Reference News Network reported on November 27 that an article published on the website of Germany’s Time Weekly on November 25 pointed out that in view of the problems existing in the United States, the Biden administration will resume relations with China step by step. The full text is excerpted as follows:
Biden’s future Secretary of State Anthony Blink recently told CNN that Trump weakened America’s alliances and withdrew from world politics, leaving a void that China could fill. Overall, Trump has seriously damaged the international appeal of the United States. Br林肯 believes that the challenge posed by China is not so much its growing strength as its own weakness.
Anthony Blinken and Joe Biden are both advocates of multilateral solutions. This view will also determine the relationship between the United States and China in the future, which will be the most important foreign policy challenge for the new President of the United States. However, little is known about how the Biden administration will specifically deal with this problem.
For Donald Trump, when he took office in 2017, the problem with China was very simple: he regarded China as an exploiter of American workers. He believes that China is taking jobs from the United States, so it has launched a so-called trade war. But more importantly, Trump’s harsh anti-China remarks in the U.S. Congress have made criticism of China popular not only in Republicans but also Democrats.
At present, the two parties in the United States agree to a large extent that important technology products should no longer be exported to China. Biden will continue this policy just to prevent voters from thinking that they are weak on China. He will also strive to maintain the leading position of the United States in advanced information technology.
One thing that Biden will certainly change after taking office is the tone of the door. His tone of the Chinese government will no longer be so hostile. Biden and Blinken are not thinkers, but pragmatists.
But the new president will be forced to focus on domestic issues for the time being: Biden will have to control the coronavirus epidemic and its economic consequences. Most importantly, he will spend a lot of energy playing a reconciliation president to deal with the division of American society. Andy Rothman, an analyst on China at the consulting firm Mingji Asia, also believes that the first step of the new government will only be to end the demonization of China. In the future, Washington will regard China as a competitor. Given the problems in the United States, Rothman believes that the most likely scenario is that the Biden administration will act step by step.
First, academic exchanges that were stopped under Trump could be resumed, and then multilateral work could be resumed at the next stage, such as defining with friendly countries in which areas to cooperate with China is meaningful (such as climate change or health problems) and where multilateral pressure should be exerted.
In addition, the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement initiated by Obama but repealed by Trump should be reactivated. Rothman suggested that only in the third stage should the U.S. government try to show the Communist Party leadership that China can only realize its economic potential as a responsible part of international institutions.
