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It didn’t take long.
Hours after President Joe Biden’s inauguration, his foreign policy team began grappling with one of the administration’s biggest challenges: China.
The United States has called “unproductive and cynical” a series of sanctions imposed by China on outgoing Donald Trump officials just as the inauguration took place.
“Imposing these sanctions on inauguration day is apparently an attempt to play on partisan divisions,” Emily Horne, spokesperson for President Biden’s National Security Council, told Reuters on Wednesday. “President Biden looks forward to working with leaders on both sides to position America to become more competitive than China.”
China responded by criticizing the outgoing administration and calling for healing and better relations between the two countries – even using a line from Biden’s inauguration speech.
“I believe that if the two countries work together, better angels in US-China relations could defeat the forces of evil,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said during a briefing. press Thursday.
In his speech stressing the need for unity to triumph over division, Biden said on Wednesday: “Through struggle, sacrifice and setback, our best angels have always prevailed,” a phrase borrowed from Abraham’s inaugural address. Lincoln in 1861.
The rhetorical exchange follows four years of worsened U.S.-China relations, with Trump and members of his team blaming China for the Covid-19 pandemic, using racist terms to describe the virus and criticizing the Beijing’s treatment of protesters from Hong Kong and its Uyghur Muslim minority.
Meanwhile, the countries – the world’s two largest economies – have also locked themselves into a damaging trade war.
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Taiwan’s de facto ambassador to Washington was present Biden inauguration with official invitation, a first, which could indicate that the new president will continue with Trump’s increased support for the autonomous island that Beijing claims to be part of China.
However, despite signaling that it will keep the pressure on Beijing, Biden’s team should generally take a more traditional, diplomatic and multilateral approach than Trump’s.
China imposed sanctions on 28 Trump officials on Wednesday, including former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Trump’s trade adviser Peter Navarro and Alex Azar, the Secretary of Health and Human Services. The measures ban travel to Hong Kong, Macao or mainland China and prevent any organizations they run from doing business there, according to a statement from the Chinese Foreign Ministry.
In his last weeks in office, Pompeo unleashed a barrage of measures against China, and said on Tuesday that Beijing had committed “genocide and crimes against humanity” against its Muslim Uyghur population.
China has repeatedly dismissed abuse accusations in its Xinjiang region, where the United Nations says at least 1 million Uyghurs and other Muslims have been held in camps.
Biden’s choice to succeed Pompeo, Antony Blinken, said on Tuesday he agreed with Pompeo’s assessment. He told his Senate confirmation hearing that there was “no doubt” that China posed the greatest challenge to the United States of any country.
Reuters contributed to this report.
Isabel Wang contributed.
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