Biden Struggles to Find Coherent China Policy

By Price Sukhia 

On Monday, reports of Chinese aircraft entering Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) flooded the internet. The military action marked the largest incursion into Taiwan’s ADIZ ever by China’s air force, as thirty-four J-16 fighters and twelve nuclear-capable H-6 bombers were sighted near the Taiwanese controlled Pratas Islands. Social media sites buzzed with reactions from China experts as Taiwan’s Foreign Minister Joseph Wu signaled to reporters that his country is preparing for a potential war with China. But as international relations between China and Taiwan reach a critical point, officials within the Biden administration are giving mixed messages on how the U.S. plans to respond to China.

Just hours before China’s intrusion into Taiwan’s ADIZ, U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai spoke at the Center for Strategic and International Studies about how the Biden administration plans to move forward on the issue of trade with China. The highlight of Tai’s speech debuted new phrases such as “durable coexistence” and “healthy competition.” While such geopolitical jargon gave plenty of subject matter for China watchers to squabble over on social media, the relatively hollow content regarding actual policy seemed to provide little clarity on what direction the Administration plans to take on China moving forward.

However, there was one key policy change that was largely overlooked by the mainstream media. Tai revealed that the US would begin a targeted exclusion process on certain products imported by American corporations who depend on Chinese manufacturers. According to the USTR website, over 500 products will be exempted from tariffs. Among the affected products are industrial components, thermostats, medical supplies, bicycles and textiles.

For decades, U.S. companies have been outsourcing manufacturing to China in order to save on labor costs and gain access to China’s massive market. Last year, when the U.S. was unable to provide essential medical supplies such as ventilators and PPE to hospitals during the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the American people experienced first-hand how outsourcing can jeopardize public safety and national security. For this reason and more, most Americans now view China as an adversary rather than a partner.

Apparently, not everyone in the Biden administration shares the American public’s view. Last week, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said she plans to push for more entanglement with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Raimondo told reporters “There’s no point in talking about decoupling [with China] … It’s too big of an economy – we want access to their economy, they want access to our economy.”

Although she conceded that China has repeatedly broken its commitment to the U.S. by stealing U.S. technology and intellectual property, Raimondo insisted that the U.S. needs “robust commercial engagement” with China because de-coupling would not be economically possible. According to her, more engagement with China will help ease tensions between the two countries.

But many experts in U.S.-China relations have voiced their dissatisfaction from the sidelines, including Eric Sayers, a former Senior Fellow for the Asia-Pacific Security Program at the Center for a New American Security. “The takeaway here is there is no consensus in the admin on where to take U.S.-China trade/tech and cabinet secretaries feel comfortable to publicly stake out their views,” Sayers tweeted.

The statements of both Secretary Raimondo and Representative Tai would seem to undermine the strategic posture toward China the White House has publicly taken since President Biden took office. In March, after top diplomats from the U.S. and China met in Alaska for a highly contentious summit, Secretary of State Antony Blinken called out China for using “coercion and aggression to systematically . . . undercut democracy in Taiwan.” Less than two weeks later, China flew twenty fighters and bombers into Taiwan’s ADIZ, which, until last Monday, represented the largest instance of Chinese aggression in the Taiwan Strait in more than a year. In response, Blinken told reporters the U.S. would stand by its commitments to ensure Taiwan’s self-defense and that any effort by China to invade Taiwan would be a “serious mistake.”

While such statements were undoubtably aimed at deterring Chinese threats to Taiwan, they may have been undercut by Secretary Raimondo’s interview, in which she told reporters she plans to lead a delegation of prominent business leaders to China as soon as the risks of coronavirus begin to wane.

If senior officials within the Biden administration are not aligned on any coherent plan for U.S.-China relations moving forward it could spell disaster for Biden’s stated China policy, especially regarding the high-tech sectors where the potential for Chinese acquisition of sensitive military technology remains a significant concern.

It may also be possible that Biden is simply changing his tune on China by softening his stance and embracing Raimondo’s push for increased trade and entanglement. After all, her viewpoint is not so far removed from the position Biden embraced on U.S.-China relations prior to his presidency.

Raimondo’s emphasis on “engagement” reflects the long-standing China doctrine that the Washington establishment has held for decades. In September 2000, before the fateful decision by the U.S. Senate to extend Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR) to China, Joe Biden argued that by granting China PNTR, the U.S. would continue “a process of careful engagement designed to encourage China’s development as a productive, responsible member of the world community.”

Biden’s assertion was based, in part, on the premise that increased economic trade with our enemies would eventually turn them into benign allies. The U.S. would westernize the CCP by dangling carrots rather than wielding sticks. However, decades of Chinese trade infractions, forced tech-transfers, IP theft, human rights abuses, and aggression in the South China Sea have led many long time “engagement” proponents in Washington to reconsider the wisdom of that strategy, and question whether it has led to a more trustworthy China or one that has exploited the policy to its own advantage.

It was only in the wake of the Coronavirus pandemic that Biden began to shift his public position from “engagement” to “talking tough.” But if China won’t cease its aggression in the Taiwan Strait, and the President’s cabinet secretaries continue to pull the U.S. in two different directions, Biden will not be able to straddle the line between friend and foe for long. Eventually, the President will have to decide whether the United States will stand up to China or cave to American corporations and the CCP. For the moment, the Administration seems to be leaning toward the latter.