Biden said one goal of his trip this week was to “make it clear to Putin and to China that Europe and the United States are tight, and the G7 is going to move.”

 



by Anwar A. Khan-June 21, 2021The administration of US President Joe Biden has continued its ongoing efforts to increase bilateral ties with Taiwan with the announcement about the return of US-Taiwan Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA) talks.

Despite expectations for a softer approach, the US president shows no sign of easing tensions with one of his most significant rivals – China.

US President Joe Biden’s first trip abroad as president saw him meet with scores of US allies as well as a top adversary, leaving him poised to confront the country he has called the US’ most serious global competitor: China and its leader, President Xi Jinping.

The world’s second-largest economy was on the agenda throughout Biden’s meetings earlier this month with the G7 nations, NATO, the EU and even Russian President Vladimir Putin whose country, the US president remarked, is “getting squeezed by China.”

Biden has long said China would be at the core of his administration’s foreign policy. Yet with Putin’s government accused of interfering in US elections and harbouring hackers who targeted the US’ critical infrastructure, Biden said he needed to establish some “rules of the road” and predictability in the relationship with Russia.

Beijing is now the focus. However, US-China ties are far more complex and consequential for the US economy than the relationship with Russia, and Biden’s window to meet and establish a productive relationship with Xi for the years ahead is closing.

National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan recently confirmed that planning is underway for more extensive talks with Beijing. He did not say whether an actual meeting between Biden and Xi is in the works, although one possibility is during the G20 summit in Rome in October last.

Throughout his European trip last week and in earlier meetings with groups such as the Quad — the US, Japan, India and Australia, Biden has sought to rally allies in a show of force against what it considers Beijing’s most egregious policies.

“The Biden administration’s priority has been to strengthen ties with like-minded countries as part of a broader strategy to persuade Beijing to recalibrate and revise its policies,” said Bonnie Glaser, a China expert at the German Marshall Fund of the United States.

That approach has drawn attention in Beijing. Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Zhao Lijian said this week, following Biden’s push for the G7 to agree on a strategy to counter China’s influence, that the “US is ill and very ill indeed.”

“The G7 had better take its pulse and come up with a prescription,” he added.

The state of play is a surprise in Beijing. After four years of tumult under former US president Donald Trump, who praised Xi repeatedly until the COVID-19 outbreak started to take a toll on the US, officials in Beijing thought Biden would bring a softer touch to bilateral relations.

Instead, he has kept China on the defensive, even keeping in place tariffs established by Trump.

“There are real questions that need to be asked about what will follow this rhetoric,” said David Feith, a researcher at the Center for a New American Security and former deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs under Trump.

“But it does appear significant that President Biden has strongly signalled to his own administration and to other governments that he wants to prioritise China competition in US policy and in US diplomacy,” he said.

Liu Pengyu, a spokesperson for China’s embassy in Washington said, “China and the United States have maintained communication on dialogues and exchanges at all levels.”

In Europe this week, Biden sought to rally G7 and NATO leaders around an agenda that included reopening probes into the origin of the COVID-19, pushing back on Beijing’s heavy hand in places, such as, Hong Kong and Xinjiang, and calling for a Western competitor for Xi’s Belt and Road Initiative.

One of the trip’s headline announcements, a truce in the years-long feud between Boeing and Airbus was aimed in part at China.

The deal would “protect jobs and protect technology in Europe and the United States against China’s predatory practices,” Sullivan said.

Biden said one goal of his trip this week was to “make it clear to Putin and to China that Europe and the United States are tight, and the G7 is going to move.”

The G7’s joint statement criticised the use of “forced labor” in industries dominated by China and created a task force on spurring infrastructure development.

Despite pushback from German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi and French Prime Minister Emmanuel Macron, Biden and his aides said the statement was the bloc’s toughest yet on Beijing.

“I think we’re in a contest not with China per se, but a contest with autocrats, autocratic governments around the world, as to whether or not democracies can compete with them in the rapidly changing 21st century,” Biden said after the Geneva summit.

Part of that contest includes a domestic agenda aimed at competing with China, such as, beefed up spending on infrastructure and a focus on supply chain security around semiconductors and other strategic sectors.

Another element involves closer coordination with allies in Asia and beyond.

“We believe that the best way to engage a more assertive China is to work with allies, partners and friends,” US National Security Council Coordinator for the Indo-Pacific Kurt Campbell told an event in May last, adding that “the best China policy really is a good Asia policy.”

Still, at some point, the two leaders will need to meet. The aim to directly engage with Xi stems in part from Biden’s belief that there is no substitute for leader-level discussions and personal engagement.

“The notion that President Biden will engage in the coming months with President Xi in some way to take stock of where they are in the relationship and to ensure that they have that kind of direct communication that they found valuable with President Putin, they want to say they are very much committed to that,” Sullivan told reporters. “It’s now just a question of when and how.”

The G20 summit will be one opportunity for the two leaders to meet. This year’s APEC summit will be hosted virtually by New Zealand, depriving Biden and Xi of another potential venue for a meeting.

In the meantime, tensions continue to build as the two countries clash over everything from technology to China’s militarisation of the disputed South China Sea and the status of Taiwan.

The personal relationship between the US and Chinese leaders has also frayed. Biden repeatedly met Xi over the years, including as vice president, and until recently touted what he said was his friendship with the Chinese leader. He gave a harsher assessment on the campaign trail last year, calling Xi a “thug” who “doesn’t have a democratic — with a small ‘d’ — bone in his body.” But he himself doesn’t want to see America’s own despicable face in the mirror.

In Geneva, Switzerland, on Wednesday, Biden indicated that a more combative relationship is here to stay. After a Fox News reporter suggested that he talk to Xi “old friend to old friend” in a question about investigating the origins of the coronavirus, the president snapped back.

“Let’s get something straight,” Biden said. “We know each other well. We’re not old friends. It’s just pure business.” This reveals his morally reprehensible character.

-The End –

The writer is an independent political analyst based in Dhaka, Bangladesh who writes on politics, political and human-centred figures, current and international affairs.