WASHINGTON – Biden government officials tried to project a hard line on China in its first few weeks in office, describing authoritarian government as an economic and security challenge for the United States that requires a much more strategic and calculated approach than the government’s. Trump.
They also tried to send a message: although the government will have many familiar faces from the Obama administration, China’s policy will not return to what it was a decade ago.
These early efforts did not hide the enormous challenge that President Biden faces when trying to formulate a strategy to deal with China at a time when any relationship with Beijing is treated as totally toxic in Washington. Political opponents, including Republican lawmakers, have already begun to examine the statements of Biden’s advisers, ready to attack any effort to reverse President Donald J. Trump’s punishments, including tariffs and technology export bans.
Ted Cruz, the Republican senator from Texas, put a wait on confirmation of Gina Raimondo, Biden’s nominee for trade secretary, postponing the vote on her confirmation for refusing to explicitly commit to keeping Chinese telecommunications company Huawei on a national security blacklist. Some Republican lawmakers also criticized Linda Thomas-Greenfield, Biden’s choice for UN ambassador, for giving a speech at the Confucius Institute, an organization that some have described as disseminating Chinese propaganda and painting an optimistic picture of China’s activities in Africa.
Several Republicans, including Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, also issued statements last week criticizing a move by the Biden government to withdraw a proposed rule during the Trump administration that would require universities to reveal their financial ties to the Confucius Institutes, organizations created to teach Chinese language and culture in American schools.
“The Biden government will have a short rein when it comes to doing anything that seems to give China a chance,” said Wendy Cutler, vice president of the Asia Society Policy Institute and former US trade negotiator.
Trump’s supporters attribute him to a much more aggressive approach than his predecessors to policing China, including sweeping the dust from many rarely used political tools. This includes imposing steep tariffs on Chinese products, limiting Beijing’s access to sensitive US technology exports, imposing sanctions on Chinese officials and companies for human rights violations, and securing China’s economic concessions as part of a trade deal.
But Trump’s critics, including many in the Biden administration, say his flood of executive orders and other actions were inconsistent and fragmented, and often more symbolic than effective.
Even when Trump issued severe punishments on some fronts, he also extended a lifeline for Chinese telecommunications company ZTE, delayed sanctions related to human rights violations in China’s Xinjiang region and publicly praised China’s President Xi Jinping while sought his trade agreement. Many of the executive actions Trump took against China have been left incomplete or riddled with loopholes.
And its policies may have worsened American competitiveness in some areas, according to a report published on Wednesday by the Rhodium Group consultancy and the US Chamber of Commerce Center in China. The report found high costs of the type of economic “decoupling” that Trump sought, including a $ 190 billion annual loss in American economic output by 2025 if all U.S.-China trade were subject to the type of 25 percent tariff that Trump tax on $ 250 billion in Chinese products.
Daniel Rosen, founding partner of the Rhodium Group, said the Biden government needed to consider more than politics or ideology when forging China’s policy, including a careful assessment of the cost of its approach to the industry.
“Obviously, politics is king at the moment, with no one in the leadership or aspiring to the leadership wanting to be flanked by those who are tough on China,” he said. “We will not serve American interests if we do not consider commercial and national security interests at the same time.”
The Biden government has argued that because it is more strategic in its approach to China, it will end up being more effective than the Trump administration. He defined an ambitious task, as he seeks not only to suppress China for what he considers unfair trade practices, but also to develop a national strategy that will help build the United States’ economic position to better combat Chinese competition.
Speaking at the Atlantic Council in late January, Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, said the United States must first “renew the fundamental foundations of our democracy” by addressing issues such as economic and racial inequality, as well as making investments in emerging countries. technologies such as artificial intelligence, quantum computing and clean energy.
Mr. Biden also emphasized the importance of working with international allies and institutions to impose a tougher global stance, so that companies do not circumvent strict American rules by withdrawing their operations from abroad.
Biden had his first connection with Xi on February 10, in which he spoke about the preservation of a free and open Indo-Pacific and shared concerns about Beijing’s economic and human rights practices, according to a White House reading.
In a town hall-style forum broadcast on CNN late on Tuesday, Biden, who knows Xi well from meetings during the Obama administration, said he took a hard line on human rights and other issues during his two-hour call.
“There will be repercussions for China, and he knows it,” said Biden. “What I’m doing is making it clear that we, in fact, are going to continue to reaffirm our role as human rights spokespeople at the UN and others – other agencies that have an impact on their attitude.”
Biden began training employees in his office with extensive experience in China. Katherine Tai, appointed by the Biden government as a trade representative, was responsible for litigating cases against China in the World Trade Organization during the Obama administration and promised to take a hard line to enforce US trade rules.
Biden’s top foreign policy advisers also took critical views of China’s practices, although many see potential for cooperation on issues such as the coronavirus pandemic and climate change. This includes Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, Mr. Sullivan and Kurt Campbell, the “Asian czar” of the National Security Council.
Ms. Raimondo, the nominee for the Secretary of Commerce, will also have jurisdiction over economic relations with China, particularly those related to technology. Although she said harsh words to China during the confirmation hearing, her refusal to commit to keeping Huawei on the government’s blacklist has drawn criticism from Republican lawmakers like Cruz.
Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen, who is expected to play a central role in relations with China, took an aggressive tone at her confirmation hearing last month, promising to use America’s “full range” of tools to combat “illegal” , unfair and abusive. “Practices. She also criticized China’s practices of stealing intellectual property and subsidizing state-owned companies, but said she did not consider Trump’s tariffs to be” the proper focus “of trade policy.
The new administration gave few concrete details on how it will put its strategy into practice, including whether to implement the many China-related executive orders that Trump introduced, such as new restrictions on investments in Chinese companies with ties to the military and bans on Chinese-owned apps, like TikTok, WeChat and Alipay. Instead, the government said it would undertake a comprehensive review of Trump’s tariffs, export controls and other restrictions before making decisions.
Another uncertainty is how Biden and his team will handle Trump’s initial trade deal with China, as Beijing continues to break its promise to buy hundreds of billions of dollars worth of American products. The government may face the choice of using the agreement’s enforcement mechanisms – which include consultations and more tariffs for Chinese products – or cancel the agreement altogether.
Scott Kennedy, a senior consultant in Chinese business and economics at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the Biden government had clear foreign policy objectives and a large measure toolbox at its disposal, but had not yet “figured out how to unite strategy and tactics. ”
On American competitiveness with China, “there is a much broader conversation that needs to be engaged in,” said Kennedy. “Will they be willing to engage in this conversation and do a thorough analysis and come up with something new? Or will they be afraid of political reactions and pull their punches? “
Biden’s plan to engage more closely with US allies to pressure China may also be easier said than done.
In an interview in January, just before leaving office, Robert Lighthizer, Trump’s chief trade official, pointed to a recent investment agreement that the European Union signed with China, against the will of the Biden government, as “the first proof” That such multilateral cooperation would be difficult.
Chinese officials are already strengthening ties with U.S. allies like New Zealand and South Korea in an effort “to divide and conquer,” said Cutler.
China emerged from the early stages of the strengthened pandemic, with its factories and businesses surpassing those in the United States and Europe, where the coronavirus continues to damage the economy. While Chinese leaders seek to restart relations with Washington after a tumultuous period under Trump’s government, they continue to make sometimes harsh statements.
In an interview with CBS News on February 7, Biden said the two countries “don’t need to have a conflict. But there will be extreme competition. “
“I’m not going to do it the way Trump did it,” added Biden. “We are going to focus on international traffic rules.”
Alan Rappeport contributed reports.