Andrew Leung

Opinion | With Biden, China gets four years to remake itself as a likeable, trusted power. It must seize the moment

China means to become moderately prosperous by 2035, despite a more hostile external environment. But to achieve its goal, it would do well to address the world’s misgivings by working with the incoming Biden administration

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Why you can trust SCMP

Andrew Leung

Published: 3:30am, 13 Nov 2020Updated: 5:04am, 13 Nov 2020

China-bashing rhetoric aside, the world is becoming more hostile towards China. In a recent survey by the Washington-based non-partisan Pew Research Centre, 66 per cent of American respondents viewed China unfavourably, while 71 per cent didn’t trust President Xi Jinping. Similarly, other Western countries’ negative views of China and its leader are at historic highs.

There is widespread dissatisfaction among the advanced economies with China’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, although they also see China as a top, if not the top, economic power.

Then there are the American policy wonks who believe China is out to replace the United States as the global hegemon. To them, China’s assertiveness in the South China Sea looks like an Asian version of the US’ Monroe Doctrine, only this is meant to push America out of the Asia-Pacific.

Worse, Chinese hi-tech companies are increasingly eating the lunch of their American counterparts. And China’s triumphant “wolf warrior” rhetoric is just more salt in the wound of an America in apparent decline.

Such negativity towards China is now deeply entrenched in America, across the political divide. The incoming Joe Biden administration is unlikely to go soft on China. It may eschew unilateralism and adopt a multilateral approach to China, leveraging European and other support to pressure Beijing into changing its behaviour. Tellingly, China is among the global threats to be addressed at a “Summit for Democracy” Biden plans to host during his first year in office.

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While China is not everyone’s cup of tea, the fact remains that by 2018, 128 out of 190 countries in the world traded more with China than the US. So, even if many have a desire for some resistance to China’s growing global clout, few would want to have to take sides openly.