Lost chance to reset Sino-US ties

Biden fails to chart new course as strategic competitive race with China continues apace

Joe Biden took office a year ago with an opportunity to reset relations between the United States and China. One year into his presidency, his administration has largely maintained the China policies of his predecessor, Donald Trump.

The Biden administration has expanded economic sanctions and tightened export restrictions on Chinese technology firms, and continued prosecuting scientists of Chinese heritage on so-called national security grounds.

Under Trump, Chinese companies were put on blacklists that prevent US companies from selling software and components to those on the lists without first obtaining a US government license. The Biden administration has made it harder to receive such a license.

Biden’s squandered opportunity has prompted at least observers to say that the US will lose out with its pursuit of shortsighted policies.

George Koo, a retired international business adviser in Silicon Valley, said the US government’s hostility against Chinese scholars was akin to “cutting our own nose to spite our face”.

Another observer, former Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd, said, “By the time we had a new administration coming to office one year ago, I should say, the relationship was genuinely in free fall.”

But he notes that “strategic competition remains in place” despite the change in administration.

The Biden administration has maintained blacklists on Chinese companies, and added its own.

Throughout last year, Chinese companies and research institutes were added to the blacklists of US agencies, including the departments of commerce, treasury and defense.

In March, Huawei, ZTE and three other Chinese companies were added to a new blacklist published by the US telecom regulator, the Federal

Communications Commission, on “national security concerns”.

The US Commerce Department in April 2021 added seven Chinese supercomputing entities to its blacklist, known as the Entity List, citing national security concerns.

In November, a dozen more Chinese entities, including eight technology entities, were placed on the Entity List for the same reasons. A month later, 34 more Chinese entities and research institutes were added to the list.

In December, the US Department of Treasury put SenseTime, a Chinese artificial intelligence company, on its investment blacklist for alleged human rights abuses. Days later, the department put another eight Chinese technology firms, including top drone maker DJI, on the blacklist for similar concerns.

The Biden administration also has been promoting the so-called Chips Act, which includes $52 billion in federal investment to boost the nation’s capabilities in the design and manufacturing of semiconductors.

Experts have said it is impossible to decouple the US chip sector from its strategic rival given the global nature of the semiconductor industry.

In 2021, prosecutions of academics and researchers with Chinese ties also continued.

The US Justice Department has recently updated the online information sheet of the so-called China Initiative, highlighting dozens of cases. Despite calls for the Biden administration to rescind the initiative, Attorney General Merrick Garland has reaffirmed to Congress his commitment to combat “Chinese espionage” and “intellectual property theft”.

Statistics on prosecutions under the “China Initiative” — recently compiled by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology — suggest that the US Justice Department has aggressively broadened its focus over time, to the point of prosecuting cases that it eventually dropped or were dismissed.

The targeting of Chinese scientists and the bias exhibited in describing all Chinese as spies will result in the US losing out, Koo said.

“Because the greatest source of STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) graduates are coming from China,” he said.

Rudd, who is now president and CEO of the Asia Society, said at a conference that since Biden took office, the US’ overall strategic competitive race with China has continued apace.

During Trump’s time in office, all guardrails around the bilateral relationship slowly fell away, said Rudd.

He said Biden’s priority is to rebuild the nation’s economic infrastructure and the critical industries lie in information technology and the US’ “historical competitive advantage” in semiconductors.

“As we move into the second year of the Biden ministration, rebuilding America at home is the cornerstone of US strategy in dealing with China,” he said.