When it comes to China, Biden appears to be ‘the other guy’

In September of last year, Andrew Bacevich wrote in Foreign Affairs I wondered why Joe Biden closed his speech, in which he agreed to be the Democratic presidential candidate, asking that “God protect our troops”. In his 24-minute briefing, Bacevich observes that at no point did Biden give an explanation or clarify why US troops “They needed God’s protection. Nor did he come up with any ideas on how a Biden administration might do things differently.” In his 100-day government speech, Biden again shut down wishing that “God protect our troops”…

Biden keeps making it clear that he seeks to “ do things differently ” compared to “ the other guy, ” the derogatory way he refers to his predecessor Donald Trump. Nor does he cease to stress that he is making a radical change. himself from Trump with his trillion dollar economic plan that seeks to rebuild the social fabric destroyed by neoliberalism initiated by Ronald Reagan in the 1980s and greatly aggravated by the pandemic.

Trump’s identification with this model and his reluctance to make the social spending Biden implements is presented as the main card of this difference – added by the decision to rebuild the taxation of millionaires and large corporations that Trump had cut. In fact, in his 100-day speech, Biden said he wished “Let the world see that there is a consensus that we are at a turning point in history.”

A key element with which Biden supports this turning point was precisely his decision to withdraw US troops from Afghanistan until September 11 of this year and end “ wars without end ”, despite the fact that Trump himself had already started this process. But the arguments against these never-ending wars criticize the overall global role of the United States, with its gigantic military spending and hundreds of military bases scattered around the world. Nothing to that effect said Biden.

Although in his 100-day speech Biden went into great detail on a series of measures aimed at improving the living conditions of his compatriots, explaining the need for these, he explicitly explained the reason: “We are in a competition with China and other countries to win the 21st century.”

Vaccines, economic stimulus, taxes and China: Biden’s first 100 days in the White House

In explaining his decision to withdraw from Afghanistan, Biden made it clear that 2021 is not like 2001. In that sense, his decision is aligned with the current strategic vision that the Middle East is no longer a zone of threat to the United States. Now the important thing is China.

The American Intelligence Community’s annual threat assessment in its April 9 document places China as the main danger for the country, stressing that “He is increasingly a close competitor, challenging the United States in multiple arenas, particularly economically, militarily and technologically, and pushing for changing global standards.” On the other hand, with the exception of Iran, the countries and issues related to the Middle East, which with the war on terror had gained priority, are relegated to the final sections of the document.

The importance of China has a military dimension much higher than the war on terrorism for analyst Peter Bienart. This is why he says he believes that in the years to come “Many will frame the entire ‘war on terror’ as a parenthesis between times of competition between the great powers, which the United States must do while waiting for the next cold war.” In this sense, he does not consider that the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan “Cut defense budgets. In China, the Pentagon has an even better reason to keep military spending high.”

Examining the Hundred Days Discourse, the analyst of Foreign police Colm Quinn concludes that Biden has appealed to nationalism to gain Republicans’ support for his national economic reform agenda which he sees as support for confronting China. Clarify this “don’t try to climb” relations with Russia, Biden made it clear that the problem was China “quick approach.” Biden concluded by stating that “We are the United States of America. There is nothing, nothing, beyond our capacity, nothing that we cannot do, if we do it together.”

It is not surprising that, more than during Trump’s presidential term, analyzes arise to postulate whether a new cold war between the United States and China is emerging, as it was the one that fought against the Soviet Union. Speaking of China, Biden says that “the autocrats will not win the future. America will” and that he expressed to Chinese leader Xi Jinping that “The United States is not giving up its commitment to human rights and fundamental freedoms”, Comparisons emerge with the famous speech of then-US President Harry Truman in 1947, considered to have started the Cold War.

At that time, Truman had stated that “I believe that we must help free peoples to develop their own destiny in their own way “, assuming the world leadership of the struggle of the “free world” against “Soviet authoritarianism”. Likewise, Biden in his 100-day speech said “We will position ourselves, diplomatically and militarily, to defend our allies. We will support China’s neighbors and trading partners in defending their rights to make independent political decisions, free from coercion or undue foreign influence.” For this he held to go to “Maintain a strong military presence in the Indo-Pacific as we do with NATO in Europe.”

Although Biden in that speech appeared to relegate the external question to second place to the internal question, in March when presenting the document that would guide his national security strategy, he argued that the same “strengthen our lasting strengths and enable us to establish ourselves in strategic competition with China”, because “In many areas, the Chinese leadership seeks an unfair advantage, behaves aggressively and coercively, and undermines the rules and values ​​at the heart of an open and stable international system. When the behavior of the Chinese government directly threatens our interests and our values, we will respond to Beijing’s challenge. “

Although Biden has pointed out that in various areas he would seek the United States and China to cooperate in finding global solutions – fundamentally, the climate issue – his 100-day fundamental stance on China is that of the confrontation, because David Dollar concludes in his analysis for Brookings. Dollar notes that while Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said the United States will distinguish areas of confrontation, competition and cooperation with China, so far, “There is little evidence of cooperation, the only exception is Xi Jinping’s participation in the climate summit,” a little competition and it was done “stressed the confrontation.”

Thus, Dollar concludes that “Regarding China, President Biden broadly pursues Donald Trump’s approach”.