China and the US — a new cold war

During his four years in office (2017-2021) President Donald Trump presided over a sharp turn in the United States approach to China. He abandoned the 45-year-old foreign policy which aimed to persuade Beijing to become more like the West. That attempt was given up; and although Trump entertained President Xi Jinping at his Mara Largo estate in the state of Florida and called him “my friend”, his administration came down hard on China. The United States sought to check China’s economic and military rise by imposing sanctions and moving against some of the large technology firms such as Huawei. “To the surprise of many in Washington and Beijing, the Biden administration has largely followed Trump’s lead, keeping U.S. policy toward China on a more competitive — if not confrontational — footing, an approach now favored in varying degrees, by lawmakers in both parties and likely to last as China continues its great leap forward,” wrote Josh Rogin in his long review for The Washington Post. “Restraining China is now a multi-administration, bipartisan strategy that stands among the most important foreign policy adjustments since the end of the Cold War.”

There is one major difference in the way President Joe Biden is conducting foreign affairs and the way Trump had behaved on the world scene. Trump’s “Make America Great Again” and “America First” approaches implied that Washington would act alone and not bother to use multilateral institutions to operate on the world scene or look to other large nations to get them on America’s side. Biden is spending a great amount of time cultivating the world outside. This was fully evident in the ongoing Ukraine crisis when Biden was constantly on the phone to have the European nations on his side.

Rogin, in his review, identified two lines of thought among the people who are now in the Biden administration. He calls them “competitors” and “engagers” with the president siding with the former group. The first group would like the United States to aggressively confront China on several fronts. They have several policy analysts on their side. Thomas Wright, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, speaking about the competitors, said, “They feel a sense of urgency and the need to make big plays to shape the strategic environment, even if it’s difficult. It is not enough just to maintain the status quo — China is not standing still, and neither can the United States.”

China sent a warning shot on January 20, 2021, the day President Biden took office. That day Beijing imposed sanctions on outgoing secretary of state Mike Pompeo and several of his colleague in retaliation for Washington’s approach towards China. Biden also took some time before having a telephone conversation with President Xi. That happened on February 10, after the new president had spoken with the leaders of Japan, Australia and South Korea. The Chinese leader came well prepared to the phone and reminded Biden of several meetings they had in the past. It was a two-hour call. “We did get the sense that Xi had come into the first phone call hoping for a reset,” a senior Biden official commented. “He really went out of his way to bash the Trump administration and blame them for all the ills that have befallen the United States and China.” Biden was also aware that his familiarity with Xi about which he boasted in the past could be a liability now that he was president. He wanted to set the record state. He told a reporter: “We know each other well. We’re not old friends. It’s pure business.”

Beijing played hard ball. When the newly installed Biden’s foreign policy team indicated an interest in a policy conversation with China, Beijing agreed to send its team not to Washington but to a place that was near their country. Anchorage in Alaska was chosen as the site. The meeting was held on March 17, 2021 at which, while cameras rolled, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken listed Washington’s “deep concerns” about China’s behaviour on Hong Kong, Taiwan, cyber-attacks and economic coercion. Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi and its top diplomat Yang Jiechi reacted angrily and insisted that reporters covering the meeting and their cameras stayed in the room while they responded.

They accused the United States of its own human rights violations, including the “slaughtering” of black Americans and native Americans. Yang said: “We believe that it is important for the United States to change its own image and to stop advancing its own democracy in the rest of the world. Many people in the United States actually have little confidence in the democracy of the United States.” That strong statement was meant to send a message to those in America who were watching the development of relations between the two countries. “Behind closed doors,” an American official said, “it was clear that both Yang and Wang really came to the table essentially saying, ‘Roll back all the Trump administration’s policies.’ They were given clear marching orders by the boss to take a very tough line and to show no give with the Americans and to see if they could back us in our approach.”

Islamabad should be mindful of two developments that would profoundly affect its relations with both Beijing and Washington. Both are the result of the policies adopted by President Trump but were continued with even greater vigour by his successor, Joe Biden. The first was a part of what can be best described as the “contain China policy”, as that country grows in economic, political and military strength. China’s rise is viewed by many analysts as occurring while the United States declines. Washington has adopted what was once suggested by former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe as the formation of a semi-formal “quad” arrangement. This was an alliance among Australia, India, Japan, and the United States. Under Biden, this approach was formalised to some extent. He invited the leaders of Australia, India and Japan to meet with him in the White House.

The second development also has its origin in the Trump era. This was the decision to end America’s 20-year involvement in Afghanistan by pulling out its fighting forces by May 1, 2021. This was one of the major concessions made by Washington in the treaty it concluded with the Taliban on February 29, 2020. The May deadline passed as the Taliban did not reduce the promised level of violence. However, President Biden decided to pull out without imposing any conditions on the Talban. End of August 2021 was the new deadline and serious withdrawal began. The Taliban took advantage of this and reached Kabul in early August and took over the country on August 15.

In both developments, Washington completely sidelined Islamabad. Imran Khan was the only major world leader Biden did not call on the telephone after taking office. Thus ignored, Pakistan drew even closer to China. Afghanistan is likely to see much greater presence of China which will also bring in Pakistan. With the ongoing developments in Ukraine, Russia may also develop closer relations with the country it once tried to occupy. We are most likely to see the emergence of a counter-quad made up of Afghanistan, China, Pakistan and Russia.

 

Published in The Express Tribune, February 28^th, 2022.

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