Advertisement
Advertisement
Wang Xiangwei
SCMP Columnist
China Briefing
by Wang Xiangwei
China Briefing
by Wang Xiangwei

‘Sleepy Joe’ Biden is one of the few US politicians who’s wide awake about China

  • When the Obama-era vice-president said China was ‘not competition’ for the US, the backlash was enough to make him walk back his comments
  • But the challenges facing President Xi Jinping, from the economy to wrangling the country’s bureaucrats, are vast
AT A TIME when China-bashing can bring about a rare display of bipartisanship in deeply divided American politics, former US vice-president Joe Biden recently stirred up the hornets’ nest by playing down the threat from Beijing and suggesting it was “not competition” for Washington.

“China is going to eat our lunch? Come on, man,” Biden, the leading 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, said at a campaign stop in Iowa on May 1. “They can’t even figure out how to deal with the fact that they have this great division between the China Sea and the mountains in the east, I mean in the west.

China’s May 4 and June 4 Tiananmen protests: Communist Party only sees patriotism where it suits

“They can’t figure out how they’re going to deal with the corruption that exists within the system. I mean, you know, they’re not bad folks, folks. But guess what? They’re not competition for us.”

Understandably, Biden – who has repeatedly aired similar views about China throughout his career – has drawn criticism from Republicans, Democrats, and media commentators.

In an interview, United States President Donald Trump said Biden “is being very naive about China”.

Then-US vice-president Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2015. Photo: AFP

Last Saturday, Biden tried to clarify his previous remarks.

“I don’t suggest China is not a problem. I’m the guy who’s been the toughest on – I’ve spent more time with [Chinese President] Xi Jinping than anybody else, just because the nature of my job,” he said at a fundraiser, according to US media reports.

“He’s got problems, he’s got gigantic problems. Doesn’t mean he’s not a threat, doesn’t mean they’re not a threat,” Biden added.

In the US, paranoid officials see Chinese spies around every corner

His controversial remarks about China came less than two days after Kiron Skinner, the director of policy planning at the US State Department, made a now-infamous quote about Washington preparing for a “clash of civilisations” with China.

They also came as the Trump administration ratchets up pressure on China from nearly all sides, with trade friction continuing to dominate the headlines.

As a veteran politician, particularly in his eight years as vice-president in the Barack Obama administration, Biden met frequently with top Chinese leaders. He certainly has more experience handling China issues than most senior officials in the Trump administration combined.

Despite his vague references to China’s myriad challenges, Biden rightly suggested there was not a single world leader who would prefer to deal with China’s challenges over America’s.

US President Donald Trump says Biden ‘is being very naive about China’. Photo: Reuters
China’s economy has grown to be the world’s second largest, and Beijing has launched the ambitious Belt and Road Initiative, which promised trillions of US dollars in infrastructure investments to boost connectivity from Asia to Europe and Africa. At first glance, China may shape up to be a serious competitor to the US – but in reality, this competition is much less potent than what it is perceived to be, both in the short and long term.

After 40 years of rapid economic growth fuelled by low costs and cheap labour, China is going through a painful transition to a market economy driven by consumption and innovation as the old model is no longer sustainable. As the Chinese economy slows down, the government is struggling to create 13 million new jobs each year to accommodate fresh graduates, as well as migrant workers made redundant from factory closures.

In China, breaking the law is about to get a whole lot costlier

China may lead the world in 5G telecommunications and e-commerce, but they are the exception rather the rule. As Chinese officials have readily admitted, the overall level of the country’s high-end manufacturing industries is at least 30 years behind that of the US.

Even worse, just before China’s new competitive advantages (including technological advances) have taken hold, the US is aggressively cobbling together a coalition of its Western partners to push back against Beijing on many fronts.

These include moves to curtail academic exchanges and bar Chinese students and academics from science and technology studies in the US.

Politically, Xi may consolidate his power through his anti-corruption campaign and become the most powerful leader since Mao Zedong. But he faces a tough job to get the bureaucracy to do his bidding, as the bureaucrats sing his praises on one hand but often obfuscate his commands. That explains why the authorities have now listed bureaucratic lethargy as a new form of corruption to crack down on in the ongoing anti-corruption drive. In a sense, China has become a victim of its own propaganda. For largely domestic political reasons, China’s massive propaganda machine cranks up full blast to overstate its so-called achievements and justify changing its constitution to enable Xi to rule as long as he likes. This has magnified worries and concerns over China’s intentions among Western countries.

US-China trade war: if Trump and Xi agree ‘grandaddy’ of trade deals, here’s what comes next

As a journalist who has covered China for nearly 30 years, I always find it interesting that before Xi came to power in late 2012, the outside world tended to take the country’s propaganda with a large pinch of salt. But nowadays, overseas observers give too much credit to the propaganda.

Trump may call Biden “Sleepy Joe”, but when it comes to China, Biden could be one of the few prominent and seasoned US politicians who are wide awake about what China is really about – and is willing to talk about it publicly.

Wang Xiangwei is the former editor-in-chief of the South China Morning Post. He is now based in Beijing as editorial adviser to the paper

Post