Can ‘Beijing Biden’ balance being tough on China while seeking common ground?

US presidential hopeful Joe Biden is expected to be hawkish on human rights and trade policy, open to compromise where necessary, and seek collaboration in climate change and economic recovery

Christian Le Miere

Published: 1:30am, 4 Aug 2020

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Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee in the US presidential election, continues to lead President Donald Trump in the polls, but in key areas of foreign policy it is still unclear how he would govern. He has, for example, yet to outline how he would handle the country’s most demanding foreign policy challenge: how to interact with China.

But on July 22, the Democratic Party released to its members a draft platform for 2020. The document essentially outlines what a Biden administration’s policies would look like, particularly if supported by a Democratic Congress. For that reason, it is perhaps the best guide to how a Biden administration’s China policy would unfold.

As should be expected in an election year, the platform aims to distinguish the Democrats from the Trump administration, which has taken a single direction throughout its tenure: pursuing economic and diplomatic decoupling to reduce reliance on China and curtail its economic and geopolitical expansion.

Through trade wars, putting pressure on allies to reject Chinese companies in 5G infrastructure and, more recently, sanctioning Chinese officials over policy in Xinjiang, the administration has exerted multiple lines of pressure on Beijing.

At the same time, the United States is now more militarily active in key regional hotspots such as the South China Sea, keen to be seen supporting allies and pushing back on perceived Chinese coercion.

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According to the recently released platform, the Democrats, by contrast, would not “resort to self-defeating, unilateral tariff wars” or fall “into the trap of a new Cold War”.

A Democrat administration would, apparently, also not view Sino-US competition as primarily a military one, even if it would “deter and respond to aggression” in the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait.

While the Trump administration has in recent months been furthering its attempt to disentangle its relationship with China – with the closure of the Houston consulate an extreme recent example – a Biden administration is likely to seek to lower tensions and find areas of collaboration, particularly in transnational issues such as climate change, non-proliferation and the response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Yet, of just as much interest as the policy differences the document tries to highlight are the similarities to the current administration.

Even as the platform tries to outline how it would avoid over-militarising the China policy, it also states that a Democratic administration would be “clear, strong and consistent in pushing back” when there are concerns about China’s behaviour.

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This would include, apparently, criticising Beijing for its treatment of Uygurs in Xinjiang, taking action against currency manipulation and unfair trade practices, while bringing sanctions against Chinese officials involved in repression in Hong Kong.

The fact that the document felt the need to clearly outline its hawkishness on certain topics belies the increasingly bipartisan consensus in Washington that sees China as a strategic rival rather than just an economic competitor.

Particularly in the wake of the coronavirus, it has become politically expedient to vilify China, while there is agreement on both sides of the aisle that China is the primary strategic challenge that the US faces today.

A Biden policy would thus strike a balance between the confrontation of the Trump administration and the accommodation of the Obama administration.

During president Barack Obama’s term, the emphasis in bilateral relations was on managing China’s rise, avoiding military tension (with few freedom of navigation operations in the South China Sea, for instance), and attempting to ensure the Middle Kingdom rose as a “responsible stakeholder” in the international system.

Even as China undertook policies that directly harmed US interests, such as the hacking of the Office of Personnel Management in 2014, gaining access to the personal records of four million federal employees and their friends or family, the administration avoided direct action beyond rhetorical censure of China.

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Biden knows that such an accommodating policy is no longer politically feasible. China has become a key topic of attack for Trump and the Republicans, casting Biden as being too soft on Beijing, while consistently labelling the coronavirus as the “China virus” to give the electorate an easy-to-understand enemy for this election.

‘Beijing Biden’ has even become a tagline used by the president’s media allies to try and smear the former vice-president with a policy that is too accommodating to China.

To counter the criticism, the Democrat platform seeks to cast the party, and its presumptive nominee, as tough on China in the right places – human rights, trade policy – but open to compromise where necessary. Should Biden win, therefore, there is likely to be a distinct decrease in bilateral tensions as the two sides seek to find common ground on areas of mutual interest.

Even as Washington increasingly sees China as a threat, a Biden administration is likely to view Beijing as a necessary partner, given the sheer size of China’s economy.

With the US economy trying to recover from the coronavirus pandemic, China could have a key role to play in buying American products and investing in the US economy. Other Biden goals, such as reinvigorating the Paris climate agreement, will require Chinese assistance and goodwill.

As such, the diplomatic decoupling being sought by the Trump administration is likely to end, and multiple forms of engagement begin. “Beijing Biden” might be heading back to China after all.

Christian Le Miere is a foreign policy adviser and founder of Arcipel, a strategic consultancy

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