China Reveals its First Assessment of Biden as President

The high-profile call between Biden and President Xi Jinping was praised for its ‘goodwill’ by a pivotal government-aligned Chinese media outlet.

CHINA ON FRIDAY OFFERED an optimistic – almost rosy – assessment of a call this week between President Xi Jinping and President Joe Biden as the new American leader works to determine how aggressive an approach to take with his country's principal rival.

[ READ: China Fires Back at Blinken’s Condemnation Regarding Uighurs: ‘No Genocide – Period’ ]
Chinese state media touted the timing of the Thursday call, which came on the eve of the Lunar New Year – among the biggest holiday seasons in many Asian countries, including China.

"This was widely interpreted as a gesture that Biden showed respect for President Xi and China," according to an editorial by the English-language Global Times. "It seems that he was using such goodwill to balance the tough messages the new U.S. administration sent in recent days and various interpretations on those messages."

Play Video
The outlet is run by the Chinese Communist Party but is not considered a direct mouthpiece for it.

Friday's editorial highlighted Xi's deep personal experience with Biden, who led a series of American delegations to Beijing – including one in 2011, when as vice president he was scheduled to meet with the Chinese leader five times. Biden himself has previously touted the value of their meetings, particularly for a leader like Xi, whose personal character remains relatively unknown globally while his grip on the levers of power at home steadily grows.

Their call on Thursday lasted for two hours – rare for a session between leaders of the world's most consequential powers. American readouts of the call said Biden challenged Xi on its recent military and human rights practices, with the president later saying that Beijing will "eat our lunch" on infrastructure spending if the U.S. does not do more to catch up.

The Biden administration has, however, also set out to establish a more amicable tone than the previous one, particularly following President Donald Trump's escalating vitriol toward China over the last year as he blamed Beijing for the fallout from the coronavirus within the U.S. Many of Trump's top advisers, particularly then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, made containing China a cornerstone of their tenures, and they perpetuated a trade war whose effects remain in place.
https://wanda-vision-s01e07.8b.io/
https://indexcine.cookpad-blog.jp/articles/572923
https://onlinegdb.com/HJEJmoj-O
https://paiza.io/projects/w4XkWIB3uq3tyYVmSFuIbQ?language=php
https://mlog.club/topic/2327
https://myanimelist.net/blog.php?eid=843651
https://www.dancehalldatabase.com/forum/Dancehall-Reggae/Facebook-Bars-Australian-Users-Publishers-from-Sharing-All-News-Content/fe9de7041388eb8ed9ed759a00b3809c/12007
https://banepa9090.medium.com/china-reveals-its-first-assessment-of-biden-as-president-e4df84b5a312

Though insisting the U.S. will embrace competition rather than combativeness, Biden has continued to take a hard line against Beijing, which the Global Times noted on Friday. On Thursday, the Pentagon expanded on the formation of a new, high-profile task force designed to study U.S. military policy toward China and how it might change.

"China is the No. 1 pacing challenge for the department," Defense spokesman John Kirby said Friday following the announcement of the new task force, to be led by longtime Biden staffer and China hand Ely Ratner.

[ READ: China Threatens U.S. Over Taiwan ]
Biden also, notably, has not lifted any punishing measures Trump levied as a part of his trade war – perhaps a sign that he intends to maintain some elements of his predecessor's more muscular foreign policies, as many analysts have suggested he do.

Regardless, Beijing appears to have embraced the new tone Biden has set even while acknowledging its differences with Trump.

"The Biden administration is at the crossroads of how to re-manage and control those differences," the Global Times said. Again citing the timing of Thursday's call, it added, "Biden's basic attitude is the U.S. would have extreme competition with China, but won't allow competition to develop into conflict. This is Biden's bottom line."

Early appraisals from within the U.S. of Biden's approach have also been positive but cautious.

"The president and his team have struck an effective balance between determination to confront China and openness to change, between urgency and patience," Robert Daly, director of the Wilson Center's Kissinger Institute on China and the U.S., said shortly after this week's phone call. "Messages from the White House and Foggy Bottom have been clear, but measured, making it easier for allies to sign on to American initiatives and more difficult for Beijing to demonize and dismiss American statements."

[ MORE: U.S. Foreign Policy Priorities and Problems ]
However, Daly said the administration must also immediately begin pursuing other consequential policies on which China and the U.S. can collaborate, such as climate change.

"The president has the broad strategy, the team and the temperament for what he calls 'extreme competition with China. There is no point in waiting passively for China's next move," Daly said.

And challenges remain. China continues to militarize contested areas of its land and sea borders. This week a flotilla of its warships again engaged in provocative maneuvers in the Strait of Taiwan, threatening its eponymous sovereign nation that the Pentagon considers a critical bulwark against Chinese expansionism.

Beijing continues harsh civil rights crackdowns in Hong Kong. It so far has not condemned the Myanmar military's attempted coup earlier this month – and threatens to block international action against it. And just this week it expelled the BBC and banned its broadcasts in China for what it considers anti-Chinese bias, a move the State Department blasted as "troubling" for "one of the most controlled, most aggressive, least free information spaces in the world."

However, China – at least superficially – believes the relationship between Xi and Biden represents a source of optimism, for now.

"The top leaders of both countries demonstrated a gesture of goodwill to promote mutual understanding and control divergences on this special day. We hope the two societies would follow the lead, and the world's public opinion could also support the positive messages conveyed in the phone call," the Global Times wrote.

Paul D. Shinkman, Senior Writer, National Security

Paul Shinkman is a national security correspondent. He joined U.S. News & World Report in 2012 ... READ MORE

Tags: China, Joe Biden, Asia, politics, world, world news, Washington Whispers