[Special Feature: How to Perceive China] Toshihiro Nakayama: Can the Biden Administration's China Policy Be Trusted?

2021/08/05

During last year's presidential election, there were strong voices of concern in Japan regarding the anticipated China policy of the Biden administration. In Japan, opinions such as "the Trump administration isn't actually that bad" were seen here and there, based on the idea that a slightly crude but tough China policy was preferable to the United States taking a soft line toward China. This view was particularly prominent in foreign policy and security circles. While it is actually quite doubtful whether President Trump himself had a "China policy," the Trump administration's policy toward China was tough without hesitation. The Trump administration rejected the peaceful coexistence line that had been the keynote since the U.S.-China rapprochement in the 1970s and clearly declared an era of great power competition. This was explicitly stated in major policy documents and repeatedly affirmed by senior Trump administration officials.

Anxiety toward the Biden administration was not entirely groundless. The Obama administration, in which President Biden served as Vice President for eight years, attempted to face China with a "U.S.-China G2" type of thinking, especially at its inception. "U.S.-China G2" is a basic stance that seeks to reach an agreement between the U.S. and China first on important issues facing the world and use that as leverage to solve problems. This G2-style thinking stalled early in the administration, and Obama's foreign policy began to take a harsher stance toward China. However, within the Obama administration, "expectations" for China to change remained. This was a sense of awareness that "China must not be made an enemy," and was like a habit of thought of the President himself who bet on the "possibility of dialogue."

If Hillary Clinton had won the 2016 presidential election, she likely would have chosen a tougher line toward China than before. Hillary Clinton was the preeminent hawk within the Obama administration and would have likely pivoted to a tougher line on China policy as well. However, at the same time, a brake would have likely operated there based on the idea that "China must not be made an enemy." In comparison, the Trump administration accepted without hesitation that the relationship with China was a "confrontational relationship," and made it clear that it was no longer an "era of great power cooperation" but an "era of great power competition," and that China policy would not be formulated based on "expectations for China."

Japan does not desire an escalation in the degree of U.S.-China conflict, but if the choice is between an "America that drifts toward China" and an "America that does not hesitate to confront China," it would choose the latter without hesitation. When the Biden administration took office, it was natural to assume that it would more likely be "Obama Foreign Policy 2.0" rather than a reproduction of Trump's foreign policy, and inevitably head toward the former—an "America that drifts toward China." Japan's concerns regarding Biden's foreign policy were based on such anxieties.

The Trump administration's acceptance of the "great power competition" paradigm and its recognition that "strategic competition" between the U.S. and China lies at its center can be considered an achievement of Trump's foreign policy (this transformation was discussed in the October 2020 issue of this magazine). Such a shift in direction might have required a powerful medicine like the "Trump Shock." However, by the time the Trump administration proposed this shift, the recognition was already quite widely shared that China would not change as Western countries expected, and that expecting Western countries to be able to "shape" China's future path was already an illusion.

James Mann's "The China Fantasy," which denounced this illusion, was already published in 2007. However, there is a quite high threshold between recognizing that the U.S. and China will not "converge" and introducing that as the main axis of policy. The coexistence line that had been the keynote since the U.S.-China rapprochement in the 1970s was like a giant tanker, and changing direction would not have been easy. In fact, when the Trump administration's hardline stance toward China became clear, there was a pushback centered on the "China Hands" who had managed America's China policy until then. This was shown in the form of a joint letter to President Trump and members of Congress published in the Washington Post (July 3, 2019), and its title was exactly "China is not an enemy."

In addition to the four main authors, there were nearly 100 co-signatories, eventually approaching 200. Although it was a bipartisan letter, the signatories clearly leaned toward the Democratic Party. Since this joint letter also had a context of criticizing Trump's foreign policy, not everyone who listed their name here was necessarily advocating for the continuation of the traditional U.S.-China coexistence line, but it is an example that shows how deeply rooted such thinking was *1. To reiterate, Trump's foreign policy achieved a certain level of success in rejecting such a pre-established harmony in China policy.

However, looking back at America's China policy during the Trump era, many questions also arise. The Trump administration's China policy was certainly tough, but there were parts where being tough itself seemed to be the end goal. It was a crude China policy that was high-spirited but lacked perspectives on what kind of nature the conflict with China would take, what kind of relationship with China was ultimately aimed for, and how China would change in the future. Therefore, some senior administration officials developed the idea that the "CCP (Chinese Communist Party)" was the main target and that to confront them, there was ultimately no choice but to put "the logic of force" to the fore. There was also a prominent idea emphasizing the clash of power against power, saying that ideology and thought do not matter and that it is essentially a matter of power. Both are important parts that constitute the U.S.-China relationship, but there was a lack of the idea that identifying them with the U.S.-China relationship itself would result in a distorted China policy. It was a powerful medicine, but as a long-term China policy, it was deficient.

A characteristic of the U.S.-China conflict is that it is not occurring on a single dimension. Reservations must also be made regarding whether it should be recognized as a "conflict" in the first place. What is actually occurring is more complex. The U.S.-China relationship exists at different points on a coordinate axis of "confront–compete–cooperate" for various issues, and the perspective of capturing the whole as the U.S.-China relationship is important. Therefore, unlike the U.S.-Soviet Cold War, it is vital to assume that the U.S.-China relationship will continue to fluctuate greatly. The U.S.-China relationship lacks the "stability of conflict" that existed in the U.S.-Soviet relationship. There is no doubt that it is leaning heavily toward "confront–compete." However, the Trump administration either misjudged the essential characteristic of the "complexity" of the U.S.-China relationship or deliberately pretended not to see it in its eagerness to put strategic competition with China to the fore.

However, more troublesome than this complexity is the assumption that this relationship will continue for a long time. Therefore, the problem of "fluctuation" will emerge as a more serious issue. This perspective was what was missing in the Trump administration's China policy. Certainly, some suggest that the peak of U.S.-China conflict will arrive in the 2030s. The currently talked-about future novel by Admiral James Stavridis and others, "2034: A Novel of the Next World War," sets a "hot war" between the U.S. and China in the mid-2030s. However, even if the U.S.-China conflict were to turn into a hot war, there is no guarantee that it would be the final resolution of the U.S.-China conflict. Rather, is it not realistic to assume that this competitive relationship will continue until the middle of this century? Cold War historian John Lewis Gaddis described the Cold War as a "long peace," but the U.S.-China relationship is highly likely to become a "long competition" in that it will be a more dynamic competition rather than a static one like the U.S.-Soviet relationship.

If that is the case, America's China policy must, above all else, have "sustainability." It must not be a grandstanding play that fans conflict momentarily, but must assume competition in the 2040s and even the 2050s, let alone the 2030s. The Trump administration's China policy decisively lacked this perspective. China is highly likely to be the first "peer competitor" that America has faced. Since America appeared on the main stage of world politics in the early 20th century, it has basically been on an upward trend, despite some fluctuations. America has faced many enemies, such as Nazi Germany, the Empire of Japan, the Soviet Union, and violent extremism since 9/11, but with the exception of the Soviet Union, they were not "existential threats" that threatened America's very existence. However, even with that Soviet Union, the logic of the "long peace," as Gaddis described it, could be shared after the Cuban Missile Crisis. There is no guarantee that such logic can be shared with China. Rather, looking at President Xi Jinping's public speaking on the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party, the situation appears to be regressing.

Moreover, the current United States is in a situation that cannot be called upward-trending even as a compliment. The America of today is not the "confident America" we have been familiar with, but perhaps (......) an America (....) tormented by the anxiety (.......) that the "Post-American World" (..........) (Fareed Zakaria) (.............) has arrived (.....). Thinking about it this way, it might sound slightly exaggerated, but we are at a turning point in world history. In other words, the current situation can be described as one where a peer competitor is appearing while American hegemony is wavering.

In this situation, how is the Biden administration trying to assemble its China policy? About six months since the Biden administration took office, it is safe to say that the anxiety that the administration's China policy would be "soft" was a groundless fear. A major theme of Biden's foreign policy is a break from Trump's foreign policy. However, that is not the case specifically for China policy *2. Rather, it even seems as if confrontation with China is the major theme of Biden's foreign policy. However, there is an important difference between the Biden administration's China policy and the Trump administration's China policy. That is the point that the Biden administration recognizes the "complexity" and "long-term nature" of the U.S.-China conflict. Furthermore, although they would never admit it openly, they are conscious that the world is about to enter a "Post-American World."

The concept of a "foreign policy for the middle class" forms the core of the Biden administration's foreign policy stance. This is the idea that America's foreign policy must also be meaningful for the middle class. Multiple senior administration officials, including Secretary of State Blinken and President Biden himself, have mentioned this idea. This is extremely unpopular among the foreign policy and security elite in that it seeks to achieve policy goals through foreign policy—such as securing jobs and boosting the middle class—that should inherently be realized through domestic policy. However, this idea is rooted in the recognition that the internationalism that has supported America's foreign actions is not as rock-solid as it once was. "America First," which was the major theme of Trump's foreign policy, catered exactly to this "foreign commitment fatigue" that was prevalent in America, and it was the result of Trump's sharp political instincts. Detecting this mood prevalent in America, Trump accepted and amplified it. The Biden administration recognizes this mood as something that must somehow be pushed back. However, simply calling for the restoration of internationalism has no persuasiveness at all. Therefore, it aimed for the restoration of internationalism with a logical structure that America's internationalism is meaningful for the middle class as well.

So, what does it mean to apply foreign policy for the middle class to Asia, and particularly to China policy? Before that, let's look at what happens when, for example, foreign policy for the middle class is applied to the Middle East. The Middle East is not a "region of possibility" for America. It is a region where repeatedly occurring problems must be dealt with. Furthermore, the very presence of America in the Middle East is not welcomed, and rather, that itself is a major cause of the difficulty in the relationship between America and the Middle East. Recall that the presence of the U.S. military in Saudi Arabia was one of the causes that triggered the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Also, if you ask whether there are reliable allies or partners in the Middle East, that is certainly not the case. In other words, the Middle East is a region where one has no choice but to deal with a group of repeatedly occurring problems while having partners with issues. As the degree of energy dependence on the Middle East, which was low to begin with, decreases further, involvement in the Middle East has become difficult to justify under the logic of foreign policy for the middle class. As if to prove this, the Biden administration is proceeding with a policy shift in the direction of lightening its "footprint" in the Middle East.

In contrast, China policy is a policy matter that can be sufficiently justified even under foreign policy for the middle class. First and foremost, the challenge from China is obvious. Moreover, the American public also sufficiently recognizes this. And it is obvious that America's continued involvement in the Asian economy, which is the engine of the global economy, brings benefits to America. Furthermore, and most importantly, American leaders can show the American public that this challenge is not one that America takes on alone. Unlike the Middle East, America is a welcomed presence in Asia. This is an extremely important point while the internationalism supporting America's foreign actions is waning. Regarding China, countries that share concerns—such as Japan, Australia, and India—are running alongside America, although their interests do not completely overlap with America's.

Among them, Japan's presence is particularly important. Japan is a reliable democracy and also a dependable ally. Japan is constantly worried about America's China policy, but in fact, Japan itself is one of the important keys supporting America's China policy. Japan must be more conscious of this situation.

*1 Note that the joint letter published in the Washington Post can be confirmed on the newspaper's website, but the linked website (www.openletteronuschina.info) established at the same time no longer exists. This is a move that makes one want to "read deeply" into it. It might mean that even the moderates on China no longer want to openly disclose that they listed their names on a joint letter stating "China is not an enemy." Incidentally, no one who listed their name in this letter has joined the Biden administration in a major post related to China policy.