As he approaches his 100th day in office, President Biden spoke to a joint session of Congress on April 28. On China, he said the competition with China is about democracy versus autocracy, a contest that cannot be lost. But he welcomed competition with China, but did not seek conflict. Biden’s statement, which caught the world’s eye, seemed to be a hard-soft one, and it was perhaps his opponent Xi Jinping who could be the first to appreciate some change in tone. Xi’s team should also notice that since taking office, Biden’s team has rarely used the term “Chinese Communist Party,” which is most hated in Zhongnanhai. During the Trump years, the term “China” was deliberately distinguished from “CCP,” arguing that “CCP” does not represent “China The term “Chinese Communist Party” does not represent “China”, let alone “the Chinese people”.
In an interview with the Voice of America, David Dollar, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution’s China Center, commented on Biden’s China policy in his 100 days in office, saying, “I would say that the United States does not have a coherent strategy toward China yet. Biden’s team for the most part is still following Trump’s policy on China.” But he noted: the Biden administration’s language in criticizing China is less direct in its accusations against China’s Communist Party than the Trump administration’s. He said, “I think one big change is that several members of the Trump administration’s cabinet have been very targeted in their criticism of the Chinese Communist Party and China’s leaders, and some of their rhetoric has come very close to calling for regime change. I haven’t heard that kind of rhetoric from Biden’s team. They seem to have more expertise in accepting Chinese politics and not seeking to change it.”
The above observation by this American expert on China can be described as both objectively neutral and pointedly careful. While he does not cite examples of the terms “China” and “Chinese Communist Party,” it immediately brings to mind that several members of the Trump-era cabinet used the term “Chinese Communist Party” rather than “Wasn’t the purpose, as David Du put it, “to call for regime change in China,” with a great sense of hostility? Later, Biden’s team rarely made the same statement, one because they did not want to anger Beijing. The second is, as David Du says, that the Biden team “seems to be accepting Chinese politics and not seeking to change it.
In the short 100 days since Biden took office, he has told several times how memorable he was for the many thousands of kilometers and hours of informal conversations on the plane with Xi Jinping. In his 100-day speech to Congress, he again retold the story of his special relationship with Xi Jinping, a move that shows some personal respect for him? “Welcome competition, but do not seek conflict”? Where can Zhongnanhai find a leader of a great nation who is so rule-based and so free of hatred? Perhaps we should praise U.S. leader Joe Biden for having the political “gravitas” to transcend ideological differences and accept a Communist leader who is sharpening his sword and is always looking to outflank the United States and have global ambitions. As long as China does not seek conflict, the United States will not seek conflict either. The United States and China compete in peaceful coexistence and, if necessary, seek international cooperation, without missing each other. If this is still a form of cold violence and decoupling, it is better for Beijing than the threat of hot war. As for whether the “Chinese Communist Party” is China? That is a matter for the Chinese, not the Americans.
Xi Jinping has made a big deal of the “two-faced” people in the Party hierarchy at home, but who is not a two-faced person, including himself? President Biden is a multi-faceted political leader who has told the world that Xi Jinping does not have a “democratic bone in his body” and has defined the U.S.-China competition as a contest between democracy and autocracy, a contest that cannot be lost. So until now, the Biden administration has retained many of its Trump-era policies toward China.
In his speech at the Munich Security Conference on Feb. 19, Biden made the point that the challenges facing the world today are different from those of the past, and that the global situation has changed. People are now in a fundamental debate about the future and the direction of the world today. “We are at an inflection point between two schools of thought, and given all the challenges we face – from the fourth industrial revolution to global pandemics – there are those who argue that tyranny is the best way forward, and there are those who understand that democracy is critical, – critical to meeting those challenges.” Biden said democracy will and must prevail, but “democracies must prove that democracy can still meet the needs of our people in this changed world.”
In his subsequent address to Congress, Biden also said again that Xi and other autocrats believe U.S. democracy is doing things too slowly to compete. He therefore called for greater U.S. investment in technology and education, and also launched a big government economic plan in Democratic colors. In order to gain congressional approval, President Biden, a political polymath, seems to use the “China threat” as a domestic political tool and the most persuasive bipartisan argument: to compete with China, the U.S. needs to emulate the Communist Party’s “efficiency” and economic model of doing things fast. ” and economic model, building a lot of money, promoting an expensive epidemic economy, deficit economy, green economy, etc.
In his 100th day in office, Biden’s China policy is apparently clear but actually ambiguous and contradictory, with considerable room for maneuvering: when facing domestic politics and allied countries, he highlights the ideology of singing the high note of democracy against dictatorship, and when facing China, he changes to the pragmatic style of “welcoming competition but not seeking conflict”. The term “Chinese Communist Party” that has caused so much pain to the Chinese Communist Party nest may be shelved for the time being, but this change in terminology, which is difficult for the average American to understand, is understood by the Biden team, and even more so by Zhongnanhai.
Recent Comments