When he was vice president, Joe Biden had a more optimistic view of Beijing. His outlook has evolved, as has the consensus in Washington.
China would likely test the mettle of the next president soon after his inauguration, perhaps over Taiwan or over trade, and Biden would have to decide where to draw the line with Beijing and how much risk to accept, former officials said.
Trump opted to sell F-16 fighter jets to Taiwan, infuriating Beijing. Biden likely would have to weigh whether to sell more advanced air defense systems to Taipei. "One of the core challenges that a Biden administration will face early on is deciding their tolerance for risk and friction. That will tell the Chinese something about Biden's resolve," said one former senior official who worked on China policy in the Obama administration."It will send signals to allies as well." The Trump campaign has pointed to Biden's past comments, including that it was in America's interest to see China prosper, and painted him as naive, using"President Trump is the first president with a backbone to stand up to China and hold them accountable for their nefarious actions while Joe Biden has spent his entire career appeasing Beijing and expanding American reliance on the communist nation," said Ken Farnaso, Trump campaign deputy national press secretary. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping leave a business leaders event at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Nov. 9, 2017."In sharp contrast, President Trump has confronted China's aggression on the world stage, cut off travel from the nation early in the pandemic, delivered on the Phase One China trade deal, and has tightened the leash on Beijing's unfair corporate espionage." Biden's campaign and many independent foreign policy analysts have in turn argued that Trump's tariffs have boomeranged on American farmers, that thetrade deal with China achieved little and that Trump failed initially to stand up to Xi over the coronavirus, the crackdown on Hong Kong and the repression of the country's Uighur Muslim community. Derek Scissors, a senior research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute think tank and a self-described China hawk, said the Phase One trade deal is a non-starter, as China so far has fallen far short of its commitments to purchase U.S. goods and services, and crucial structural issues — including access to China's market and intellectual property theft — remain unresolved. "The problem with the Trump administration position is, their China toughness is mostly sound and fury signifying nothing," Scissors said. Scissors said Biden's comments on China over the years were sometimes naive, but he said it was misleading to suggest the vice president would return to policies from 10 years ago, given the dramatic changes in attitudes about China."The world has changed, Congress has changed," he said. But he added that it was an open question as to what specific steps Biden was ready to take if elected. "I think Biden will be every bit as tough as Trump is but I think his approach will be more consistent and be more strategic," said China expert Kenneth Lieberthal of the Brookings Institution, who advised President Bill Clinton. John Ullyot, spokesman for the White House National Security Council, rejected accusations that the Trump administration has alienated allies and failed to promptly call out China over its clampdown in Hong Kong or its treatment of Uighurs in Xinjang. "The President took actions that impose real cost on the Chinese Communist Party for its atrocities against the Uyghurs and other minorities," Ullyot said in an email. Trump's former national security adviser, John Bolton, wrote in his recently published memoir that the president gave Xi a green light to build detention camps for Uighurs in a 2019 meeting. The White House has denied the account. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and other Trump officials repeatedly have condemned China over its treatment of the Uighur community, Last month, the top U.S. counterintelligence official said that"China prefers that President Trump — whom Beijing sees as unpredictable — does not win reelection." Trump's supporters have seized on that assessment, saying the president's unpredictable style has wrong-footed China. But critics argue President Trump has tarnished America's image and signaled a U.S. retreat from the international arena, handing Beijing an opportunity to assert itself at the United Nations and elsewhere. Some former Chinese officials and commentatorsTrump has given China a golden opportunity, and that the regime would reap the rewards of another four years of Trump. "I think from China's perspective, while some predictability is nice, having the United States severely weakened on the world stage, having the U.S. strategic position eroded, is something that they would love to see more of," said Jeff Prescott, an adviser on the Biden campaign and a former senior official in the Obama administration.
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