Biden Intensified Efforts to Counter China’s Threat


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Continuing with policies established during the Trump administration, President Joe Biden similarly viewed China as a strategic competitor with both the capability and the intent to reshape the U.S.-led global order. The Biden administration maintained a focus on countering what it saw as threats from the Chinese regime, while also building on the previous administration’s actions. Biden’s approach involved strengthening alliances in the Indo-Pacific region and limiting China’s access to American technology. Furthermore, Biden brought a multilateral dimension to the strategy of containing China, emphasizing a more targeted approach to safeguarding critical American technologies.

Experts suggest that Beijing’s global ambitions will continue to influence U.S.-China relations, ensuring that much of Biden’s legacy on this front will endure. Reflecting on his tenure, President Biden remarked to the U.S. diplomatic corps on January 13 that America is now in a more advantageous strategic position for long-term competition with China. He emphasized the strengthened alliances and friendships that he believes will benefit the next administration.

James Lewis, a senior vice president at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, highlighted that the administration’s major success concerning China was its ability to build partnerships with allies and friendly nations. He noted this as a significant shift from the situation a decade ago.

Under Biden’s leadership, the United States enhanced its security collaboration with Australia and the United Kingdom, focusing on the design and construction of nuclear-powered submarines and the sharing of advanced defense technologies. This partnership, known as AUKUS, aims to bolster the allies’ collective military strength in the Indo-Pacific region.

Additionally, the administration sought to improve relations among rival countries in Asia—such as Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines—by establishing multilateral dialogues with the United States. Existing agreements, like the Indo-Pacific Quadrilateral partnership involving the United States, Australia, Japan, and India, saw new collaborations in defense manufacturing, maritime security, and vaccine production.

These efforts were propelled by a “culture of open dialogue” and “habits of cooperation” that Biden’s team cultivated among Indo-Pacific leaders, according to Kurt Campbell, the State Department’s second-ranking diplomat and a seasoned Asia expert. Shi Shan, a China expert and contributor to The Epoch Times, observed that Asian leaders are more receptive to Biden’s traditional diplomatic style, which avoids public humiliation or challenges. In Eastern politics, maintaining face is considered crucial.

When President Biden assumed office, there was anticipation that the difficulties China faced in listing stocks in New York and the restrictions on semiconductor exports would dissipate. However, Biden continued the Trump administration’s policies, viewing China as a strategic rival capable of altering the global order led by the United States. The administration retained all of Trump’s tariffs on Chinese goods—amounting to around $300 billion annually—and even increased them last year.

Over time, China’s export of its surplus capacity has become a contentious issue in U.S.-China relations. According to Mike Sun, a U.S.-based businessman with extensive experience advising foreign investors and traders in China, this was a deliberate development. Following Xi Jinping’s rise to the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in late 2012, he demonstrated a commitment to maintaining the Party’s power, a sentiment reinforced by his disappointment with the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Communist Party.

Xi Jinping’s strategy involved asserting China’s dominance on the global stage, steering the economy away from dependence on the West. He announced the “Made in China 2025” industrial policy in 2015, marking a shift from a property market-driven economy to one centered on advanced manufacturing. Concurrently, Xi sought to address China’s longstanding overcapacity issue through exports.

The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated existing challenges in the Chinese economy, with youth unemployment exceeding 20% before changes in reporting methods in December 2023. Negative foreign direct investments indicated more capital leaving China than entering it during the second and third quarters of the previous year. Despite these challenges, Xi continued to advocate for “new productive forces,” focusing on high-value manufacturing in emerging industries such as new energy, artificial intelligence, critical materials, and biotechnology.

In Sun’s view, Xi has taken a significant gamble with his industrial policy, remaining resolute in his approach. The well-being of the Chinese populace is secondary to the Party’s power, according to Sun, as long as the economy avoids a financial crisis or property market collapse.

The impact of China’s economic policies on average American families, particularly the loss of over 2 million jobs following China’s accession to the World Trade Organization in 2001, prompted Biden to advocate for a “foreign policy for the middle class.” This approach aimed to ensure the United States, not China, would emerge victorious in the 21st-century competition by restricting Beijing’s access to American high-tech and containing China in the Indo-Pacific region.

The administration employed a combination of strategies to tackle the challenge. While fostering partnerships with other nations in security, technology, and commerce, the United States imposed tariffs on Chinese goods and limited China’s access to key industry technologies, including semiconductors and artificial intelligence. Simultaneously, the CHIPS and Science Act provided federal incentives to stimulate domestic growth and innovation.

According to Shi, the Chinese Communist Party is particularly averse to the “small yard, high fence” approach, which describes the Biden administration’s focus on tightly controlling a select group of technologies. The CCP refers to this strategy as a “de facto wall,” recognizing the significant impact it has on curbing technology access.

Alongside export controls, Lewis commended the Biden administration’s efforts to boost domestic innovation capacity, though he noted the absence of a sustained program. He cautioned that this oversight may have long-term consequences.

With Xi and the CCP likely to persist in their pursuit of global dominance, the continuity of the China threat is expected to preserve the framework of Biden’s alliances, regardless of any differences in specific approaches under a new administration. Rep. Mike Waltz, the incoming national security adviser, has already signaled this continuity.

Calling China the “greatest adversary” of the United States, Waltz emphasized that a critical bipartisan policy on China for the new administration would involve reinforcing existing partnerships with Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines to uphold a shared vision of a free and open Indo-Pacific.

While progress has been made, more work is needed, and alliances in the region are not as firmly established as the Biden administration might suggest, according to Sun. He believes that the United States has yet to address the fundamental issue of its Asian allies’ economic dependence on China’s market.

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