‘His attitude and approach toward China are tougher and more unrestrained than Biden’s.’
‘His attitude and approach toward China are tougher and more unrestrained than Biden’s.’
O ne of the leading members of an influential Chinese Communist Party body warned that Donald Trump’s possible return to the presidency could provoke confrontation with China, calling the former president “relatively reckless and emotional.” He said the reelection of Joe Biden would be better for Beijing.
“A Trump victory would have a relatively big impact on U.S.–China ties. Judging from his behavior during his first term and subsequent statements, his attitude and approach toward China are tougher and more unrestrained than Biden’s,” said Jia Qingguo, an academic who also sits on the standing committee of the Chinese People’s Political and Consultative Conference (CPPCC).
His thoughts on the American elections were translated and published today by the Sinification newsletter, based on interviews he gave to Chinese outlets earlier this month. In addition to his government role, Jia is director of Peking University’s Institute for Global Cooperation and Understanding.
Jia is one of over 300 members of the CPPCC standing committee, and his remarks don’t necessarily represent the view of China’s top government officials. In a note accompanying the newsletter, Rick Waters, a former U.S. official who led the State Department’s internal China-focused division, wrote that Chinese elite views on the U.S. presidential race remain divided.
In fact, Jia’s comments might also reflect an approach that is more conciliatory than China’s aggressive foreign-policy stances. If Trump is elected, he said, China cannot afford to adopt a “tit-for-tat approach,” and it might be in the country’s interest to wait to respond to U.S. actions.
The remarks are noteworthy because the CPPCC is a powerful government body that connects Beijing’s united-front networks, convening party officials with Chinese elites from across society. The chairman of the CPPCC is Wang Huning, the fourth-most-senior official in the party’s hierarchy, and he is considered by China analysts in the West to be Xi Jinping’s chief political theorist.
Jia said that while the Chinese might have viewed Trump as pragmatic upon his election in 2016, “his type of pragmatism is mostly based on outdated concepts and political self-interest.” His views on trade are, he said, “stuck in the 19th century.”
He also hit Trump for taking a call from Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-wen after his election in November 2016, describing this as “a terrible precedent.”
Commenting further on Trump, he added: “He then said that the [U.S.’s] ‘One-China policy’ could not be granted for free, meaning that ‘you, China, still have to give me something in return.’ After the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, he himself did not handle [this issue] properly and then dumped the blame on China.”
Jia accused Trump of playing up “the Taiwan issue” by sending officials to the country. He “even made preparations for his Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to visit the island,” he said. “If that visit had gone ahead, it would [have] inevitably led to a fierce clash between China and the U.S.”
Trump’s reelection would probably lead to “severe friction and confrontation” with China, Jia predicted
On the other hand, he predicted that Biden, if reelected, would continue to implement policies that “are relatively pragmatic and rational.” In this view, Biden would try to avoid conflict over Taiwan and would implement a policy that prioritizes cooperation between Washington and Beijing on climate change, public health, and “other global governance-related issues.”
“With Biden in office, there will still be continuous friction and quite a few conflicts between the U.S. and China,” Jia said, adding that Biden might be slightly more likely to win because centrist voters could pick him over Trump.
He also praised the recent resumption of high-level diplomatic meetings between the U.S. and China, which culminated last November in a summit between Biden and Xi. China should bide its time, he advised: “China can be a little more proactive and not get too serious with the United States on non-principled issues because the U.S. is, for now at least, still more powerful than China.”