Policy Alert #223 | February 12, 2021

Since the inauguration of President Joe Biden, Washington has been talking tough, expecting “extreme competition” between the U.S. and China in the coming years. In a speech at the State Department, President Biden presented his outlook on U.S. foreign policy and stated that the U.S. would “confront China’s economic abuses; counter its aggressive, coercive action; push back on China’s attack on human rights, intellectual property, and global governance.” But Biden’s Press Secretary Jen Psaki’s statement that the Biden team would exercise “strategic patience” toward Beijing left some wondering.

In response to the new rhetoric from Washington, China’s top diplomat Yang Jiechi, Director of the Office of Central Commission for Foreign Affairs, told Secretary of State Anthony Blinken that the U.S. should “rectify its mistakes made over a period of time and work with China to uphold the spirit of no conflict, no confrontation, mutual respect and win-win cooperation, focus on cooperation and manage differences” while also stressing that “the two sides should respect each other’s core interests and choices of political system and development path, and manage their domestic affairs well.” Following Yang’s narrative, Chinese Ambassador to the U.S. Cui Tiankai highlighted the need for bilateral cooperation between China and the U.S. “vis-à-vis the emerging or the existing global challenges, like climate change” during a CNN interview.

The meaning of Washington’s “patience” may have been on display newly adopted strategic patience is most notable when President Biden waited until February 10 – after having talked to all major world leaders, including Russian President Vladimir Putin and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi – to make the first phone call with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the eve of Chinese Lunar New Year. During the call, Biden confronted Xi over all major issue areas between the two countries, including trade and economic practices, democratic crackdown in Hong Kong, human rights abuse in Xinjiang, assertiveness toward Taiwan, and the preservation of a free and open Indo-Pacific.

The first month of diplomacy under President Biden has already signaled a new era of U.S. policy toward China. In this Policy Alert, we will examine how the Rising Powers are responding to the prospects of U.S.-China relations under the new U.S. administration.

China

An editorial from state-owned nationalist tabloid Global Times tries to put the delayed phone call between Biden and Xi in a more positive light:

• “The White House release also said at the beginning that Biden shared his greetings and well wishes with the Chinese people on the occasion of the Lunar New Year. This was widely interpreted as a gesture that Biden showed respect for President Xi and China. It seems that he was using such goodwill to balance the tough messages the new US administration sent in recent days and various interpretations on those messages.”

In an op-ed for South China Morning Post, an independent newspaper based in Hong Kong, Wang Xiangwei, former Editor-in-Chief of South China Morning Post, proposes that Washington and Beijing could begin mending bilateral relations by taking small steps in reversing the tit-for-tat policies of the Trump era:

• “[N]either side is likely to make any significant pre-emptive gesture as both believe the ball is in the other’s court… Given the complex circumstances, both countries can revitalize bilateral links by starting small, as recently suggested by Kurt Campbell, a veteran American diplomat who has become Biden’s Indo-Pacific coordinator… [B]oth countries could reverse the tit-for-tat expulsion of journalists, ease visa restrictions and reopen closed consulates. Doing so would be a clear way of showing goodwill.”

In an op-ed for Global Times, Yuan Zheng, Deputy Director and Senior Fellow of the Institute of American Studies at Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing, expects enduring competition between the two countries and suggests that Beijing should take the initiative in shaping U.S.-China relations:

• “US scholars have predicted that Biden will not make any major improvements in China-US relations during the first half year of his tenure. China should be prepared for this… China should take the initiative in shaping China-US relations. If bilateral relations fail to make further progress, perhaps China can find a breakthrough on the multilateral front.”

Japan

An editorial from the conservative Yomiuri Shimbun sees China’s recent heightening of military pressure toward Taiwan as a signal aimed at warning the Biden administration not to interfere in the Taiwan issue:

• “China’s intimidation of Taiwan is an act that shakes the security of East Asia as a whole. It is unreasonable for China to claim that the U.S. response to China’s actions is ‘interference in domestic affairs.’ A sense of urgency over China’s self-righteous behavior, including the deprivation of liberties in Hong Kong and the actions of turning the South China Sea into a military stronghold, is widely shared in the United States regardless of party affiliation. The Xi administration should be aware of the fact that this series of actions has become a regional threat.”

An editorial from the center-right The Japan Times argues that China’s assertiveness in defending its own interests explains the Biden administration’s reluctance to respond to China’s call for a cooperative bilateral relationship:

• “[China’s model of cooperation] rested on three pillars: no conflict or confrontation, mutual respect and mutually beneficial cooperation…Problems arise when those principles become concrete; when, for example, “mutual respect” is applied to specific problems. In practice, this has meant that China is not to be criticized. Ever. And when Beijing expresses an interest in a dispute, that stake is to be considered paramount and accorded due deference.”

In an op-ed for the left-leaning Mainichi Shimbun, Bill Emmott, former Editor-in-Chief of The Economist, foresees that U.S. foreign policy in Asia under the Biden administration is likely to resemble Japan’s existing China policy:

• “Politically, [Biden] has to talk tough. But in practice, I doubt if he will really choose to be confrontational. His position will be more like Japan’s: to engage, to accept the reality of Chinese power but also to defend America’s national interests strongly whenever necessary… [T]he real U.S. goal in the region must be one of balancing Chinese power, of maintaining America’s presence so as to prevent Chinese hegemony from developing; and to assist that by ensuring that countries in the region see America as having legitimacy in its actions and intentions, ideally a greater legitimacy and trust than China does.”

India

An editorial from the pro -BJP government The Pioneer suggests that President Biden’s tough posture during the recent phone call with President Xi is a sign of Washington aiming to reestablish the U.S. as a global leader:

• “[T]he US was firmly back in the seat as the global leader, a position that it had by and large relinquished during the Donald Trump regime…Biden made it clear to President Xi Jinping that Big Brother would henceforth take a tough line on human rights abuses in Hong Kong and Xinjiang, coercion of Taiwan and assertive actions in the region.”

In an op-ed for the liberal Hindustan Times, Harsh Pant, a Professor at King’s College London and the Director of Studies at Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi, questions the strategic clarity of Biden’s foreign policy in the Indo-Pacific amid the urgency of countering China’s rising regional dominance:

• “On Russia, there is no clarity on what Washington can do apart from its rhetorical flourishes. In Myanmar, America’s sanctimonious calls for sanctions and isolation will only make China a more potent player. On China, where actually America’s leadership has been pretty strong under Trump, platitudes won’t work anymore. In the Indo-Pacific, regional powers have to respond to China’s rise in real-time. They have little time or patience for Biden’s inability to articulate a coherent China policy.”

In an op-ed for center-right Times of India, Bharat Karnad, Emeritus Professor in National Security Studies at the Centre for Policy Research in New Delhi, sees the strategic competition between the Washington and Beijing as a driver for more Indo-U.S. cooperation, but expresses skepticism on whether New Delhi is capable of taking full advantage the opportunities:

• “After all, the US knows the Indian government buckles easily under flattery or pressure and Indian negotiators habitually give up a lot in return for little as long as India is patted for being a ‘responsible state’ and the carrot of an albeit non-veto permanent seat in the UN Security Council is dangled.”