Biden’s China Policy – The Dance Around China

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“Imaginary enemy”. The term is one of several that paint an increasingly clear picture of confrontation between China and what Biden wants to do for the “rest”, but which instead are in danger of becoming a confrontation only between China and the “West”. The EU concluded two years ago that China had become a “systemic rival” from being a partner. The Biden administration has designated China as a “strategic competitor”. And now China is responding by saying that the United States is making China an “imaginary enemy”. The verbal glide flight from «rival», to «competitor», and then «enemy», is striking, even if the enemy so far is only imaginary.

And it can be several good reasons why it is so. Chinese President Xi Jinping rules as an increasingly aggressive and authoritarian one-party state, where the party is “everything”, as he said when the Communist Party celebrated its first hundred years just over a week ago. He has crushed the limited democracy in Hong Kong with an iron fist, he violates human rights by carrying out what the Biden administration calls “genocide” against the Muslims in Xinjiang province, and by monitoring and controlling its own people. China hacks infrastructure in the Storting, in the United States, and in other NATO countries, builds artificial islands in the South China Sea in violation of international law, and threatens Taiwan’s sovereignty. The list of things to criticize China for is long. Behind China’s ambition lies an increasing degree of unadorned nationalism and chauvinism, and probably also revengeism, for all the years China was humiliated by the West.

Joe Biden does this to an almost literal crusade, for it is a largely ideological campaign he is launching against China. It is freedom against tyranny, almost good against evil. When the American president was in Europe in June, China was the elephant in the room. China was the real topic at the G-7 summit in England, and at the NATO summit in Brussels. Biden wanted to get his closest allies on the team in his desire to confront and stem China’s growing global influence.

But so is it significant problems with the strategy of Biden. The first is obvious, that China is so large economically that it is impossible to weaken it with, for example, sanctions. The second is that it will be difficult to get the United States’ political and ideological allies to act on a common front. And the third is that a confrontation is counterproductive, it destroys cooperation on things you have to work on, such as climate, weapons control and future pandemics. Biden’s environmental diplomat, former Secretary of State John Kerry, is rightly concerned that confrontation could ruin much-needed cooperation on climate emissions.

And so it is this with getting people to dance to the beat. Important allies such as Germany and France nod when Biden speaks to them. But Germany has China as one of its largest export markets, including cars, and the man most likely to succeed Angela Merkel as Chancellor after the September election, Armin Laschet, is openly asking whether we – the West – need a new enemy.

Mens France President Emmanuel Macron is very aware of the challenges China represents, and wants to include Russia on the “Western team”. Still, he questions the intensity of Biden’s confrontation, and questions whether we need a new Cold War. In the EU, countries such as Hungary, Greece and Italy have also become dependent on Chinese money as part of their Belt and Road project. And China is playing as effectively as they can on the divide-and-rule mechanisms they can find in Europe. In Hungary it is very successful.

The development is a nightmare

This week travels also US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin around Southeast Asia to mobilize US friends. He goes to Singapore, Vietnam and the Philippines. The intention is to say that the United States not only offers military support, in response to China’s expansion in the South China Sea, but also more trade, as part of the package to curb Chinese influence. The dance around China is hard and raw, it is much more rock´n roll than waltz.

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