America’s Policy towards China under Two Administrations in the Context of Great Changes: Difference, Influence and Enlightenment

Under the great changes unseen in a century, comprehensive containment and suppression of China in the name of strategic competition has become a crossparty consensus in the United States, with the Republican Trump administration initiating the process of containing and suppressing China and the Democratic Biden administration continuing and developing such a strategy. In the process of implementing this strategy, there are some differences in the goals and means of the two American administrations. The Trump administration was trying to “crush China” with the super strength of the United States, with more extreme and tougher means, being more unilateralist and even going so far as to launch a “new Cold War” against China. The Biden administration, on the other hand, emphasizes long-term competition with China, and focuses on “managing competition” while suppressing China, accustomed to being double-handed and using both carrot and stick. When it comes to addressing global challenges, the Republican Party completely lacks the will to cooperate with China, while the Democratic Party has a certain need for cooperation and action.

The differences in the policies of the two US administrations towards China reflect not only the differences in the personal characteristics of the two US presidents and their governing teams, but also the differences in ideology, political strategies and interests groups of the two parties. Mr. Trump has a perverse personality, belonging to the non-establishment, who is strongly dissatisfied with the mainstream of both parties and does not follow the common sense in governing.Mr. Trump’s policy team was reshuffled several times, with inexperienced but hawkish officials playing a central role. In contrast, Mr. Biden is a career politician in Washington who is familiar with US politics and diplomacy, and most of the core members of his foreign policy team are career diplomats, who have a better understanding of the complexities of diplomacy and China-US relations. The Trump administration and the “Trumpized” Republican Party were bound together,taking extreme anti-China policy and more anti-China than the Democratic Party as a political strategy to show US voters that they are more capable of dealing with the so-called China challenge. On the other hand, the Democratic Party has a strong “liberal international order” complex, while Biden’s foreign policy staff is known as “liberal hawks”, whose starting point for China policy is to maintain the dominance of the Unite States and the leadership of American system, and their goal is to make China bear high competition costs through complex games, so that it cannot continue to have the strength and determination to challenge the hegemony of the United States. Whereas, the Republican Party adheres to conservatism and its diplomacy has a clear color of unilateralism and realism. Mr. Trump injected a strong populist trait into the Republican Party, making more obvious of its characteristics of domestic priority, xenophobia, anti-intellectualism and white supremacy. When it comes to the ideas of China policy, the Trumpized Republican Party, which has integrated the economic nationalism represented by the white bluecollar class, far-right racism, traditional right-wing anti-communist ideology and the hawkish stance in defense, is bound to be more hostile to China.

The competition between the two parties in political power and policy propositions will make US decision-makers cling to hegemonic thinking and find it difficult to fundamentally rethink their China policy. For the 2024 election,Trump, who is trying to make a comeback, claims that if re-elected as US president,he will cancel granting China the most-favored-nation trading status and seek a “complete decoupling” of the Chinese and American economies. Florida Governor Ran DeSantis, a Republican presidential candidate, is trying to establish himself as America’s “first hawk” who is tougher than Trump in his bid to win the party’s nomination. The Republican Party maintains a “supper tough” attitude towards China, and if it comes to power again, it will compress the space for dialogue and cooperation between China and the United States, and China-US relations will further regress. Similar to the coexistence of escalating confrontation and overall easing between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War, the strategic game between China and the United States also has phased and periodic features of tension and easing. However, once a major incident similar to the Ukraine crisis breaks out between China and the United States, both parties in the United States may support large-scale sanctions, comprehensive isolation and military containment and even armed attacks against China. In that case, differences between the two parties in their China policy will be greatly reduced.

In the face of the comprehensive containment and repression against China by the United States, China is fully aware of the changes in its internal and external environment. China is accelerating internal and external strategic adjustment, including: economically, speeding up the construction of a new development paradigm with the domestic circulation as the mainstay and domestic and international circulations reinforcing each other; militarily, promoting the modernization of national defense and armed forces, comprehensively strengthening military training and war readiness, and enhancing the ability and level of safeguarding national interests; diplomatically, actively carrying out majorcountry diplomacy with Chinese characteristics, promoting the building of a community with a shared future for mankind, opposing all kinds of unilateralism,protectionism, hegemonism and power politics, and crushing US attempts to isolate China; ideologically, guarding against the ideological infiltration of the Unite States and the West, and safeguarding national political security, regime security and ideological security; and strategically, adhering to the overall national security concept, balancing development and security as well as opening up and security,and accelerating the establishment of a new security environment to ensure the new development paradigm. Considering that there are some differences in the ways of the two parties in the United States to suppress China, China will adhere to the practices of firmness in principles and flexibility in strategies in the game with the United States, flexibly dealing with the relationship with the US government,Congress and the two parties according to the changing situation, to safeguard its national interests to the maximum extent.