The Biden doctrine: A cold war with China

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https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2021/06/joe-biden-foreign-policy/619130/

Joe Biden Worries That China Might Win
The president has put his finger on an important geopolitical development.
By Thomas Wright
June 9, 2021

A few months into Joe Biden’s presidency, it certainly seems like foreign policy has taken a back seat to domestic policy. The president’s top priorities are clearly tackling the pandemic and multitrillion-dollar infrastructure and economic-stimulus plans. However, this should not obscure a significant shift in U.S. foreign policy, not just from Biden’s predecessor, Donald Trump, but also from his former boss Barack Obama.

Key elements of the Biden worldview are hiding in plain sight. You don’t have to look for leaks of secret documents. Just listen to what the president says.

“We’re at an inflection point between those who argue that … autocracy is the best way forward,” he said in February, “and those who understand that democracy is essential.” The following month, he told reporters, “On my watch,” China will not achieve its goal “to become the leading country in the world, the wealthiest country in the world, and the most powerful country in the world.” In April, he repeated this theme, arguing that the world was at an inflection point in determining “whether or not democracy can function in the 21st century.” Then last month, he was even more specific, telling David Brooks of The New York Times, “We’re kind of at a place where the rest of the world is beginning to look to China.” Tellingly, he doesn’t just say this in his formal remarks; he brings up the subject all the time.

In Biden’s view, the United States and other democracies are in a competition with China and other autocracies. This is being exacerbated by a period of rapid technological change that could give China an opportunity to leapfrog the United States in certain areas. Biden regularly invokes his many conversations with Xi Jinping to observe that the Chinese leader is deeply ideological in his personal commitment to authoritarianism. Biden’s top Asia adviser, Kurt M. Campbell, has echoed that sentiment, saying that Xi has “almost completely disassembled nearly 40 years of mechanisms designed for collective leadership,” and that he is largely responsible for a more assertive Chinese foreign policy.

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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jun/09/joe-biden-china-g7-xi-jinping-democracies

China the spectre at the feast as Biden aims to rally democracies on Europe trip
The US president has become convinced that Beijing is the main adversary in a global battle of governance systems
Julian Borger in Washington
Wed 9 Jun 2021 13.07 EDT

Biden is a recent convert to this assessment. Just two years ago, he was arguing that fears of China’s rise were overstated.

The intervening months have shaken that complacency. In a two-hour phone call in February, according to the Wall Street Journal, Xi explained to Biden at length how China intends to surpass the US as the world’s pre-eminent power.

The president is said to be preoccupied with the theme, raising it persistently in both private and public conversations. In his Washington Post commentary on Saturday about his trip to Europe, Biden mentioned China four times.

Thomas Wright, the director of the centre on the US and Europe at the Brookings Institution, argues that the issue is sufficiently central to the president’s thinking to deserve the title of the “Biden doctrine”.

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https://www.wsj.com/articles/bidens-china-policy-is-emergingand-it-looks-a-lot-like-trumps-11623330000

Biden’s China Policy Is Emerging — and It Looks a Lot Like Trump’s
Recent moves on Chinese apps, investments build on former president’s actions, though by different means
By Alex Leary and Bob Davis
June 10, 2021 9:00 am ET

WASHINGTON — President Biden’s policy toward China came into sharper focus over the past week, with initiatives that suggest the president plans to retain his predecessor’s tough stance toward Beijing, despite differences in execution.

The administration revamped on Tuesday President Donald Trump’s attempt to crack down on Chinese apps, including TikTok, just days after adding more Chinese companies to a Trump-era U.S. investment blacklist.

The administration also said this week that it is launching trade and investment talks with Taiwan — an irritation for Beijing, which considers Taiwan a breakaway province.

Mr. Biden also this week received a far-reaching report intended to lessen the U.S. supply chain’s reliance on China and he began a trip to Europe with a goal of marshaling allies in confrontation with Beijing, which was angered to see the American president elevate a theory that the Covid-19 pandemic was the result of a Chinese lab accident.

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