US-China relations aren’t likely to recover soon, whoever wins the White House

Backed by a strong bipartisan consensus, Donald Trump has taken a scorched-earth approach to China
But Beijing has also indicated it will not make concessions, which doesn’t bode well for bilateral ties even if Joe Biden wins the election

Drew Thompson

Published: 1:30am, 14 Aug 2020

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The Trump administration has aggressively pursued US interests with regard to China, resorting to tremendous pressure and coercion tactics when it is unable to achieve results. Beijing has refused to budge or compromise in the face of this pressure, leaving the next US president with a bilateral relationship that cannot be quickly or easily fixed.

For all the Trump administration’s issues, including the high turnover of national security advisers and deeply conflicting ideologies among the long-serving cabinet members and advisers, the way it has conducted US-China relations has followed a surprisingly clear arc.

The first half of the administration was spent trying to engage China at the highest levels to achieve what it described as a “constructive, results-oriented” relationship.

A flurry of summits between Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping, and multiple high-level dialogues agreed to in 2017 including the Diplomatic and Security Dialogue, the Comprehensive Economic Dialogue, the Law Enforcement and Cybersecurity Dialogue, and the Social and Cultural Dialogue, created space for the two sides to explore differences and convey their objectives and aspirations for the bilateral relationship.

Trump professed his respect and affection for Xi, and also promised reciprocity and results, little of which he was ultimately able to achieve.

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By the autumn of 2018, the Diplomatic and Security Dialogue was held for the second and final time, but then secretary of defence James Mattis was forced to cancel what would have been his second trip to China, and the other dialogues would not be convened a second time.

By 2019, the relationship was in free fall with the two sides ratcheting up pressure on each other in the form of tariffs and sanctions, and Trump and Xi barely able to declare a truce on the margins of the June G20 summit in Osaka.

Trade negotiators salvaged what they could with a phase one trade deal signed by Vice-Premier Liu He in January 2020, as the coronavirus made its way from Wuhan to the rest of the world.

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By the second half of the administration, it was clear that neither side had got what it wanted from engagement, neither had been able to deter the other, and neither had little incentive to continue to engage the other.

Achieving no results from engagement, unconcerned about retaliation, backed by a strong bipartisan consensus in Congress, the Trump administration has been free to impose costs on China, knowing it is unlikely to deter Beijing, but also knowing it has nothing to lose by trying.

In subsequent action-reaction cycles, consulates in Houston and Chengdu have been closed, sanctions have been placed on senior officials and politicians on both sides and journalists have been ejected from both countries. The relationship is collapsing, with no bottom in sight.

Whether Trump wins a second term or Joe Biden takes over in 2021, neither will find a reset button on relations with China on the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office after the swearing-in ceremony on January 20.

Should Trump win, he could use the start of his second term as an opportunity to bring China back to the table to test for a second time his assumptions about whether Beijing is ready to make concessions, open up its economy, stop stealing intellectual property and create a level playing field for international companies in China.

Because of his scorched-earth approach to China, Trump may find success if Beijing realises the floor of the US-China relationship could be much lower than it imagined.

Should Biden win, he will instinctively seek to engage Xi to stabilise the relationship, just as Beijing is calling for. However, he may quickly realise that China’s prescription for improving the relationship lies on the US reversing policies and practices that the Trump administration put in place in pursuit of Washington’s interests.

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Beijing has mastered the art of using talks to defuse tensions, but not make concessions. This could leave Biden and his team in a dilemma: they could make concessions to sustain talks or let the problem fester, they could risk being accused of doing nothing by opponents, or follow Trump’s path of steadily increasing pressure, tariffs and sanctions, cheered on steadily by Congress.

Beijing itself has made it quite clear that it is not giving Washington an incentive to bargain with China, undermining the very engagement and cooperation it is also calling for.

Both Politburo member Yang Jiechi and Foreign Minister Wang Yi have recently made remarks placing the blame for the deteriorating relationship on the US. Both have called on the US to pursue cooperation in abstract terms, without articulating what China is willing to do to actually cooperate.

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Unwilling to make binding commitments to cooperate in potentially fruitful areas like the pandemic response, much less tougher bilateral issues such as intellectual property theft, industrial policy and market access, Beijing gives little indication that Washington stands to gain anything by exploring common ground in talks.

Certainly, China has sold medical supplies to the US, but the state media and officials have also threatened to withhold critical medical supplies for political leverage. This is not cooperation, but coercion.

Actual pandemic cooperation would include sharing virus samples and being transparent and open, as opposed to hacking into vaccine data, or selling medical supplies at a premium and threatening to cut off supplies.

Also, China is not yet ready to give up the narrative that it was a century-long victim of foreign oppression, thereby justifying any and every action that furthers its parochial interests, even at the expense of other countries.

Regardless of who is sworn in on January 20, 2021, the US president will not inherit a bilateral relationship that is ready for improvement. Given diverging interests and entrenched positions, there will be no reset button waiting to be pushed next year.

Drew Thompson is a former US Defence Department official responsible for managing bilateral relations with China, Taiwan and Mongolia. He is a visiting senior research fellow at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore. He is on Twitter @TangAnZhu

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