US-China tensions will remain even if Joe Biden rejoins Paris climate deal, observers say
- Two sides may cooperate on climate change if Democratic candidate wins presidential race, but will still have plenty of other problems to resolve, experts say
- America’s China policy is unlikely to change significantly even with Biden in the White House, they say
Biden made the pledge on Twitter on Wednesday, the day the US formally left the accord reached in the French capital in 2015.
“Today, the Trump Administration officially left the Paris Climate Agreement. And in exactly 77 days, a Biden Administration will rejoin it,” he said.
The deal, which was adopted by almost 200 countries, aims to keep global warming under 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels this century, while pursuing ways to reduce it to 1.5 degrees.
“China and the US could seek cooperation on areas such as climate change, non-proliferation, global health and civilian cybersecurity in principle, but the results would be limited,” he said.
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Li Shuo, a senior global policy adviser for Greenpeace East Asia in Beijing, said that although there were uncertainties about how China and the US might work together on climate change, it was unlikely they would be able to rekindle the relationship they had in 2015.
“The variables include how the US designs its China policy and what are their priorities,” he said. “But the situation is different from 2015 and that close cooperation model will be hard to copy.”
The interaction between China and the US at that time was seen as a model of multilateral climate diplomacy and widely praised by the international community.
Li said that if Biden did rejoin the pact, the US would have to submit its national determined contributions – its individual climate plans – in 2021. And that could be challenging “because of the scale of damage caused by the Trump administration over the past four years”, he said.
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The climate issue could even create new areas for competition between China and the US, Li said.
“For example, if the US starts a cleantech race, it may set export limits [on clean technologies] on China.”
Pang Zhongying, a professor of international relations at Ocean University in Qingdao, said that people should not view a Biden administration as an end to all China-US problems.
“We shouldn’t think we can finally take a breath as the tense relationship and confrontation between China and the Trump administration are paused,” he said. “We should not be too optimistic.”
