US-China relations: Trump divisions could haunt Biden presidency

Name: World reactions mixed after Joe Biden’s 2020 US presidential election victory
Uploaded: 2020-11-12T04:10:14.000Z
Duration: 4 min 22 s
Description: World reactions mixed after Joe Biden’s 2020 US presidential election victory

Former Chinese diplomat says the deep social divide in the United States will continue to affect Washington’s foreign policy

But dialogue could be restarted on a number of issues including finance, cyberspace and public health

Reading Time:2 minutes

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US president-elect Joe Biden inherits deep social divisions which will affect his foreign policy, former Chinese foreign vice-minister He Yafei has warned. Photo: Reuters

Echo Xie

Published: 12:10pm, 12 Nov 2020Updated: 2:19am, 13 Nov 2020

A former Chinese diplomat has cautioned against too much euphoria over US-China relations under a Biden administration, pointing to Washington’s bipartisan view of Beijing and the Western power’s deep social divisions.

However, former foreign vice-minister He Yafei said that, despite differences in political ideology, there could still be opportunities for long-term cooperation. “Multilateralism, I will say, is very much needed at this critical moment,” he said.

“For China, the US and the EU, all of us should rethink who we are and what roles we can play in the future. We should start now. Inaction is suicidal,” He told a webinar organised by Beijing-based think tank the Centre for China and Globalisation (CCG) on Wednesday.

He, a CCG co-chair, said he expected the United States’ relationship with Europe to improve but that its foreign policy would continue to be affected by the deep social divide highlighted during Donald Trump’s presidency.

“We have to understand that what Trump has done in the past four years has a large social base in America that is driven by populism, anti-globalisation and narrow nationalism,” he said. “Trump has gained over 70 million votes, so the social base is very much there. It will continue to affect American foreign policy.”

04:22

World reactions mixed after Joe Biden’s 2020 US presidential election victory

But China and the US could restart a dialogue on a range of issues, He said, including finance, cyberspace, public health, reform of the World Trade Organization, as well as revisiting a crisis management mechanism between the two countries in the South China Sea.

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