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US-China relations
ChinaDiplomacy

US congressional hostility towards China limits Joe Biden’s ability to forge better ties, experts say

  • Beijing is one of the few subjects Democrats and Republicans can agree on, panellists say at Post’s China Conference: United States
  • The hawkishness is likely to continue at least through next year’s midterm elections

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US President Joe Biden has little room to develop better ties with China because of the hawkish environment in Washington, experts said at a conference sponsored by the South China Morning Post. Photo: EPA-EFE
Jack Lau
While US President Joe Biden seeks “strategic competition” with China and “common-sense guard rails” to avoid veering into conflict, former diplomats and other China observers say that the bipartisan hostility China faces in Congress is preventing cooperation between the two nations.
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The difficult US political environment has left Biden little room to forge more amicable relations with China, while the Chinese Communist Party’s concerns over political and economic instability also contribute to the strains, Susan Thornton, a former senior State Department official, said on Tuesday.

“Nobody wants a crisis right now,” Thornton, now a senior fellow at Yale Law School’s Paul Tsai China Centre, said at the South China Morning Post’s annual China Conference: United States.

“But there are certain dynamics internally in both countries that, unfortunately, probably find a bit of tension and instability in the relationship useful.”

“There are certain dynamics internally in both countries that, unfortunately, probably find a bit of tension and instability in the relationship useful,” Susan Thornton, a senior fellow at Yale Law School’s Paul Tsai China Centre, said. Photo: Kyodo
“There are certain dynamics internally in both countries that, unfortunately, probably find a bit of tension and instability in the relationship useful,” Susan Thornton, a senior fellow at Yale Law School’s Paul Tsai China Centre, said. Photo: Kyodo

The Biden administration has been rebuilding relationships with partners and allies in the Indo-Pacific, some of which were severed under his predecessor Donald Trump.

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