Follow us on social

Shutterstock_614176682-scaled

Biden is playing into great power competition trap with China

His team has so far sounded more like Trump than the departure from the past it promised during the campaign.

Analysis | Asia-Pacific

The Interim National Security Strategic Guidance issued by the Biden Administration on March 3 correctly recognizes the unprecedented breadth of the security challenges now confronting the United States, from climate change to extremist right-wing terrorism. Unfortunately, regarding China, it largely repeats the same old conventional language of contention and hostility, while grudgingly acknowledging that the U.S. will need to work with Beijing in some areas. 

This is indicative of the overall stance taken by the Biden Administration on by far the most important bilateral relationship in the world today. We can and should do better. 

Before taking office, Biden National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and others who have now joined the Biden Administration explicitly stated that they do not favor a Cold War with China, titanic ideological struggles, or fruitless efforts to restore American primacy. And they certainly expressed a desire for more positive consultation with allies and partners than occurred during the failed Trump Administration. 

But since taking office, the dominant themes and initiatives on China and East Asia today sound more like the old zero-sum, dominance-oriented Trump “strategy” toward Beijing of yesterday. These include repeated references to strategic competition and the correctness of Trump’s basic hardline approach to Beijing, the formation of a Pentagon Task Force focused on how best to counter China, and assertions of a need to restore America’s “traditional role” in Asia. There have been formal statements by leading Biden officials hyping the central importance of the “pacing threat” posed by China, and, as noted above, the usual throw-away lines about cooperation with Beijing in some areas, as needed. While correctly stressing the top-priority requirement to strengthen U.S. competitiveness and Washington’s image in the world, the Interim National Security Strategic Guidance, as with other Biden documents and statements, seems to avoid talking specifically about how best to engage Beijing and East Asia in more positive-sum, cooperative ways that benefit all parties. 

The continued (albeit slightly reduced) Biden emphasis on great-power competition with China both inflates the threat China poses to the United States and risks downplaying the need to cooperate deeply with Beijing on handling an array of urgent transnational perils, including (but not limited to) climate change and pandemics. It also seems to ignore the risks and costs of a China-centered East Asia policy in which Washington is apparently to play its traditional role as the dominant regional security guarantor. This will increase, not decrease, the likelihood of crises and conflict with Beijing, something no Asian nation wants. 

At a time when Washington should focus beyond all else on combating the COVID-19 pandemic, building resilience against the worsening climate crisis, and strengthening the foundations of the global economic order, the Biden administration should avoid making conflict with China more likely. And, despite showing greater negativity toward China, the American public seems to agree. A survey by the Eurasia Group Foundation from last September found that a majority of Americans support working with other countries to tackle global issues and participate in international institutions, more so than maintaining a large overseas troop presence and security commitments. 

To be sure, China’s rise creates many challenges, some threatening, to certain U.S. interests, especially in the economic and technological arenas. And Beijing at times takes actions that violate its own constitution and international agreements it has signed, including with regard to human rights. But it does not pose an existential threat to the United States, and the United States, for its part, does not have the capacity to return to its former hegemonic role in the world or even in East Asia, in order to keep China in place— a role that has had corrosive effects on our democracy.

Moreover, China’s growing global role and its mutually beneficial relations with many countries, including Washington’s allies, clearly demand a U.S. strategy that is far more flexible and varied than what we have heard from Biden officials thus far. Indeed, few if any other nations will endorse a renewed U.S. claim to global leadership animated by a struggle between democratic and authoritarian states. 

In short, a bold rethinking of U.S. priorities and modes of interacting with China and other nations is in order, one that truly prioritizes domestic revitalization and diplomacy over great power contention, balance and mutual accommodation over dominance, and transnational threats over adversarial state-centered rivalries. In the critical East Asia region, such a strategy must prioritize regional cooperative security efforts, including both bilateral and multilateral collaboration to counter common threats. It should pursue a denial- (not control-) oriented military strategy toward China (coupled with more diplomacy to reduce tensions over Taiwan and maritime disputes). On the Korean Peninsula, it should follow a pragmatic policy of peace and phased denuclearization, and efforts to enhance the mutual benefits produced via trade, investment and technology development.

In all of this, Washington should reassure other Asian nations that it will not take actions that further polarize the region. 

If U.S. foreign policy leaders truly want to serve the interests and expressed desires of the American middle and working classes, the Biden Administration will need to recognize that Washington’s most serious challenges require extensive levels of cooperation and mutual accommodation with other nations, including China. While some levels of competition, deterrence, and constrainment toward Beijing remain relevant, policies in support of such efforts will only prove effective if they are placed within a larger strategic context centered on much more than great power competition. 


January 3, 2017: Group of Chinese army soldiers in uniform lining up in Tiananmen Square, Beijing.
Analysis | Asia-Pacific
Trade review process could rock the calm in US-Mexico relations
Top image credit: Rawpixel.com and Octavio Hoyos via shutterstock.com

Trade review process could rock the calm in US-Mexico relations

North America

One of the more surprising developments of President Trump’s tenure in office thus far has been the relatively calm U.S. relationship with Mexico, despite expectations that his longstanding views on trade, immigration, and narcotics would lead to a dramatic deterioration.

Of course, Mexico has not escaped the administration’s tariff onslaught and there have been occasional diplomatic setbacks, but the tenor of ties between Trump and President Claudia Sheinbaum has been less fraught than many had anticipated. However, that thaw could be tested soon by economic disagreements as negotiations open on a scheduled review of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement (USMCA).

keep readingShow less
Trump Rubio
Top image credit: US Secretary of State Marco Rubio (right) is seen in the Oval Office with US President Donald Trump (left) during a meeting with the King of Jordan, Abdullah II Ibn Al-Hussein in the Oval Office the White House in Washington DC on Tuesday, February 11, 2025. Credit: Aaron Schwartz / Pool/Sipa USA via REUTERS
The US-Colombia drug war alliance is at a breaking point

Trump poised to decertify Colombia

Latin America

It appears increasingly likely that the Trump administration will move to "decertify" Colombia as a partner in its fight against global drug trafficking for the first time in 30 years.

The upcoming determination, due September 15, could trigger cuts to hundreds of millions of dollars in bilateral assistance, visa restrictions on Colombian officials, and sanctions on the country's financial system under current U.S. law. Decertification would strike a major blow to what has been Washington’s top security partner in the region as it struggles with surging coca production and expanding criminal and insurgent violence.

keep readingShow less
Trump Vance Rubio
Top image credit: President Donald Trump meets with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President JD Vance before a call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Monday, August 18, 2025, in the Oval Office. (Official White House Photo by Daniel Torok)

The roots of Trump's wars on terror trace back to 9/11

Global Crises

The U.S. military recently launched a plainly illegal strike on a small civilian Venezuelan boat that President Trump claims was a successful hit on “narcoterrorists.” Vice President JD Vance responded to allegations that the strike was a war crime by saying, “I don’t give a shit what you call it,” insisting this was the “highest and best use of the military.”

This is only the latest troubling development in the Trump administration’s attempt to repurpose “War on Terror” mechanisms to use the military against cartels and to expedite his much vaunted mass deportation campaign, which he says is necessary because of an "invasion" at the border.

keep readingShow less

LATEST

QIOSK

Newsletter

Subscribe now to our weekly round-up and don't miss a beat with your favorite RS contributors and reporters, as well as staff analysis, opinion, and news promoting a positive, non-partisan vision of U.S. foreign policy.