The China dilemma from Trump to Biden: one consensus and three worldviews
The United States underwent a fundamental transformation in its stance on China during the Trump presidency.
This shift is perceived as the expression in Washington of a new consensus on the failure of 40 years of engagement. The policy stands accused of having enabled the rise of an alarmingly powerful China, without rendering it any less dictatorial than in the past. As a result, Sino-American antagonism is deemed inevitable and stands as a given for the new Biden administration.
Yet, this seemingly unanimous diagnosis (China is the enemy) does not lead to an agreement on the policy to be implemented (how should this enemy be dealt with?). An assessment of the past four years reveals hesitations that can not be solely attributed to the former president’s idiosyncrasies. As argued below, this indecisiveness is the product of three conflicting tendencies that differ in how they project the kind of international order in which the United States and China may coexist.
According to the first initiatives of Joe Biden’s new team, the introduction of a narrative of struggle between democracies and autocracies and the persistent need for cooperation place the Democrats in front of the same dilemma as their predecessors’.
The full text of this paper is only available in French: https://www.ifri.org/fr/publications/notes-de-lifri/asie-visions/dilemme-chinois-de-trump-biden-un-consensus-trois-visions
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Center for Asian Studies
Asia is a nerve center for multiple global economic, political and security challenges. The Center for Asian Studies provides documented expertise and a platform for discussion on Asian issues to accompany decision makers and explain and contextualize developments in the region for the sake of a larger public dialogue.
The Center's research is organized along two major axes: relations between Asia's major powers and the rest of the world; and internal economic and social dynamics of Asian countries. The Center's research focuses primarily on China, Japan, India, Taiwan and the Indo-Pacific, but also covers Southeast Asia, the Korean peninsula and the Pacific Islands.
The Centre for Asian Studies maintains close institutional links with counterpart research institutes in Europe and Asia, and its researchers regularly carry out fieldwork in the region.
The Center organizes closed-door roundtables, expert-level seminars and a number of public events, including an Annual Conference, that welcome experts from Asia, Europe and the United States. The work of Center’s researchers, as well as that of their partners, is regularly published in the Center’s electronic journal Asie.Visions.
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