100 Days in, Biden Upholds Main Themes of Trump China Policy

In the blink of an eye, Joe Biden has been in office for 100 days. This is the traditional point at which the United States summarizes the three main challenges facing the new president. According to U.S. public opinion, Biden has four main objectives: the pandemic, the economy, climate and race. He has obtained a 52% approval rating, which some say is a pretty good percentage, while others emphasize that he is a postwar president and ranks third lowest among postwar presidents, higher than only Donald Trump and Gerald Ford.

It is important to note that Biden’s approval rating is relatively stable, and his achievement of accelerating vaccinations has not increased his rating, reflecting the severe factionalization of American society.

The Chinese are more concerned about Biden’s policy toward China in his first 100 days. There is reason to be seriously disappointed in Biden or to feel that his performance is barely satisfactory.

The Biden administration’s strategy toward China obviously continues the Trump administration's perceptions of China to a high degree. In the past 100 days, the strategic game between China and the U.S. has not diminished at all. But while Biden has altered Trump’s impetuous approach to China, establishing a relatively clear logic and predictability with respect to U.S. policy; the routine chill in China-U.S. relations has reappeared.

Unsurprisingly, the Biden administration has continued Trump’s tariff policies with respect to China. Although Biden has only added economic sanctions against seven Chinese supercomputer companies, this action has significance in that it reveals the changing winds in the new administration. It reveals that the Biden administration will not change course in terms of technology decoupling. The trend of China-U.S. technology decoupling will only grow stronger in the future; so have no illusions.

While the U.S. has sustained its momentum on policies regarding the Chinese economy and technology, the Biden administration has brought the political war against China to a new climax. Biden consciously wooed and mobilized its allies to join in exerting political pressure on China, and in this way, he has made progress. Motivated by political needs at home and abroad, the administration openly put forth the vicious characterization of “genocide” in Xinjiang, which has led to bad news in the West. Washington’s current strategy of containing China has not eased compared with the previous administration.

However, compared with the Trump administration’s often impulsive and reckless behavior, the Biden administration is obviously more scrupulous. It advocates simultaneous competition, cooperation and confrontation with China, and emphasizes building up American strength. It has not yet formed a relatively complete strategy for China, but the idea of increasing the number of strategic bargaining chips against China by strengthening and expanding the strength of the U.S. has already emerged. The administration appears to seek stabilizing the pattern of China-U.S. competition, avoiding opening up new fronts for substantial confrontation between China and the U.S., spending a period of time straightening out domestic affairs and supplementing savings to the extent it will overtake China.

Therefore, for some time to come, China and the United States are likely to continue causing friction at roughly the current level of intensity; technology decoupling will increase, normal economic cooperation will continue and even further expansion cannot be ruled out. Political conflicts will crest again, but the boundaries between such tensions and the economy may gradually be explored by both sides.

China must adapt to the normalization of extremely unfriendly relations between China and the U.S. It will become commonplace for the two sides to tear into each other in both the diplomatic and public opinion realms. We can no longer expect China and the U.S. to respect each other politically — the time for that is over, at least in the short term. The essential components of China-U.S. relations are economic cooperation, and profit sharing and exchange. While we need not embrace any fantasies, there's no need to be discouraged, angry or impulsive. Even if both sides berate each other, they still need to maintain an agenda for cooperation and exchange, and it is worth our effort to strengthen and expand what can be developed.

The core component of the China-U.S. relationship mutual competition for growing each country's strength. The Biden administration believes that strengthening the U.S. is the best way to win the game against China. China, in turn, must believe that sustaining the existing pace in order to catch up with the U.S. in terms of power is the key to China’s U.S. strategy. It is a determinative weight that will ultimately crush America's fantasy containing China.

Many of the American elite have certainly thought of destroying China quickly and efficiently, but over the course of a tumultuous few years, they have realized that this is very unrealistic and the risk to the United States is too great. Therefore, the U.S. must resort to measures that gradually choke China’s development and disrupt China’s emergence. While it must act strongly to prevent the U.S. from acting ways that are risky to the country, China must be prepared to engage in a normalized strategic game. China cannot be distracted by the dazzling variety of voices and confusing sentiment from the United States; that's not very important. A fully developed China is what the anti-China elite in America fear the most.