Trump-Biden final debate offers some pointers for US policy in Asia

US President Donald Trump and his Democratic challenger Joe Biden sparred over each other’s alleged back-room dealings with foreign powers on Thursday when they met for their final debate ahead of the November 3 election. Throughout the 1½ hour debate the candidates repeatedly accused each other of having nefarious ties to the two major powers hostile to the US – Russia and China. Other countries, from North Korea to India, were also mentioned, but China, the US’ biggest strategic rival, got the most airtime during foreign policy discussions. Biden, who served as vice-president in the Obama administration, said he was tough on China, pointing out he had disregarded President Xi Jinping’s demands that the US stop flying planes over the South China Sea. Trump repeated past talking points, namely that his tariffs on Chinese goods were a windfall for American farmers. Teng Biao, a New York-based human rights lawyer, said neither candidate went far enough on China. “It’s disappointing neither mentioned China’s human rights violations in Xinjiang or Hong Kong – this is exactly what the Chinese Communist Party wants to see,” he said. Ja Ian Chong, an associate professor of international relations at the National University of Singapore, said Trump’s rhetoric indicated he would continue to act unilaterally against China if re-elected. Biden’s comment that he would have the US rejoin the Paris climate agreement and make China abide by the rules suggested he would take a more multilateral approach, Chong said. “The implication of course will be that while the Republican-Trump approach may be more direct and confrontational, the Democrat-Biden approach will likely involve a lot more areas and entangle a lot more actors,” Chong said. This distinction also came through on dealing with North Korea and its nuclear weapons programme, he said. Trump’s comments suggest he will continue with attempts to have direct dealings with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. Chong noted that Biden made clear he would revive former president Barack Obama’s approach of getting “other actors, including China, to put pressure on North Korea, even as the US is increasing sanctions”. But neither approach had been particularly effective in getting North Korea to roll back its nuclear weapons programme, he said, so both would need to be modified to get a different type of outcome. India was mentioned, but only when Trump called the country’s air “filthy” compared to the US, when discussing environmental policies. Rajan Kumar, an associate professor of international relations at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, said India’s leaders were “used to not taking seriously everything that Trump says”. He said New Delhi’s key concern was the stance of the two candidates on China, which has been involved in a tense border dispute with India since May. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi valued Trump’s support in its dispute with China, so the biggest question from the debate for India was whether Biden would maintain that support, Kumar said. He added that the country’s leaders should be encouraged based on Biden’s criticism of China. Which world leaders have the most to lose if Trump is defeated? Biden said Trump “embraces guys like thugs like [Kim] in North Korea and the Chinese president [Xi] and [Russia’s Vladimir] Putin and others, and he pokes his finger in the eye of all of our friends, all of our allies”. Biden also said he would force China to “play by the international rules” when it came to trade, its treatment of foreign companies, and its actions in the South China Sea. Cheng Xiaohe, an associate professor of international relations at Renmin University of China in Beijing, said this kind of rhetoric was likely to be problematic for the Communist Party leadership. “As a superpower the US has always acted unilaterally so it’s just a matter of degree, but Biden’s relative multilateralism is clearly seasoned, complex, and so harder to counter,” Cheng said. But he noted that while Trump and Biden were facing off, Xi had delivered a “combative and defiant” speech in Beijing to mark 70 years since China’s entry into the Korean war against American forces. “From General Secretary Xi Jinping’s speech you can see that the party leadership has already made up their mind regarding whether or not a change in the White House will affect US strategy towards China,” Cheng said. “The message is we are taking the US head-on, we are ready to fight.”

Trump-Biden final debate offers some pointers for US policy in Asia

.css-1mniedq{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;} Candidates repeatedly accuse each other of having nefarious ties to Beijing and Moscow North Korea, India mentioned but China gets the most airtime in foreign policy discussions

Candidates repeatedly accuse each other of having nefarious ties to Beijing and Moscow

North Korea, India mentioned but China gets the most airtime in foreign policy discussions