On the morning of Feb. 11, Beijing Time, Biden finally spoke with Xi Jinping. Although the timing of the call, which took place on the occasion of the traditional Chinese New Year, was considered a good idea, and although Biden called the two-hour call with Xi Jinping a good conversation, the specific views of the two sides differed by a hundred thousand miles when comparing the White House’s communication on the U.S.-China summit with the Chinese Communist Party‘s Xinhua News Agency’s press release.
For example, Biden expressed “his fundamental concerns about Beijing’s coercive and unfair economic practices, its repression in Hong Kong, its human rights abuses in Xinjiang, and its increasingly assertive actions in the (Indo-Pacific) region, including Taiwan. Xi, for his part, said that the issues of Taiwan, Hong Kong and Xinjiang are internal affairs of China; a confrontation between China and the United States would certainly be a disaster for both countries and the world.
However, this did not deter the Communist Party’s mouthpiece, which has always trumpeted that “the situation is rosy”. It came up with a wonderful article – “China-US Dollar Call Releases Positive Signals to the World” – in which the so-called “three positive signals” are The so-called “three positive signals” in the article are “exchanging New Year wishes”, “maintaining the will to communicate” and “sharing the spirit of cooperation”. From this “Xinhua International Times Review”, the result of Biden’s call with Xi Jinping is that both sides are caught in a difficult situation.
In Biden’s case, the dilemma is at least three-fold.
First, the Biden Family‘s entanglement with the Chinese Communist Party’s interests: On Dec. 3, 2020, Biden said in an interview that his family would not own foreign businesses in order to avoid conflicts of interest. But, on Feb. 5, White House press secretary Jen Psaki, asked at a news conference whether Biden’s son Hunter held shares in Bohai Harvest RST Shanghai Equity Investment Fund Management of Shanghai, China, replied. “He’s been trying to pull out of his investments.” Indirectly, it was confirmed that Hunter still holds a stake in the Chinese private equity firm. So how does Biden set aside the conflict between his China Policy and his family’s interests? There is a high degree of concern from all quarters.
Second, the inherent contradictions between some of Biden’s China policy practices cannot help but raise doubts. For example, some commentators have pointed out that the Biden Administration has loosened and backed off on the most likely conflicts between the U.S. and China in the areas of technology, commerce and ideology (for example, lifting the Trump administration’s ban on Confucius Institutes, postponing the ban on investment in some Chinese Communist military companies, putting the TikTok sale on indefinite hold, etc.), while the U.S. and China are unlikely to go to war, but the Biden administration has maintained a tough military response (for example, the U.S. The Biden administration has maintained a tough military response (for example, the U.S. Navy’s dual aircraft carrier joint military exercises in the South China Sea, the February 10 announcement of the establishment of a working group in the Pentagon to develop a strategy toward China, etc.); such avoidance of reality makes Biden’s claim of “extreme competition” between the U.S. and China seem more like a performance.
Third, on the one hand, the controversial 2020 election has fully exposed the political polarization, social division and constitutional crisis in the United States; on the other hand, the Trump Administration‘s China policy has deeply changed Americans’ Perception of the Chinese Communist regime, forming a broad bipartisan consensus. The Biden administration’s China policy, no matter how it changes, will inevitably be subject to significant constraints. This constraint comes from both the divergent political views of members of the Biden administration, the bipartisan consensus that has clamped down on the CCP, and the divergent demands of a plurality of social forces in the United States.
In the case of Xi Jinping, there are also three layers of dilemma as follows.
One, U.S.-China relations are at the core of the CCP’s foreign relations. Several generations of CCP leaders have viewed a stable U.S.-China relationship as a major political achievement to deter their political opponents, who have often challenged their party leaders on issues in the relationship. Now, the U.S.-China relationship is going down in a straight line in Xi Jinping’s hands, and it is hard to wear out the Trump administration. If the Biden administration does not turn around during the period, the pressure on Xi’s party will be mountainous, and Xi urgently needs to open up a new situation in the U.S.-China relationship. Biden, as a seasoned politician, is cold to Xi, and Xi can do nothing about it for a while.
Second, the perception of Xi in U.S. politics is changing. Judging from the handling of the Wang Lijun case, the Obama administration was initially supportive of Xi Jinping’s rise to power. After Trump became president, he distinguished the Chinese Communist Party from China, and at one point he also distinguished Xi from the Chinese Communist Party, calling Xi a “good friend”; however, after the Great Plague hit the United States in 2020, the relationship between Trump and Xi changed, and they did not speak for a long time. ” (O’Brien) or “General Secretary Xi Jinping is a true believer in a bankrupt totalitarian ideology” (Pompeo). After Biden’s rise to power, on January 28, the Atlantic Council, a leading U.S. think tank, anonymously released an 80-page report titled “The Longer Telegram: Toward a New U.S. Strategy Toward China,” suggesting that the U.S. should unite with anti-Xi forces within the CCP to get rid of Xi Jinping, which would “have the greatest leverage to bring about substantial changes in China’s strategic decisions and behavior. The Wall Street Journal also published an article entitled “The Biggest U.S. Strategic Miscalculation of the Post-Cold War Era – Misjudging Xi Jinping. The “anti-Xi” voices in U.S. politics have had a significant impact.
Third, after Xi Jinping came to power, he removed anti-Xi forces in many areas with great intensity, but there was no major movement in the diplomatic and intelligence systems, indicating that Xi’s power in the diplomatic and intelligence systems is limited. Xi arrested Wu Xiaohui in 2017 and Ye Jianming in 2018, both of whom have deep ties to the U.S., especially Ye Jianming, who is closely related to the Biden Computergate affair. The arrests of these two men indicate Xi’s desire to take full control of the diplomatic and intelligence systems and directly control the hidden forces in Sino-US relations to eliminate hidden dangers. However, judging from the current state of the CCP’s political situation and U.S.-China relations, it seems that Xi has not achieved his goal, but rather has stimulated anti-Xi forces in both China and the United States. If “down with Xi” becomes the choice of the Biden administration, Xi Jinping will be in danger if anti-Xi forces in China and the U.S. join forces (Xi now seems to have missed a favorable opportunity to befriend Trump).
Conclusion
Biden and Xi Jinping are old acquaintances. Reuters reports that when Biden was vice president, he established a relationship with Xi with a record of more than 24 hours of personal meetings and 1,7,000 miles of shared mileage.
Now as heads of state, Biden’s first call with Xi was almost entirely separate, suggesting that the two men each have their own dilemmas and that it will not be easy to just walk away. The most crucial point, if we want to get out of the dilemma, is to have an accurate and clear understanding of the CCP. To understand the Chinese Communist Party, “Nine Comments on the Communist Party” is a must-read. If you can read this book, you will be able to “see a village in the dark”.
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