Biden’s China Policy is Confused, Lacks Effectiveness on the Ground, Analysts Say

News Analysis

It took the Biden administration a whole year to articulate its China policy, and all this while the White House has continued with Trump’s policy and it claims to have bipartisan support for it. The policy has been in the news recently after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, which prompted escalated military responses from the Chinese Communist Party.

The recent passage of the $280 billion CHIPS and Science Act, a legislation meant to help the United States compete with China that has drawn criticism from some Republicans for not achieving that purpose, has further opened the administration’s China approach to scrutiny.

The Epoch Times spoke with foreign policy analysts affiliated with institutions in different parts of the world including those from U.S.-allied countries and found a range of opinions on the administration’s China policy, with everyone agreeing only on one point: that Biden’s approach is a continuation of Trump’s policy.

The more concerned analysts said the policy needs to be expressed in action to gain relevance, pointing to case studies of the Chinese regime’s malign influence in their regions of expertise.

Biden’s China policy is defined in three words: “invest, align, compete,” as expressed in a long-awaited speech by Secretary of State Antony Blinken at George Washington University in Washington on May 26.

Investment, according to the secretary, referred to investing in foundations of strength here at home—“our competitiveness, our innovation, our democracy.” Aligning referred to aligning the administration’s efforts with the United States’ global network of allies and partners to oppose China’s increasing aggression.

“And harnessing these two key assets, we’ll compete with China to defend our interests and build our vision for the future,” said Blinken in a speech that was billed as the administration’s grand strategy towards the Chinese regime.

The speech was much awaited because it came after a year of silence during which time the Biden administration simply carried forward with the Trump administration’s China policy including the tariffs that Trump introduced to punish China for unfair trade practices, said Ian Johnson of a Council of Foreign Relations in an analysis published shortly after the speech.

“The Biden administration’s China policy is a continuation, at most levels of the Trump administration’s policy—the view within the U.S. strategic establishment that China is a peer competitor and rival and that the U.S. needs a strategy to prevent that from happening,” Aparna Pande, a research fellow at the Washington-based think tank Hudson Institute told The Epoch Times in an email.

Kurt Campbell, coordinator for the Indo-Pacific Affairs on the National Security Council, said early this year in an interview that Biden’s China policy has bipartisan support.

“Democrats and republicans have worked more effectively on China and the Indo-pacific than on any other foreign policy or national security issue,” he said.

A December 2021 public opinion survey by the Chicago Council of Global Affairs shows that Republicans generally take a stronger view of the threat posed by the Chinese regime: 42 percent of Republicans consider China an adversary compared to 17 percent of Democrats, while 67 percent of Republicans consider limiting China’s global influence as a very important goal for U.S. foreign policy compared to 39 percent of Democrats.

In the past four to five years, there’s been more awareness of the “China threat” to the United States among both Republicans and Democrats, according to Grant Newsham, a senior research fellow at the Japan Forum for Strategic Studies.

“Before that, you couldn’t even say China was an adversary,” Newsham told The Epoch Times in an email.

He said that elites who donate money to politicians have always called the “shots in Washington and they still do.” Campbell’s statement, Newsham said, is an attempt to create the impression that the U.S. administration and the ruling class in the country are now “serious” about confronting the Chinese regime.

“That’s an illusion, unfortunately,” Newsham said.

“Consider the former Congressmen and Senators and other [U.S. government] officials (both Republicans and Democrats) who have gone to work for Chinese companies and/or to lobby [the U.S. government],” he added.

Competition and Collaboration

While the Biden administration has touted a policy of both competition and collaboration, such as in climate change, with the Chinese regime, analysts questioned whether that approach was achievable.

Ian Hall, the acting director of the Brisbane-based Griffith Asia Institute and co-editor of the Australian Journal of International Affairs, told The Epoch Times that while major powers do compete where their interests conflict and cooperate where the interests converge, he isn’t sure where the United States and China have cooperated.

“I can’t think of many areas where the US has successfully cooperated with China since Biden came to power, largely because Beijing hasn’t shown much willingness to compromise,” said Hall in an email.

Rajiv Dogra, a former senior Indian diplomat and author of the recent book “War Time”, believes that Biden’s China policy in the context of the Chinese regime’s increasing aggression is only a “temporary fix.”

“It does not take care of China’s ambition and its concept of a ‘New World Order’ tailored by it. It also does not take care of China’s desire to replace America as the ultimate arbiter of global affairs,” Dogra told The Epoch Times in an email.

In his speech at George Washington University, Blinken also made assurances to the Chinese regime that it doesn’t seek to change its system of governance, and that the United States doesn’t want to block China from its role as a “major power.”

The net result, according to Newsham, has been a confused China policy.

“[I]t doesn’t seem so well thought out, and sometimes it’s unclear if the Administration intends to stand up to China and assert U.S. interests or to try to accommodate PRC complaints—or even anticipate Chinese objections and preemptively accommodate,” said Newsham, referring to the acronym for the regime’s official name, the People’s Republic of China.

The United States and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) can’t cooperate and compete at the same time because the CCP wants to dominate “if not destroy” the United States, and the Chinese leaders have been clear on this point, according to Newsham.

“You really can’t do both equally. Try it and you’ll look confused—and confusion equals weakness,” he said. “At some point, one hopes Team Biden wakes up–and recognizes that the United States is in a fight for its life.”

Policy Dragging in the Pacific

Washington’s efforts to build regional partnerships countering the regime have also come under scrutiny.

Experts on the Indo-Pacific said the policy is still far from effective in the Pacific Island nations where Chinese influence is increasing rapidly.

Cleo Pascal, a non-resident senior fellow for the Indo-Pacific at the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies, expressed concerns that the administration’s efforts lack follow-through in the Pacific Islands.

“The White House has announced the intention to open new embassies in the region. But, what embassies there are now are often not fully staffed,” Pascal told The Epoch Times.

The Biden administration announced in February that it will open a new embassy in the Solomon Islands, whose current administration is a strong ally of the Chinese regime.

The Solomon Islands switched diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to the Chinese regime in September 2019 and in April signed a security agreement with the CCP. The pact sparked alarm from Washington and its allies in the region, who say it could pave the way for Chinese troops and weapons to be stationed at the Pacific Island nation, expanding the regime’s military reach in the South Pacific.

The United States closed its embassy in the Solomon Islands in 1993, and the country is currently covered by the U.S. embassy from neighboring Papua New Guinea (PNG).

“But there is currently not even an Ambassador in post in PNG. So, at a time when a U.S. Coast Guard ship is refused entry into Solomon Islands, there isn’t even an ambassador in the country that is supposed to cover Solomons,” Pascal said.

“You can say whatever you like about policy, but people in the region are looking at what’s actually happening on the ground and judging based on that,” added Pascal who led London-based think tank Chatham House’s project “Geostrategic outlook for the Indo-Pacific 2019-2024.”

Biden in May launched the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF), a trade group of 14 nations including Australia, Brunei, India, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.

The framework has been touted as a counter to China’s rising military and economic power in the regime, but some analysts question whether it’ll meet these goals.

“It is often unclear how initiatives such as the IPEF and the recently announced Indo-Pacific infrastructure development scheme will actually be carried out. And along these lines, who is actually responsible for setting the administration’s China policy and for its success or failure. I don’t really know,” said Newsham.

The IPEF made an “impressive start” but doesn’t seem to be living up to its expectations, according to Dogra.

“Critics point out that it was a mistake to exclude Taiwan from this combination. After all, China itself has a vibrant trade relationship with Taiwan,” said Dogra.

“Moreover, if the declared intent of President Biden is, ‘writing the new rules for the 21st century economy’, how can it be done if IPEF is shackled to the hesitations of the past. The fact is that China’s economic shadow looms large over the Indo-Pacific & IPEF is a new arrival. If the intent is to clip China’s overwhelming economic presence in the region, then time and speed is of essence. That, sadly, is not in evidence yet,” he added.

Pelosi’s Taiwan Trip

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan in early August prompted a flurry of escalated military threats from the CCP, including the launch of military drills in the region that saw 11 ballistic missiles fired into waters near Taiwan, including five that landed in Japan’s exclusive economic zone.

Zack Cooper, a senior fellow specializing in U.S. strategy in Asia at the Washington-based American Enterprise Institute, viewed Pelosi’s trip as symbolic in nature that was at odds with the administration’s approach to dealing with the regime.

“Many in Congress appear less concerned about triggering a forceful Chinese response, which is why Nancy Pelosi and others have been willing to take some highly symbolic actions,” Cooper told The Epoch Times in an email.

“Meanwhile, the administration is trying to focus on substantive support to Taiwan but trying to avoid symbolic or rhetorical changes that they think are unnecessary.”

Pande said that Pelosi’s visit has created more open support for Taiwan because it has not only led to subsequent visits by other members of Congress but even visits by state governors.

For Newsham, the speaker’s visit further highlighted the confusion existing in the Biden administration about its approach toward the Chinese regime.

In response to Pelosi’s planned trip, Biden said it was a “bad idea” and that the military was against it. A White House spokesperson subsequently said that Pelosi had “a right” to visit Taiwan, and that the administration would not be intimidated by Chinese threats over her trip.

“One hopes Beijing is just as confused as we are—as to whether the Biden administration will challenge or placate the PRC,” Newsham said.

“But the CCP leaders are just as likely to believe that the administration’s confusion (and indeed, fear) over something as straightforward as a high-level visit to Taiwan (of which there have been many)—indicates the administration will be paralyzed if China makes a serious military move against Taiwan.”

Every administration faces a range of opinions and pressures when it tries to carry out a China policy, according to Newsham.

“Some officials and constituencies want a ‘tough’ approach while others (think…Wall Street, the US-China Business Council, and even parts of the State Department) want to appease and accommodate the PRC. So [Washington’s] China policy often seems contradictory—and working at cross-purposes,” he said.

The Epoch Times reached out to the State Department for comment but didn’t receive a reply by press time.