Donald Trump talked tough on China early and often, but his policies did little to impede the country as its economy zoomed ahead.
Economists can debate whether Joe Biden’s China policy is working. With this U.S presidency barely at the two-year mark, the jury remains out.
But one clear check in Biden’s column is the extent to which China must be missing Donald Trump.
Now, Chinese leader Xi Jinping would never admit as much publicly. But there should be no doubt that Biden’s maneuvers have made life tougher for Asia’s biggest economy. Trump talked tough on China early and often. His actual policies, though, often seemed like a clown-car full of spoilers tossing eggs at China as its economy zoomed ahead unimpeded.
Did Trump’s trade war create a big, headline-grabbing mess? Oh yes. Did his White House unleashing Peter Navarro, author of “Death by China,” on Beijing raise Xi’s hackles? Definitely. Did Trump’s taxes on Chinese imports cause chaos for Asia’s exporters and unnerve the Communist Party? Indeed.
But did four years of Trump egging and trolling China alter Beijing’s trajectory, behavior or Xi’s big-picture ambitions? Only with strained and paradoxical arguments can anyone suggest Trump did.
Biden, by sharp contrast, is landing some body blows. Moves to delist increasing numbers of mainland companies trading in New York and limit Chinese access to semiconductors, chip-making equipment and other vital technologies are impeding Xi’s “Made in China 2025” plan to dominate the future of virtually every corner of innovation you can name.
China can try to find ways around Biden’s economic blockade. It already is. But that takes time and a level of nuanced diplomacy for which Xi’s government rarely displays a capacity.
In the meantime, Xi’s ability to raise China’s game in supercomputing, guiding weapons, devising new alternative energy sources, making better electric vehicles, honing artificial intelligence tools and expanding networks for surveilling dissidents and minorities is far more complicated than it would’ve been if Trump had finagled a second term.
Again, geopolitical wags will—and do—debate the wisdom of Biden’s approach to China. His failure to scrap Trump’s ineffective tariffs remains confounding, especially since surging inflation gives him a great excuse. Biden’s decision not to rejoin and expand the U.S.-initiated Trans-Pacific Partnership on which Trump reneged is a clear own goal.
But Trump, remember, made life easy for Xi in many respects. From 2017 to early 2021, Trump’s trade war created global sympathy for China. His anti-China rhetoric helped Xi consolidate power domestically and rile up public opinion. Trump’s xenophobic barbs at Beijing amidst the pandemic divided global support to bring officials in Wuhan to account.
Then there were the ways Trump shot his economy in the foot. Trump lost allies one by one. His disastrous approach to Covid-19 set back U.S. growth and Washington’s global standing. His attacks on the Federal Reserve added momentum to dollar alternatives, including the Chinese yuan.
Xi’s “Made in China 2025” plan has been impeded by Biden’s maneuvers.
Whatever you think of Bidenomics, the U.S. isn’t scoring into China’s net. If it is, it’s the occasional misfire—not a weekly barrage of errant plays.
The coalition that Biden built around Ukraine’s plight amid Russian attacks pushed Xi’s “wolf warrior” diplomacy off balance. Xi’s unsightly support for Vladimir Putin made China seem more isolated and unwilling to play a stakeholder role in global affairs. The fallout from the conflict also buttressed global support for Taiwan.
Putin, of course, must also be missing Trump, a political neophyte Moscow played time and time again. Had Trump still been around, the U.S. might not be helping Ukraine at all. Over in Riyadh, Saudi leader Mohammed bin Salman, known as MBS, also yearns for the good old Trump days.
Xi, too. Is it really a reach to think Xi couldn’t have bought Trump off on the Taiwan issue with promises of handbag patents for daughter Ivanka or beachfront property rights on the island?
Arguably, Kamala Harris, Biden’s vice president, visiting a disputed Philippine island this week is unhelpful. It pokes China for very little payoff. Neither Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. nor predecessor Rodrigo Duterte have a China problem.
Still, Biden’s diplomatic tightrope act leaves him with space to maneuver. Though he’s been much tougher on China than Trump, Biden’s recent tête-à-tête with Xi in Bali had all the makings of a timely reboot in Sino-U.S. relations.
Economist Dan Wang at Gavekal Research saw it as evidence “the downward spiral in U.S.-China relations has paused.” The tone of the summit on the sidelines of a Group of 20 gathering, Wang says, seemed constructive, perhaps confounding rather low expectations.
Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers agrees. Summers, now at Harvard University, tells Bloomberg that he’s “encouraged by what I saw,” which seemed a “constructive movement” in economic cooperation. In other words, there’s scope for the second half of Biden’s term for something approaching a happy ending from the last several years.
Summers adds that “if we change our focus from building ourselves up to tearing China down, I think we will be making a very risky and very unfortunate choice.”
The good news is that Biden is doing more of the former than his predecessor ever did. Case in point: Biden’s $300 billion investment in research and development to reinvigorate U.S. tech and boost productivity. Biden’s so-called Inflation Reduction Act is adding momentum to clean energy innovation.
True, Biden’s effort to enliven America’s animal spirits has only just begun. But it means Xi confronts a White House rebuilding economic muscle at home, not just spinning its wheels for show.