Because Biden will look to India and Russia to contain China
One of the main problems that US President Biden will have to face is the definition of the US "global strategy" towards China. The analysis of General Carlo Jean
One of the main problems facing the new American president Joe Biden is the definition of the US "global strategy" towards China. The optimistic policy that economic growth would provoke the democratization and liberalization of the authoritarian Chinese regime has failed. Trump 's policy of containing and folding China with trade sanctions and technological embargoes also failed , as was done with the USSR in the Cold War. Also eroded is the belief – especially alive in "mercantile" Europe – that the burden of facing Beijing rests exclusively with the US and its Asian allies, and that the EU can "call itself out" and continue to benefit from trade with the China.
With his unilateralism, Trump not only had not sought the support of the US's European and Asian allies, but had also openly treated them as adversaries, if not as traitors and profiteers of US strategic protection. The result of this policy was disastrous. US allies have concluded economic partnership agreements with China. The development of trade now makes them reluctant to put any pressure on Beijing. Biden's road to rebuilding a certain Western cohesion to face the Chinese ambitions of world hegemony is definitely uphill. Perhaps the only significant alliance remains the Quad, especially in the event of increased tensions between India and China. A deliberate military option is increasingly unlikely, despite the strategic superiority of the US – which has more than 6,000 nuclear warheads, compared to the approximately 300 Chinese. The geography that hinders China's free access to ocean routes. However, an escalation remains following accidents, especially in the South China Sea and Taiwan.
The geopolitical changes that have taken place, both in the Indo-Pacific system, and within the US and its traditional alliances, greatly complicate Biden's task of defining what to do with Beijing. He is perhaps persuaded that the danger for the US is not so much China's growth as the authoritarianism of Chinese power and its state control of the economy. China is not the USSR. It does not present the systemic vulnerabilities, which formed the basis of the "Truman Doctrine" and the containment of the Soviet empire during the Cold War until its economic collapse. The confrontation between the US and China is above all between liberal democracy and the authoritarianism of state capitalism, albeit open to the globalized economy. It concerns the economic sector and above all the technological one. The US can only prevail with the full support of its European and Asian allies. It will be achievable only after the US has regained some internal cohesion and restored its international prestige. Easy to say, but very difficult to do, also because "Trumpism" did not disappear with the defeat of Trump. For many Americans, the fascination of America First remains, only partially attenuated by America is Back, proclaimed by Biden and which has aroused so much applause in its skeptical allies.
In the face of American uncertainties, the Chinese "grand strategy" is clear. Since the beginning of the century, it has been proposed to erode US hegemony, starting with the Asia-Pacific system, now extended to the Indian Ocean. To achieve this goal, Beijing used multilateralism and, with the Silk Road, tended to unify the whole of Eurasia around the Chinese economy and finance. It also resorted to the so-called "debt trap", acquiring strategic assets from states that are no longer in a position to return Chinese credits. Recently, the "debt trap" is proving to be a boomerang. Beijing has significantly reduced the BIS loans, in favor of the domestic market, adopting the policy of "dual circulation", based on internal consumption and not only on exports. It is also aimed at enabling it to better resist the "trade war" and the diminishing vulnerability of Western industries from Chinese supply chains.
In the longer term, Xi Jinping pointed to 2049, the centenary of the creation of the People's Republic, the year in which China will become the world's leading power, with the PLA in a position to win a global conflict. Multilateralism and quiet or peaceful rise have been replaced by increasing aggression and the declared aspiration to hegemony. Beijing already adopts a hegemonic policy in its immediate suburbs. Trump's unilateralism and the pandemic have accelerated it. Of course, there are various questions about the success of this policy. What will be the effects of the increase in Beijing's soft power due to the successes in managing the pandemic and its "health diplomacy"? Will China be able to overcome its demographic and ecological difficulties and the gaps between countryside and cities? What are the real objectives of the ongoing military modernization? What policies will Europe, Russia and India follow?
Trump's "erratic" unilateralism has created tensions between the US and its European and Asian allies. Their economic competition has been assimilated to a geopolitical rivalry. The US withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations, which excluded China, led them to conclude agreements with Beijing that exclude Washington ( CPPP and CPPP). The possibility of an organic understanding between the two superpowers, that is of "Chimerica" or G-2, proposed by Robert Zoellick at the beginning of the century and which had constituted the main reason for China's premature admission to the WTO, has disappeared, transforming, as Kissinger said, China in a Frankenstein. Similar tensions have experienced the transatlantic relations. The European reaction was the CIA (Comprehensive Investment Agreement), concluded with Beijing, under pressure from Berlin, just before the change of US presidency.
Biden will face the erosion of American influence. There is a heated debate on whether and how it will "mend" with traditional US allies and how much public opinion and Congress are willing to "pay" to achieve – and to what extent – this goal. Perhaps, it will have to focus on making agreements with India and, contrary to its repeatedly expressed convictions, on seeking, like Trump and as Macron proposed, agreements with Moscow, to prevent it from becoming an ally of Beijing, despite its fears of the "yellow peril ".
Second, Beijing's successes in the fight against the pandemic and its massive health aid to many countries have increased Chinese prestige and influence in the world. They have contributed to the decrease in the international prestige of the West and the USA and to the crisis of liberal democracies with respect to authoritarian systems. Their opposition represents the essential ideological component of the contrast with China. The "crusade" in support of democracy and human rights, which Biden places at the center of the US "return" to the world scene, does not seem attractive enough to most of the least developed countries of Africa and Latin America, which still do today struggling with the pandemic, with the economic and food crisis and with the lack of adequate ruling classes.
Achieving the unity of democracies is the precondition for any effective Washington strategy towards Beijing. It is much more difficult to achieve than it was in the Cold War. First, because China is much stronger and less vulnerable than the USSR. It has a more skilled and flexible ruling class. He knows how to use the “divide and rule” strategy with mastery. Second, because the US is deeply divided internally. A bipartisan approach to foreign policy, such as that which existed during the Cold War, is not possible. Third, because the majority of Americans are convinced that the Allies are taking advantage of them. This problem is much more delicate than it was in the Cold War. There is a growing tension between strategic rivalry and economic interests. Fourth, strategically critical technologies are also dual. Strategic embargoes will inevitably erode the trade partnership between the EU and China. This also depends on the characteristics of the confrontation between the US and China. More than military, it is economic, financial and above all technological. Fifth, the ability of the US to impose common rules on its allies – for example in terms of strategic technology or supply chain embargoes – with secondary extra-territorial sanctions is much less than it was in the past. The only sector that allows the US to "punish" deviations from Washington's decisions is the vulnerability of the euro against the dollar (as seen in the restoration of sanctions on Iran).
After Biden's solemn declaration at the recent Wehrkunde Conference and the G-7 in London that America is Back, a long and arduous series of initiatives will have to follow that will nullify the widespread conviction of the inevitability of American disengagement from world affairs and US unwillingness to resume its traditional leadership of democracies.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/perche-biden-guardera-india-e-alla-russia-per-contenere-la-cina/ on Mon, 22 Feb 2021 10:50:10 +0000.