With the upcoming US presidential election heating up, one area where both Biden and Trump are looking to gain an advantage is foreign policy towards China. Biden was one of the core foreign policy advisers to President Barack Obama when he was with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and for many years had embraced the ‘China engagement’ policy as well as warning Taiwan to tread carefully.
Over the past few months Biden’s position towards China has hardened, as he now appears to be taking a tougher stance not only as a strategic competitor with the US, but also its human rights record. He is on record calling China’s President Xi Jinping a “thug” for having “a million Uyghurs in ‘reconstruction camps’ [sic]”, i.e. concentration camps. He has also challenged China’s claims to the South China sea and its no-fly zones by threatening to fly US air force bombers through it, “we’re going to fly right through it. We flew B-1 bombers through it. We’ve got to make it clear. They must play by the rules… Period! Period! Period!”, as he put it.
One of Biden’s catchphrases when it comes to China seems to be “make it clear”. He has said that the US should make it clear they will not tolerate China’s human rights violations and should be bolstering America's sea power in the Western Pacific to “protect other folks” and “rebuild our alliances”.
As stated, these views towards China are a complete U-turn from his previous beliefs. He was one of the key players in his support granting China Most Favoured Nation trade status. Indeed, when in Taiwan in 2001 Biden stated, “The more they (China) have to lose, the more they are likely to begin to accommodate international norms”. Yes, that was several years ago, however, as recently as May last year, Biden was mocking Trump over his trade war with China and downplaying the threat saying: “China is going to eat our lunch? Come on, man, they’re not bad folks, folks. But guess what: they’re not competition for us”. Now, as he asserted in an article on Foreign Policy earlier this year, Biden accused China of stealing intellectual property and of using subsidies to give state-owned enterprises an unfair advantage. More recently, he has spoken of promoting buy-American policies, and of rebuilding US supply chains.
A phrase that sounds strangely familiar.