On January 20, 2025, with the installation of the newly elected Donald Trump, among the many dossiers that await him, there is one whose importance goes beyond bilateral relations and will be reflected, like it or not, on global dynamics, namely the relationship between the USA and the People’s Republic of China (hereinafter PRC).
In November 2024 US and Chinese Presidents Joe Biden and Xi Jinping met in mid-November in Lima (Peru), for the APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) summit. Other than a tired ritual, the meeting was focused by the mutual attempt to improve the relationship between Washington and Beijing, marked from both sides during the Democrat administration by continued frictions, endless provocations and trade of allegations about almost everything. China confirmed to be (at the same time) a key element for the Washington foreign, trade and security policies, a critical element and a tough competitor in several fields. This reality (not perception) was felt also by all and each member of APEC (as well as for Europe, Africa and Latin America). It is useful to remember that the incoming President, Donald Trump already in 2017 labelled China as strategic competitor. On it he wakes up also many other US partners, like EU, which adopted the same terminology, but Bruxelles still miss a coherent strategy vis-à-vis Beijing, if it is excluded to follow more or less slavishly the Washington desiderata.
However, despite the ideological divide between Biden and Trump Administrations, it is a matter of fact that at least on the relations with Beijing, the Democrats Administration did not adopt different paths or ‘roll back’ approach vis-à-vis China; instead confirmed it and make also more stiffer actions and enlarged the range of action against PRC; thus, arriving to a concept, defined by several scholar and observers to a ‘Trumpism without Trump’, confirming that Beijing and its challenges is a bipartisan concept, in the sense that both side of the Congress saw China as a potential enemy.
Based on that approach, appear that Trump would not change approach to China. Initially, from Chinese side, there were high expectations that the Biden Administration would change it, making softer or even revert the more tough Trump decisions. And this did not happen, creating concern and disillusion in the Beijing leadership (on that point emerge also a question on the effectiveness of the Chinese security, intelligence and analysis apparatus, that was not in condition to foresee the lines of Biden administration). It is on this conceptual basis that the next president, who has little incentive to seek a modus vivendi without significant concessions or guarantees from the counterpart (giving that for him partners does not exist), will conduct himself. Biden maintained tariffs, pushed for the reinforcement and enlargement of Quad (a security pact with India, Japan and Australia), set up the AUKUS comprising Australia, the US and the UK, improved the relations between NATO and Pacific region partners (Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand), re-connected the ties with small island states in the region and refreshed the already existing (Vietnam, Indonesia, the Philippines). Also, the economic aspect saw the further restriction of high-tech exports and the reinforcement of trade and industrial agreements focused to reduce the dependency of US supply chains in case of crisis and intensified the safe access of rare raw materials.
Under these generic views, there are several sub-items, even if of a greater relevance, like Taiwan. The small island come often to global media headline thanks to the provocatory deployment of every time larger aeronaval task groups of the PLAN (People’s Liberation Army-Navy), but it is a pivotal area of the relation between Washington and Beijing.
Taiwan is one, maybe the more visible, area where Biden followed the path draw by Trump. The increased relations, especially in security, between Washington and Taipei are reason of fury in China, which consider the slow self-determination (and democratization) process of the island ‘red line’ that should not be crossed at the risk to provoke a direct military intervention. The intense build-up of Chinese armed forces led several scholars to predict that in 2025 those will reach the necessary capacity for a blitz and take rapidly the control of the island before of a military answer of USA (and Japan?).
As already said, Taiwan-bound issue is one file where it is hard to draw a line between the Trump and Biden Administration. In fact, the Biden Administration has not only boosted US arms sales to the island, but also increased the quality of the weapons systems sell allowing the local armed forces to make a sensible improvement in terms of capacity and lethality. Taiwan already has recently put an order for $20 billion and after the summer announced a nearly $2 billion order for missile air defence and anti-ships missiles, boosting Taipei’s overall defence spending. There is a significant shift in the security policy of the island since DPP (Democratic Progressive Party) is a consolidate presence in Taiwan political life. DPP is the party that look for a formal independence of the island, cutting the residual ties with Chinese mainland and change the name of the country from Republic of China, inherited from the era of the KMT (Kuomintang, which led the island with iron fist from 1949 to 1972), into Republic of Taiwan. Since when DPP took power in 2016 the defence budget recorded a growth of around 80%. But the key element it is the progressive erosion of the ‘strategic ambiguity’ concept of Washington reaction vis-à-vis to an attack from China and shifting to a clearer one; now appear more open orientation to a massive support to Taiwan in case of an attack from Beijing. This grey zone, allowed Washington to withdraw all its forces from the islands in the ‘70s, following the normalization with Beijing, but provided a strong security insurance to Taiwan, allowing the island to allocate enormous financial resources in the quality education and industrial production, creating the base for the spectacular development of the island. During his tenure, President Biden several times declared the readiness of the US to intervene in supporting Taiwan if there will be a hostile military action of Beijing. As consequence, these statements had as result a further acceleration of Chinese military build-up and preparedness (and related costs, with reduction of the resources for the economic growth, environment conversion and social welfare).
Aside with the security dimension, the Biden Administration has also promoted greater economic, technological and trade integration with Taiwan, focused into limit the US technological and economic dependence to PRC and improve the Taiwan’s performances. In this light, and in consideration that Taiwan will be barred by some other member states in joining the IPEF (Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity), Washington launched a bilateral agreement, US-Taiwan 21st Century Trade Initiative (of courses blasted by Beijing). However, the future of this one is still in the obsessive isolationist approach of Trump, that blamed also Taiwan to rob something to the ‘brave American working class’, in this case is the chips industry and of course a larger financial burden from Taipei for the defence (as said, Taipei is buying a large arms package from the US to demonstrate its commitment to self-defence). With the time, the virtual US ‘strategic pivot to Asia’, has moved to the reality during the Biden administration. Taiwan is the visible symbols of the prioritization for Asia by Washington (at the expenses of Europe). Looking into the, despite confused, priorities of Trump, it appears that China will remains the main threat to US interests. Competition with PRC and revitalising the US technology and domestic industrial base will remain a top target for the Trump Administration. This will include a broader range of actions, like confrontations, pursuing the economic disengagement enlarging the issue of rare raw material, chips and automotive batteries, increasing the containment of China, an ‘existential threat’, in all the fields.
During its tenure, the Biden Administration’s take two main roads putting together the push of the values of democratic governance as confrontational tool with China and keeping open the dialogue one. The Democracy Summits, launched in 2020 and implemented, despite the poor results, was an example of this first way. The ideological way was implemented also by measures targeting the economic exploitation by Chinese firms operating in Eastern Turkestan/Sinkiang, Tibet and Hong Kong in protection against human rights abuses of oppressed minorities. The new approach marked a shift in the US trade relationship with China to take increasing account of national security and human rights. Beijing reacted by accusing the US of using human rights as a tool to undermine its economic development targeting every time new sectors to be hit by economic sanctions and trade barriers.
But at the same time, Biden Administration did not push the confrontation to a critical point avoiding useless growth of tensions and more than 20 communication mechanisms have been resumed or established, with positive impacts in several fields such as regional dialogue, agriculture and food, taxation, security, defence, law enforcement and narcotic trafficking (especially the fentanyl). In that perspective, in 2023, the two countries have agreed to re-establish military dialogue (suspended by China in 2022).
The political and strategic values of the trade barriers and importations taxes within Sino-US trade relations have become more complex during the Biden Administration. Following the ‘Trumpism without Trump’ approach, the Biden Administration tried to improve the US independence from China’s supply chain, but with results reduced in comparison to the ones planned or desired.
Despite a lot of vocalist propaganda, the US deficit was not reduced by the tariff policy launched by Trump and the Biden one obtained little bit better results, but the dimension and the nature of the Washington trade deficit is not changed, especially in its nature and reasons. Biden reduced the dependency to China but avoided a massive and rapid decoupling from Beijing due to the risk of retaliations of Beijing on the immense quantity of US Treasury bonds in its hands. China keeps the second position as largest source of US imports (the first is EU), and US products are highly demanded by Chinese consumers and China remain an attractive market for US firms. Further, the Biden Administration make significant efforts to rebuild the national industry capacity (again following the Trump rants) brining back capacities previously encouraged to invest abroad. This situation brings China to a global manufacturing capacity of 30% and the tariff policies against Beijing were considered useful tools to bring back lost manufacturing capacities. As said above, the Chinese built Electric Vehicles batteries and solar panel where recently targeted by heavy tariffs for import and this action could be read as move to push up the US-based automotive and green energy production.
Despite several common points between Biden and Trump Administrations vis-à-vis China and economy, the ideological divide emerges fully in the approach of the multilateralism, including its economic framework. The Biden administration significantly expanded the ties with Indo-Pacific countries. Biden, although weak economic partnership proposals, protected Asia-Pacific ties in accessing the US market, despite the withdrawal from the TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) agreements (promoted by Trump) and the emergence of the RCEP (Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership), a free trade agreement between the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) and several countries in the area, including Australia, China, South Korea (hereinafter ROK) and Japan. In order to be a presence in the economies trend in the whole region, Washington launched the IPEF (Indo-Pacific Economic Framework), launched in May 2022, trying to put together other 13 Indo-Pacific states, including Australia, ROK, India and Japan. The IPEF was conceived to boost the leadership of Washington against Beijing’s growing influence. However, the proposal did not bring results also due to the its own intrinsic limitations (especially the persistence of costly trade tariffs for the access to the US market), limited opportunities for the non-US partners and broader US foreign policy shifts. Lined up with is short sight economic approach, Trump has already promised to eliminate the IPEF, labelling even worse than the TPP. IPEF is an agreement which rules trade (fair); supply chain (resilience); energy (clean and de-carbonization); taxation Instead, it is conceived as an agreement on rules that includes four ‘pillars’: fair trade, supply chain resilience, infrastructure, clean energy and decarbonisation, taxation and anti-corruption.
Coherent with the support of the multilateralism, but focused on anti-Beijing, Washington co-launched two initiatives focused in the energy fields and trade. In 2020 together with India, Israel, UAE, established I2U2 (for cooperation on joint investments and new initiatives in water, energy, transportation, space, health, and food security) at the G-20 summit in New Delhi in 2023, Biden co-formed the IMEC (India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor) to counter the influence of the BRI (Belt and Road Initiative) in South Asia, the Middle East and Europe. It remains to be seen whether such proposals can effectively counter Chinese initiatives in a better way of the IPEF.
But the new frontier of the US-Chinese confrontation it is the technology, where Beijing is committed in a long path run and this become a pivotal aspect of the Biden Administration. Also in this field Biden Administration adopted an iron fist, with the bi-partisan support in the Congress and the transatlantic entente with EU (even more worried than Washington) with several laws and acts focused to repatriate critical technologies to strengthen US economic security (now, the manufacture only 10% of the world production, and not at the state of the art, after a peak of 40 of the global production and being the country where the microchips were invented). In addition, Washington with a dedicated legislation, force firms around the world, including those that use a minimal share of US-originated technology, to limit their trade with China. The Biden Administration’s had significant results with visible impacts on the global production landscape. Also on this, attached to the multilateralism/coalition approach, Biden promote alliances involving states and firms to adhere in pacts and agreements focused to counter China technological, industrial and commercial push, but giving priorities to US companies. Despite some disappointments among allied and partners, the strategic concern about China remain prevalent and reduction of profits it is hoped that will remain temporary and the imbalance absorbed in the mid-term. And just as it is unwise to bet on the decline of the US, one should never underestimate, despite a severe slow down, the resilience and growth potential of the Chinese economy, which has at its disposal a domestic market with enormous potential and ample room for development. According to international organizations and think tanks the Chinese challenge in technology remain important: 26 Chinese science and technology clusters are listed among the world’s top 100 science and technology clusters, the largest representation of any country and Beijing leads in 57 of the world’s 64 critical technology fields.
Under general point of view, the Chinese global challenges are not only for Taiwan and the technology advancement. There are increased tensions in the South Chinese Sea and the approach of Beijing vis-à-vis the Ukraine crisis is evaluated as at least ambiguous from Washington. In order to improve the security framework, the Biden Administration pushed one of the historical pillars of the US policy, the establishment of coalition and/or pacts. In this scenario, the push for intensified military and security cooperation between the US and Indo-Pacific countries has been evident. The Quad was revamped under the Trump Administration, laying the groundwork for Biden to develop further this dialogue mechanism. However, especially for India (but for Japan as well even with a minor magnitude), there are reason which led New Dheli to a prudent approach giving the existence of very important economic and trade considerations which impeded till now India to be enrolled in a full-fledged anti-Chinese barrier. On 15 September 2021, US, UK and Australia jointly announced the formation of AUKUS, a partnership focused on security cooperation whose primary goal is to help Australia build a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines. AUKUS, despite persistent problems (paradoxically) on this issue, signalled the first step on enlargement with the initial involvement of New Zealand (since the 1986 de facto the ANZUS, the pact between US, Australia and New Zealand was suspended, but in 2007 Wellington resumed some obligations to the pace). For the South China Sea, the new presidency Marcos Jr. represented a major shift after the Duterte one, with a significant alignment with the US and re-opening of then closed military bases. This is due also by the stubborn obstinacy of Beijing in the Paracel (and other small archipelagos in the area) which refused any dialogue; the claims and the military provocations of China consolidate a network, promoted by Washington, of alliances and massive deployments of military forces of US, UK, Australia, Japan in support of Manila navy and coast guards. Similarly, Biden Administration, in close cooperation with Australia, France, New Zealand in reinforcing economic, diplomatic ties and institutional stability of the small states’ islands and territories (i.e. Solomon Islands, PNG, Vanuatu, Nauru, Fiji, French Polynesia, New Caledonia) of South Pacific in order to avoid the penetration of China via commercial treaties, financial aid, police and security training and assistance,
The now ousted ROK President Yoon Suk-yeol, after a predecessor more colder, moved closer to the US after taking office in 2022 and rapidly improved relations with Japan, historically difficult, making easier for the US to manage one of the most complex relations in the Indo-Pacific region, forcing Washington to have two bilateral pacts instead of a trilateral one and this summer US, Japan, and ROK launched their first trilateral multi-domain military drill on the Korean Peninsula (‘Freedom Edge’, immediately answered by Russian-Chinese aeronaval exercises in the Yellow and Japan Seas).
The rapid growth of China’s influence and power relative to the US in the region is a reason of concern and it is amplified by the proposed creation of an ‘Asian NATO’, formulated at the behest of Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, which would bring together existing diplomatic and security arrangements such as the Quad and the AUKUS and enlarging it to the Philippines, Thailand, New Zealand, ROK, France (and possibly, Indonesia and Vietnam).
All of this is mirror of the significant increase in US influence in China’s environment under the Biden Administration, a dynamic that reveals the US’ significant leverage in managing a relationship with its allies that has visibly strengthened, despite the unsatisfactory economic framework.
Conclusion
For the Chinese leadership the new administration represents a major challenge in consideration of the internal fractures and the economic, environmental and social challenges. Even if appear hard to imagine, there is room for potential dialogue around the crisis in Europe, Middle East (without forgetting Africa) and the latest developments seems goes in this direction. Trump’s team has reportedly made contact with China, with the aim of reaching a ceasefire in Ukraine. The exact content of the talks is still unclear, but it is an initiative to involve Beijing to convince Russia to accept a real negotiation. The talks certainly have concrete content. When a Ukrainian delegation visited Washington in November, Republican exponents close to Trump’s team hinted that the new Administration would try to solve Kiev’s problems “through the Indo-Pacific.” The new Administration’s attempt is quite transparent: it hopes to leverage Beijing’s influence on Russia, which has grown significantly since 2022 thanks to Chinese supplies of goods under sanctions and increased oil purchases, to get Vladimir Putin open to negotiations. Beijing had attempted to play a role in the Doha negotiations — which later failed — for an agreement in which Kiev and Moscow would commit to avoiding attacks on energy infrastructure. Also on Ukraine, there were reportedly in-person meetings in Vienna — on a lower diplomatic level — between figures from Trump’s team and Chinese officials. On the other hand, Beijing is equally perceptible in its concern over the new tariffs that the Trump Administration is threatening against China. The ground for a bargain is fewer tariff barriers in exchange for aid in the peace process. In any case, competition with China will not only be among the Trump Administration’s top priorities, but would be one of its guiding principles. The compression of strategic competitiveness of China and the attempt to keep the power ant technology gap in favour of Washington will be, highly probably, the core of the second Trump Administration’ vis-à-vis Beijing. In addition to efforts to reduce US dependence on Chinese supply chains, the Trump administration will likely launch a second trade war against primarily with aggressive protectionist measures and trade tariffs. The ideological factor is likely to be reduced at the expenses of the human, civic and social rights campaigns in China, on which Biden pushed a lot; there will be a more pragmatic competition (not less dangerous, however). The problem will remain, in the light of the foreseeable need of regional partners and allies; how well the new Administration will be able to consolidate the significant progress made in the relationship with allies by the Biden Administration will remain a critical point.
