Chi Wang

Opinion | US-China relations: Trump fury is gone but Joe Biden more than capable of talking tough

Despite his declared friendship with Xi Jinping, a look at the US president-elect’s career in Congress shows he has a deep background as a China hawk

Biden is likely to conduct the US-China relationship with more composure than his predecessor, but the bombast of the Trump era will not go away completely

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Chi Wang

Published: 1:00am, 27 Nov 2020Updated: 2:16am, 27 Nov 2020

President Xi Jinping finally contacted US President-elect Joe Biden on Wednesday to congratulate him on his victory. While the Chinese government issued a statement acknowledging the outcome earlier this month, Xi himself held back until after the Trump administration officially initiated the transition process earlier this week. The focus is now on how Biden might approach China.

Biden’s rhetoric has given support to two competing interpretations of his likely policies towards China and its leader. On one hand, he has highlighted his personal background with Xi, with whom he cultivated a relationship when both served as vice-president.

Biden has touted this experience, including in a 2018 speech at the Council on Foreign Relations where he said, “I’ve spent more time in private meetings with Xi Jinping than any world leader.”

This experience is significant as Biden and Xi could be spared from engaging in a symbolic but ultimately meaningless introductory meeting like Barack Obama and Xi’s Sunnylands Summit in 2013 and Trump and Xi’s “chocolate cake summit” at Mar-a-Lago in 2017.

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People on the streets of Beijing react to Biden's US presidential election victory over Trump

Both of these ended with Obama and Trump praising the establishment of a solid relationship with their Chinese counterpart, only to later become frustrated as this relationship failed to bear fruit when it came to actually solving issues.