It is not difficult to imagine as to why China is at the heart of the US presidential elections debate. The current US president has been nourishing an anti-China narrative ever since he became the president in 2016, moving from starting a ‘trade war’ with China to making deals and then re-starting the war in the wake of the pandemic, coming finally to the brink of ‘de-coupling’ the world’s two largest economies. The latest phase has also seen active push towards creating a ‘global coalition’ against China to roll-back its increasing economic and political influence in all continents of the globe. While there is no denying that China’s rise is the biggest challenge the US is facing, the current phase of US-China ties exists due largely to the Trump administration’s particularly revisionist vision of China, a narrative so powerful that has even forced Joe Biden, Trump’s main rival, to take a ‘tough’ stance on China.
Joe Biden has not only criticized Trump for being ‘too soft’ on China but has also claimed to follow a more robust ‘pro-American’ policy after he gets elected. With polls indicating a Biden victory, however, a change in the US narrative and China policy will become inevitable. There are several reasons that make this shift necessary.
Notwithstanding Biden’s current narrative, the Democrats seem to understand well the implications of Trump’s China policy, and that US-China economies are too intertwined to ‘de-couple’ in reality. As such, while Biden’s narrative indicates that it has almost become a political imperative to be ‘tough on China’, he is not looking to ‘de-couple.’
Instead, his emphasis is on “fair” and “rule based” trade, something that Beijing has not been averse to. Accordingly, the Democratic platform does not seem to think that starting a ‘cold war’ with China would be a good idea. Accordingly, instead of vowing to continue to play Trump’s zero-sum game vis-à-vis China, Biden & Co. have warned against “falling into the trap of a new Cold War.” The Democratic Party argues for “pursuing cooperation on issues of mutual interest like climate change and nonproliferation and ensuring that the US-China rivalry does not put global stability at risk.”
Whereas considering China a rival and pursuing policies accordingly will put global stability at risk, continuing the trade-war, too, will never bode well for Biden’s agenda of resetting the US economy, creating more jobs and increasing US exports. If Biden is looking to re-set the US economy, he will first have to re-set US economic ties with China. As it stands, a crucial reason, even before the pandemic had hit the US, for the US’ economic woes, particularly in the agriculture sector, was Trump’s bad trade ties with China. For Biden, therefore, changing the course of action is not only inevitable but also a strategic necessity.
However, while Biden may not embrace Beijing fully and absolutely normalize relations, he is quite likely to see the reality of US-China deep economic ties and the extent to which it can be stretched to allow for US economic recovery. Considering that Biden is pursuing the agenda of economic recovery and has no ambitions to ‘make America great again’, room for constructive engagement does exist. The fact that China is the first country and economy to have withstood and recovered from the pandemic makes it crucial for the pos-pandemic US economic recovery as well. This is due largely to China’s already deep presence in the US economy. It does explain why Biden chose to mention China only once in his 25-minutes long acceptance speech.
If Biden had continued to speak like Trump on China, he would have become virtually indistinguishable from Trump as far as the US policy on China is concerned. Trump would have benefited from this. At the same time, the fact that Biden has proposed to be ‘tough’ on China shows his way of not giving Trump any opportunity to attack him for being ‘weak’ on a country Trump has started an economic war with.
However, there is little gainsaying that Biden’s ‘toughness’ will not produce any cold-war, or ‘de-couple’ both economies. Such an action will only become self-defeating for Biden in as much as de-coupling will further erode thousands of jobs and add to the economic problems the Trump administration is facing.
Consider this: if the US, under Trump or even Biden, decides to ‘de-couple’, China’s IT giant Huawei will inevitably be hit hard. In the wake of US blocking sales to Huawei, American semiconductor companies would surely lose multiple billions in revenue to one of their major customers, if not the largest one. Qualcomm, for example, was the recipient of US$1.8 billion in license fees from Huawei for the most recent year alone.
Most importantly, a crucial reason for Biden to re-set ties with China is that this agenda has badly failed at the global level. Despite the hype, the US ho no allies against China. Pushing the same agenda would mean that the Biden administration will inevitably continue to dig the ‘hole of isolation’ for the US.
Biden, who was vice president during the Obama administration, has a lot of prior experience with regards to China. And, while major US companies continue to operate from China, there remains a silver lining for Biden to re-set ties with China and capitalize on the new post-pandemic spirit to materialize his own ambitious recovery plan whereby his administration would put US$ 2 trillion into the US economy. Biden cannot find a better partner than China.
Salman Rafi Sheikh, research-analyst of International Relations and Pakistan’s foreign and domestic affairs, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.
