What will China do after Biden takes office

Playing on its consolidated status as the second largest economy in the world, China will seek to position itself before the Biden administration as a savior of the world economy, says sinologist Alice Ekman in a column in “ Le Monde “.

China will continue to follow its path after Joe Biden takes office, as it has for the past eight years. Because the Sino-American rivalry was already deep and ideological before the arrival of Donald Trump. " We must build a socialism that is superior to capitalism, and lay the foundations for a future in which we will conquer the dominant position ," Xi Jinping already said in January 2013, in front of the members of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party.

In Beijing, the pandemic crisis has not called this ambition into question. On the contrary, China has used a diplomacy of masks, then technologies and vaccines (donations and sales of protective equipment, tests, thermal cameras, video conferencing systems, etc.) for a significant number of countries – including in Africa, Latin America. and Southeast Asia. Of course, the pandemic crisis and the propaganda campaigns it launched have deteriorated the image of China in some countries, particularly in Europe, but many others remain open to Chinese proposals.

In recent months, while the United States was in a period of electoral transition, Chinese diplomacy has doubled the activism to sign bilateral and multilateral agreements. In mid-November, fourteen countries in the Asia-Pacific region signed a Comprehensive Regional Economic Partnership (RCEP) with China. An Investment Principle Agreement between China and the European Union (CAI) was signed at the end of December. This Chinese activism will no doubt continue after Joe Biden's investiture. Beijing estimates that 2021 is a year of opportunities to be seized, while the American administration will be primarily occupied with managing Covid-19 on the national territory.

In this context, no softening of Chinese policy in Xinjiang or Hong Kong can be expected. Arrests and arrest warrants against Hong Kong political representatives and activists are likely to continue to multiply in the coming months, ahead of parliamentary elections scheduled for September, and to involve an increasing number of foreign nationals – under the National Security Act adopted by Beijing in June 2020.

Human rights will soon become a dossier of serious tensions between Washington and Beijing, in which President Biden places greater emphasis on his predecessor. On this challenge, as well as on commercial, technological and security issues, the Biden administration plans to cooperate more with its allies to deal with Beijing. The goal is to build a great democratic alliance in front of China, including Japan, South Korea, Australia, India, Canada, the European Union, the United Kingdom and others. Joe Biden has already announced his intention to organize a "summit of democracies" this year. Above all, it intends to consolidate the so-called "Indo-Pacific" strategy, which aims primarily at strengthening military cooperation between partners in the region.

China, on the other hand, will continue its policy of enlarging its " circle of friends ", an ambition declared in these terms by the Chinese president since 2018. For China, in fact, occupying the " dominant position " passes through a new division of the world. in which the United States and its allies would be progressively marginalized in the face of a large group of "friends of China", faithfully supporting its positions on Xinjiang, Hong Kong, Taiwan and other issues of fundamental interest to Beijing. As early as October 2020, China managed to enlist the support of more than 53 countries on Xinjiang at the United Nations, in response to the joint protests of 39 countries against the violations of fundamental rights in the province.

In addition to prolonged activism in multilateral fora to promote its interests – including at the World Health Organization (WHO), while Beijing tries to rewrite the discourse on the origin of the virus -, China will continue to propose its initiatives to the greatest number. possible of countries, including US allies, with the intention of generating a strategic fog for their own benefit. The RCEP is among the signatories of US allied countries such as Japan, South Korea and Australia. The so-called " new silk roads " project counts Italy among its members, which signed a framework agreement in 2019, much to Washington's regret.

As a challenger to the established power, China has an interest in multiplying the initiatives aimed at all countries, those that it already considers " friends " or that could become one. As an established power, the United States expects a clear and convergent position on China from its allies: opposition to the so-called " New Silk Roads " project, closure of markets to Huawei's 5G networks, products and services of Chinese companies that contribute to the surveillance system or forced labor in Xinjiang.

In reality, it is not only difficult to achieve political convergence on these issues, but also, for some countries, to reduce their dependence on Chinese technologies, ubiquitous in their territory in various forms (surveillance cameras, social networks, Alipay payment platform, telecommunications networks 4G, 5G, etc.)

Above all, it is particularly difficult for many countries to limit their dependence on the Chinese market, which is an attractive production and consumption area and which appears to be one of the only countries in the process of returning to growth. By playing on its consolidated status as the second largest economy in the world, China will seek to position itself throughout 2021 as the leading country in overcoming the health crisis but above all as the savior of the world economy. Even if the country were to face a new wave of contamination – a hypothesis that cannot be ruled out – the propaganda organs will do their utmost to maintain this position.

2021, the centenary year of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), will be an unprecedented year of glorification of the Chinese political system, and a year of particularly fierce economic, technological and ideological competition.

Europe can only remain in competition by pursuing strong diplomatic and technological activism now, both bilaterally and within international organizations. This will require strengthening relations with its traditional democratic partners, but also with many other countries outside the European and American territory, with ambition and dynamism.

(Extract from the press review of Eprcomunicazione )