From Trump to Biden and Beyond

As we stand at the brink of the fourth industrial revolution the United States and China are running different playbooks. This chapter examines how the United States playbook is a free-for-all of distinct corporate partnerships, strategic initiatives, and M&A. China, meanwhile, is running a strategic and highly coordinated playbook that includes the direct and massive government support of national champion technology companies. More importantly though, many have juxtaposed the current U.S. and China relationship to the Cold War. This is a misleading and dangerous comparison. The U.S.SR was a three-legged stool with two legs already wobbling. Gary Rieschel, Founder and Managing Partner of Qiming Venture Partners notes, “In any competition, there are moves and countermoves. It has been decades since the United States has had an economic competitor that required any significant change in United States thinking. Japan was that competitor in the 80s. China has become that competitor in the twenty-first century, and on a more comprehensive basis. Our responses to this should not eliminate the opportunity for future cooperation in areas of our mutual best interest.” Moreover, we can equate the current geopolitical rivalry between Beijing and Washington as the United States playing defense and China playing more offense.

The U.S.-listed Chinese companies have been the focus of Wall Street, Washington, and beyond. There have been plenty of new developments in this sector. Firstly, Chinese companies have launched many successful new IPOs on the U.S. stock exchanges. Secondly, accounting fraud and other irregularities in this sector have created major headlines. Regulators in the United States have forced several Chinese companies to delist. United States. Congressmen and Senators have called for a blanket ban on these companies. Through this chapter, we intend to review the historical development and current situation of Chinese companies listed in the United States, and outline some realistic approaches for the next decade. It needs to be stated clearly that there are tremendous benefits created by the Chinese companies that come to trade on the U.S. stock exchanges. A more collaborative and reciprocal relationship would be an achievable goal for the White House’s new administration. Chinese companies should continue to be welcomed to the American stock exchanges, just like all other foreign companies. However, American accounting standards need to be applied rigorously. Management and controlling shareholders need to be held accountable for illicit behavior.

Looking back at the last four years of media headlines, a picture of an adversarial relationship between China and the United States appears as the central narrative; a bilateral relationship that is highly stressed. This narrative includes tough rhetoric focusing on the ongoing trade war, threats of technological decoupling, and the use of harsh economic statecraft in the form of sanctions and high tariffs. Ties with Beijing were tense and contentious under the last U.S. administration, where strong man and militaristic language was the norm. Think of U.S.–China trade war, and the verbiage against China. Former President Trump made China a target of harsh rhetoric with the aim to limit China’s growing global power. What U.S. foreign policy failed to consider was how far ahead China was in many of the areas the United States had historically led on, and how China was undergoing its own national and international security repositioning. It was and remains a contest for power, but where does energy and climate come in, are these areas also prone to discontent?

Although still based on the commodities trade, China’s relations with the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) have grown increasingly complex over the past two decades, as demonstrated by the changing trends in investment and finance to the resource-rich region. There, Chinese entities continue to be active in key sectors, including extractives and agriculture, which make China a major economic partner to many of the region’s largest economies, including Argentina, Brazil, and Chile. In comparison with the past, between 2017–2020, the region also played a larger role in China’s foreign policy, which has come to include the region more frequently in its programs, such as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). In comparison to much of Asia, where the hardline stance adopted by the administration of Donald J. Trump was received favorably by countries which look toward Washington as a security partner, LAC countries broadly rejected the administration’s antagonism toward Beijing. This was on the one hand a consequence of the administration’s heavy-handed approach to LAC, which only exacerbated Washington’s long-term neglect of the region, and on the other hand the result of China’s already significant presence in many of its countries.

For the Biden Administration to break new ground in U.S.–Africa relations while curbing China's growing influence, reversing Trump’s actions is insufficient if it means simply returning to the pre-Trump status quo. Instead, for the benefit of both the U.S. and African countries, a bold new partnership framework is essential. China’s growing presence on the continent, which shows no signs of stopping, results from a fundamental respect of the power of African markets and resources, if not necessarily African people or African governments. The United States should differentiate itself by playing up its comparative advantages in engagement, innovation, and norm-setting. Engagement involves initiatives such as significantly increasing high-level visits to the African continent and vice versa, as well as expanding U.S. immigration paths for African students in the U.S. Innovation should be built around two pillars: rhetoric and certification. The U.S. should refrain from referring to Chinese financial flows as “investment” when not meeting equity requirements, while also providing assistance on certification systems for African infrastructure. Finally, in terms of norm-setting, the United States can once serve a global leadership role in pressing issues such as promoting COVID vaccination supply and supporting debt relief, actions which will reverberate beyond simply countering China.

“This chapter analyzes how China has actively engaged countries in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), in particular the UAE and Saudi Arabia. As the GCC powerhouses Saudi Arabia and the UAE seek to diversify their economies and attract more foreign investment, enhancing and bolstering trade and economic relations with other regional powers have become core priorities. However, given the Gulf’s inherent reliance on the security umbrella of the United States to establish an effective deterrent against Iran, the GCC states may inevitably find themselves engaged in a balancing act due to increasing animosity between their primary security and commercial benefactors as well as the United States’ growing disinterest in the region.”

When the U.S. government developed its “America First” philosophy during the last four years, the position of global leadership was left vacant. Since Joe Biden entered the White House as 46th President of the United States, he announced, “diplomacy is back at the center of foreign policy.” While that may be the case, significant challenges remain. Regaining global leadership, reassuring alliances, and reestablishing credibility are the most urgent American foreign policy objectives. Particularly, repairing key U.S. allies in the East Asia region is urgent to rebalance the power between the United States and China—the region considered most critical with respect to global security and economic growth. The United States needs to cooperate with key allies such as South Korea and Japan to avoid repeating mistakes made by its predecessor and to confront the challenge of China’s expanding influence. China’s strategic diplomacy has been bold and sophisticated, so the United States should rethink its strategies to face the geopolitical prowess of China and realign its relations with regional partners to reinforce regional security and influence in East Asia. To that end, Washington should proceed in building high technology and economy-focused trilateral relationships and secure the foundation of regional alliances.

The Biden administration should extend US–China climate change cooperation, and pursue opportunities for virtuous competition that can accelerate global climate mitigation. Obama-era efforts saw the United States and China develop a tangible climate partnership that was fundamental to the construction and enactment of the Paris Agreement. Following rollbacks from President Trump, Biden has the chance to reinvigorate and evolve the former partnership for the current state of both the climate challenge and the wider US–China relationship. This chapter offers eight recommendations for how: (1) return to regular climate dialogue that [re]builds trust and familiarity; (2) develop adjacent bilateral climate goals that create mutual accountability and signal ambition to the rest of the world; (3) negotiate to buttress climate finance and roll back coal investment through major international venues; (4) drive virtuous competition with China through strategic infrastructure and R&D investments; (5) mainstream climate issues in bilateral trade relations, at the WTO, and through the potential deployment of carbon border adjustment tools; (6) expand and support track- II, subnational, and sectoral dialogue to find areas of pragmatic climate cooperation; (7) help find mutually acceptable solutions to outstanding barriers to Paris Agreement implementation, particularly the exchange of mitigation outcomes across borders; and (8) insulate climate change from spoilers rooted in other avenues of the US–China relationship.

This chapter introduces contemporary cross-Strait relations from 2016 to early 2021, followed by a section that briefly discusses the highly unpredictable, or unprecedented, policies of President Donald Trump toward the two sides of the Taiwan Strait. Emphasis is also placed on President Joe Biden’s policies toward the Mainland and Taiwan, with a focus on “strategic ambiguity” of the Biden administration that involves the three U.S.-PRC communiqués, the Taiwan Relations Act, as well as the “six assurances” to Taiwan. The chapter ends with two scenarios between the U.S. and the PRC that are more possible to take place in the coming four years.

The rise of China and its competition with the United States are the most important geopolitical factors in the twenty-first century. No country in the world, especially in the Indo-Pacific region, can be distant from the two superpowers’ competitive coexistence or avoid considering how to deal with this issue. FOIP, the Indo-Pacific, and the Quad are outcomes of this global trend. Although the United States, Japan, India, Australia, ASEAN, and Europe have their agendas and interests, there are many areas of overlap regarding China. The key to its successful coordination is the U.S.’s continued commitment in the region, which needs to be supported by each country’s efforts for mutually complementary cooperation. Allies and partners of the United States are likely to form multi-layered coalitions, in which FOIP’s vision and the Quad framework have a great potential to play a central role. Key issues will be military and security, technology, supply chain, governance, and economic development assistance. Japan is expected to play the leading role for this cooperation, considering its historically solid alliance with the U.S., broad and stable partnership with India, Australia and Southeast Asian countries as well as long-term experience of managing relations with China.