Biden’s team to appear in human rights or industrial policy
Even some of Biden’s allies expect the rift in the Biden team to come to the fore on issues such as human rights or industrial policy, which have pitted economic officials against national security officials in previous administrations, the paper said.
Former Democratic President Bill Clinton’s administration was also initially tough on China, but backed off when Beijing recruited U.S. business allies to lobby the administration.
The new U.S. administration’s strategy toward China is still being sorted out, but it is taking shape – seeking democratic allies abroad and building what Biden calls a “united front” against Beijing, with the leverage of either tariffs or restrictions that the Trump administration has previously imposed on countries. Sullivan and Secretary of State Anthony M. Kennedy
Sullivan and Secretary of State Antony Blinken have been tough on the Chinese Communist Party’s crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong, Xinjiang and provocative actions against Taiwan.
Biden administration officials told China Day that the president is focused on human rights and “he will expect every member of his cabinet to do the same.
And the Chinese Communist Party leadership is now trying a more aggressive engagement strategy with the new Biden team after finding itself on the defensive in dealing with the former U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration.
U.S. media: Focus on whether Kerry and Campbell can become a team operation
The Biden administration, however, says their strategy toward China is consistent. Outside advisers to the Biden team likened the NSC members’ personal differences and inconsistent priorities to the Abraham Lincoln era and said it might be more appropriate to call it a team of brothers, given the longstanding friendship between many top officials.
China Daily reports that within the Biden administration, attention has focused on whether Kerry and Campbell will operate as a team, or which of them will lead relations with China.
Kerry, 77, reports directly to President Joe Biden, with whom he worked on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for 24 years. Those who have worked with Kerry say Kerry will not be constrained by bureaucracy; his instinct will be to get on a plane and strike a final deal with Beijing right away.
“It’s not going to happen,” Kerry said at his Senate nomination hearing, adding that he would not sacrifice U.S. military or economic priorities for a climate deal.
Campbell, 64, has spent the past several decades studying China policy and has longstanding ties to Chinese (Communist Party) officials. Along with Sullivan, he helped design the Obama administration’s policy toward China.
If it had been Hillary who had won the presidential election in 2016, Campbell was considered the top candidate for secretary of state in a Hillary administration, the paper said. Right now, he is second to the 44-year-old Sullivan, but would need to report to Sullivan.
The two have co-written that the U.S. needs to re-establish “a close network of relationships and institutions in Asia and the rest of the world” to compete with China (the Chinese Communist Party).
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