Global Times: Biden will break through the fight against the pandemic after stepping out of the “Trump trap”
Biden will break through the fight against the pandemic only when he gets out of the “Trump trap”
What kind of policy the Biden administration will adopt has attracted attention, and Sullivan, who has been nominated by Biden as a national security adviser, briefly mentioned China in a newly released interview. He made a relevant statement when it came to controlling the coronavirus pandemic, saying, “The way to ensure that this (COVID-19 pandemic) doesn’t happen again is to send a very clear message to China that the United States and the rest of the world will not accept that we do not have an effective public health surveillance system.”
We note that after Biden’s victory, he and the key members of the team have so far failed to systematically and explicitly talk about China policy. Sullivan’s words are also vague and easy to taste. It seems that the Biden team realized that how to deal with China is a major problem in the United States. They are faced with sensitive choices of continuing to be kidnapped by Trumpism or getting rid of the inertia of the destructive policies of the previous government.
Most of the American and Western media see Sullivan’s statement as a sign that the Biden administration will implement tough policies towards China. And toughness towards China has always been the general prediction of those institutions of public opinion around the diplomatic orientation of the Biden administration.
However, Sullivan is believed to be interested in breaking the traditional definition of national security in the United States. In the same interview, he said that at least at the beginning of his term, the “main focus” of Biden’s NSC work will be to defeat the coronavirus pandemic and restructure the NSC body to make public health a permanent national security. Full priority. He also stressed the dangers of climate change. If this shift in attention does occur, it is obviously much more objective than the Trump administration’s definition of America’s national security priorities.
Few Chinese hope that the Biden administration will become “moderate” towards China strategically. The real perception of most people is that the prejudice against China of the American policy elite group is deeply rooted and will affect Washington’s China policy in the long run, and the tone of the future of Sino-US relations is likely to be heavy.
However, Sino-US relations are not only mutual understanding and enemy and friend characterization, but also specific, and a collection chain between China and the United States dealing with each specific issue after another. Trump lost the election this year due to the failure to fight against the pandemic. The Biden administration can only fulfill its promise to voters if it truly controls the pandemic. Democrats are also more likely to win the midterm elections in two years, laying the foundation for the election in four years. To control the coronavirus pandemic, vaccines alone are far from enough. Cooperation between the United States and the WHO and major powers, including China, is indispensable.
The attitude of the United States towards China will be shaped by two major factors, one is the strategic hostility to China that is constantly strengthened based on the collective weakness of human nature and geopolitical thinking, and the other is the realistic need to carry out various cooperation with China to safeguard the interests of the United States itself. The Trump administration’s diplomatic and national security team continues to promote and indulge in the first factor, regardless of the importance and legitimacy of the second factor. We hope that the Biden team can at least be realistic, correct the bigotry of Trump’s line and pursue a responsible balance.
How the coronavirus pandemic started is first and foremost a scientific question, and the exploration of it should never be geopoliticized. Its outbreak in Wuhan, China, must be due to the weakness of urban governance, but later the lockdown of Wuhan issued a deafening warning to the world. Europe and the United States successively formed a much more serious fall than Wuhan, indicating that the latter’s public health governance loopholes are greater. Looking back today, Wuhan and China are seriously contrary to common sense and common sense.
The Trump administration labeled the novel coronavirus as the “Chinese virus” and demanded that China bear responsibility for the global pandemic, which was entirely for political purposes of inability to escape responsibility for its fight against the pandemic. It is hoped that the Biden administration will completely get rid of the “Trump trap” of “China Responsibility” and bravely face the real cause of the pandemic in the United States, which is the premise and basis for them to regroup and achieve practical results in the fight against the pandemic.
China is regarded as a “strategic opponent” by some Americans, but we are also partners that the United States cannot bypass to solve many urgent practical problems. Let the actual demand in Sino-US relations determine its direction, not let ideas determine how the two major powers should get along in the next four years. This should be the simplest and most enforceable choice.
