US-China ties: Biden has limited time to repair Trump’s damage, say analysts

With US President-elect Joe Biden set to be sworn into office within weeks, US-China watchers are upbeat that the incoming administration could provide fresh opportunities to mend ties with Beijing and increase its commitment to Asia.

Yet, at the same time, they warn the fundamental differences between the two countries could stand in the way, with progress also impinged by factors such as Biden’s response to the situation in Hong Kong as well as democracy and human rights issues.

Zack Cooper, research fellow at the Washington-based think tank American Enterprise Institute, felt that Biden’s election victory gave the US a “real opportunity” to shift the debate on America’s role in Asia.

Speaking on a panel discussing US-China ties organised by Singapore’s ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, Cooper noted that US President Donald Trump frequently skipped his trips to Asia and this was not something that would sit well with the Biden administration.

China says ‘new window of hope’ is open in relations with US

Trump’s absence from the 2019 East Asia Summit – a key regional forum attended by the 10 Asean countries and the bloc’s eight key trading partners – was described as a “bad signal” by Cooper. “There is a window of opportunity for the Biden team to get a little bit of momentum on its strategy in the region.”

Cooper’s remarks come as tension between the two world powers intensifies. The relationship, marked by a bitter tariff war over the past year, has been tumultuous as both sides frequently spar over issues ranging from politics to trade and their responses to the coronavirus pandemic.

Also speaking on the panel on Wednesday, Wang Dong, professor and executive director at Peking University’s Institute for Global Cooperation and Understanding, concurred that he was “cautiously optimistic” at the prospect of an improved US-China relationship under the new Biden administration.

But he added that the window for Washington to understand and build better ties with Beijing could be short. “Just a little bit more than a year,” he felt, citing multiple constraints, including the “damage” the Trump administration inflicted on China in the past four years.

“The current China narrative in the United States is far from a rational one. Rather, it is a mixture of fear, prejudices, misperception, self righteousness, and even paranoia,” said Wang. “China-bashing now unfortunately has become a political correctness.”

The rise of populism and nationalism in the US and China would also stand in the way, he said. Asked what he thought constituted a well-managed US-China relationship, Wang said it should not be one driven by ideologies, and instead, should be a pragmatic one.

And while competition should still exist between the two, he felt it should have a “bottom line”.

“In the past few years, what the Trump administration has been pursuing is really a strategic competition with China, with no sorts of limits,” he said, adding that this was why there were earlier fears it could morph into a new Cold War of sorts. “Competition has to be constructive, and it has to be bounded.”

What 2021 holds for US-China relations, Hong Kong and Australia-China trade

On the economic and trade front, he felt the two nations should try to resolve differences in a constructive manner. In the next five to 10 years, he said, there was a possibility that a new equilibrium in US-China relations could be restored. This, he said, could take the form of a new trade relationship that could serve as a “ballast” for bilateral ties.

“Instead of decoupling, we should in fact try to recover or re-link the two economies on the basis of reciprocity, respect of rules, and mutual benefits,” added Wang.

Cooper agreed that trade and investment was the “biggest stressor” in recent years that needed to be tackled. But he felt this was not the most important from the US perspective, casting doubt that bilateral ties could be easily salvaged.

China and the US do not share the same fundamental values, he said, citing the Wednesday crackdown on Hong Kong’s pro-democracy figures, as well as issues concerning Taiwan and the territorial disputes in the South China Sea.

“These things have all contributed to a view in Washington that actually the US and China … have different core values and I don’t think that is going away any time soon,” he said, adding that his hunch was that the Biden administration would be more vocal on human rights and democracy issues.

“That is not an issue that is going to be solved in the US-China relationship,” he said. “We are going to see different issues that are all going to be siloed and different amounts of cooperation for each of them but I’m pretty pessimistic that we’ll see a reversion to where things were three or four years ago. I think we’re in a new world and it’s going to be really hard to get away from that.”