Scott Kennedy

Opinion | For China, offering Biden a plastic olive branch would be worse than doing nothing

While Beijing choosing to test an incoming Biden administration would be bad, a superficial peace offering would be almost as harmful to US-China relations

Instead of coming to Washington with one-sided proposals, patience on China’s part will let Biden focus on his top priorities of handling the pandemic and restarting the US economy

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Scott Kennedy

Published: 1:15am, 16 Nov 2020Updated: 1:29am, 16 Nov 2020

Does China want a good relationship with the United States? That is a reasonable question since Beijing took until Friday to congratulate US President-elect Joe Biden on his victory. Perhaps they were waiting for the results to be fully certified and sitting US President Donald Trump to admit defeat, but it is a sign that the Chinese leadership was thinking tactically, not strategically.

The bigger choice for Beijing is whether it decides to test an incoming Biden administration or offer an olive branch in the hopes of improving the relationship. Although no one should want China to threaten Taiwan militarily, put an American company on their “unreliable entity list” or sell off most of their holdings of US Treasuries, a superficial peace offering – a plastic olive branch – would be almost as harmful to ties.

One can easily assemble the elements of an insincere offer of better relations. It begins with empty rhetoric for increased mutual understanding and respect.

Take the recent statement from Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin: “We always believe China and the United States should strengthen communication and dialogue, manage differences on the basis of mutual respect, expand cooperation based on mutual benefit, and promote the sound and stable development of China-US relations.”

The second component would be to suggest returning ties to the pre-Trump status quo of 2016, with a mutual drawdown of tariffs, restoration of consulates and return of journalists. The third would be a call to cooperate on distributing a Covid-19 vaccine. The topper would be a proposal to renew institutionalised dialogues and agree to avoid further unilateral penalties.

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That approach is a non-starter. It is not because the US does not want good ties with Beijing but because this framework locks in a relationship on Beijing’s terms, one where it is only the American side that is required to compromise. This reinforces the impression that Beijing is unwilling to budge on issues important to the United States and its allies.

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