The 4 Chinese Challenges for the Future Biden Administration

As Europe and the United States are paralyzed by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Chinese Communist Party has just adopted its 14th five-year plan. Its goal is very ambitious: outranking the U.S. to become the world’s leading power by 2035. The threat is serious. The growing Chinese military power represents “one of most complex and most urgent foreign policy concerns.”

Indeed, in addition to managing the pandemic and jumpstarting an American economy hit hard by COVID-19, Joe Biden’s administration will face a greater threat than what the U.S. experienced during the Cold War with the Soviet Union. China presents challenges on four levels: military, economic, technological and ideological. China embarked on an extensive program to swiftly upgrade its armed forces in order to transform the country into a genuine world power. Already, having conducted multiple naval exercises, sometimes in five different locations simultaneously, Beijing seeks to position itself as the leading military power in East Asia and in the Indian Ocean.

For the past 70 years, Communist China has been claiming Taiwan as part of its national territory. In addition, in the past 20 years, Beijing has been actively taking possession of almost the entire China Sea, transforming reefs and islets into fortified islands. Increased maritime activities in this coveted region have led to a substantial surge in maritime incidents.

China is producing increasingly sophisticated military equipment at a breakneck pace. Furthermore, its new Type 055 destroyers are counted among the most modern in the world. Besides, it already owns two aircraft carriers, and two more are in the works. And finally, its missiles have the capacity to strike with precision at U.S. bases in Guam and in Japan.

Yet, while China further develops its arsenal, the U.S. will have to cap its defense spending in the next few years because of the strain that the pandemic is taking on its economy. Moreover, as China was able to control COVID-19, the country benefits from an enormous advantage.

Beijing is able to maintain the pace of its economic growth, whereas the rest of the world will take several years to emerge from this crisis and get back to normal. Among other things, this allows China to make its domestic market the engine of its economic development.

In pursuing economic independence, technology is key. Beijing wants to reduce its dependence on the U.S. in the field of semiconductors, while consolidating its advance in 5G telecommunications, artificial intelligence, supercomputers, quantum computing and smartphones. Furthermore, Beijing is investing heavily in renewable energy, materials science, new energy vehicles, biotechnology and spatial exploration.

After completing its socialist revolution in 1949, China rejected the path to democracy in 1989 with the massacres of Tiananmen Square. It chose to favor its own mode of governance. From the Chinese propaganda viewpoint, this exclusively Chinese system is uniquely efficient, much superior to the democratic system.

This long-term perspective on the superiority of “Chinese governance” and the “Chinese system” promoted by Beijing has not escaped the notice of former French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin. He recently stated, “China’s determination to gather energies and carry out long-term work is what Western countries often lack.”

Indeed, whereas Western countries struggle to plan policies weeks in advance, China can do so in the long term, over periods of 15 or 20 years. For Beijing, its planning system stands in sharp contrast to the changing nature of democracies, where any policy is at risk of being overturned by the next government. In Beijing’s view, this situation legitimizes its preference for an authoritarian regime.

For the past 70 years, the Chinese Communist Party has been pointing out the failings of American democracy to justify its authoritarian approach. It asserts that the latter is superior because it ensures economic stability and growth. Through his policies, Donald Trump proved Beijing right by further eroding confidence in American democracy.

Confronting the U.S. was a major strategic challenge for China. However, by sowing chaos and pursuing a policy of division, Trump weakened American society to such an extent that the American system lost its advantages in the eyes of the rest of the world. Even Americans have learned to doubt themselves. Thus, China emerges as the big winner.

In the context of the Iran nuclear deal, Trump demonstrated that the word of the U.S. couldn’t be trusted. By doing so and by undermining the international order that ensured global stability, the Trump administration prevents the U.S. from exercising its global leadership. As for China, it says that its word counts and that it is ready to take over.

The Communist Party’s final objective is to fulfill its dream of achieving an entirely modernized socialist nation by 2035, capable of competing with the U.S. at all levels, including scientific and military. By developing its economy and becoming a technological power, China is in a position to assert itself militarily. More than that, it is about to achieve what the Soviet Union had been unable to accomplish: through its efficiency and reliability, becoming the most important player on the diplomatic and economic world stage.

Gilles Vandal is professor emeritus at the School of Applied Politics at the University of Sherbrooke. Today, he signs his last column in the pages of La Tribune and the network of Information Cooperatives. Our most sincere thanks.