How “hawkish” on China does President Biden want to be?  Between the election and inauguration, observers recognized that the Democratic foreign policy establishment is divided.  On the one hand, there is the global issues[1] faction that deprecates great power competition as a diversion from key future developments.  On the other hand, there are the traditionalists who see a strong United States as the leader in a movement to create a rules-based international order that can shackle “evil doers.”   China would provide a first test of which faction had the upper hand. 

            The Biden administration has moved quickly to confront the Peoples’ Republic of China (PRC).[2]  It invited Taiwan’s chief diplomatic representative to Biden’s inauguration; it announced that it would sell weapons to Taiwan; it fended off a Chinese suggestion of talks in the near future by pleading the need to consult allies; it endorsed the Trump administration’s position that China’s Uighur minority art the target of genocide[3]; and allowed the voyage of a naval force to the South China Sea to go forward. 

            On the surface, there is much to like about Biden’s assertion of traditional forms of American power.  At the same time, previous practitioners would warn that it is all too easy to get into an escalating cycle of actions.[4]    

            If Zi wants tough action and not just tough talk, he could order some kind of military demonstration.  Perhaps China could whack the Indians along their common border, as they did in late January, or fly war planes into Taiwan’s air defense zone, as they also did.  The trouble is that such action might bring forth some new action by the Americans.  This, in turn, would require some further response.

The alternative of doing nothing but talk tough in response would be tricky for Zi Jinping.  It could signal weakness or uncertainty to people inside and outside China.  Zi could easily survive foreign perceptions, because he could calmly wait on the growth of Chinese power while looking for safe opportunities to demonstrate it.  Could he survive domestic perceptions of weakness?  Is he sure enough of his position?  Are his rivals sufficiently contained, his enemies imprisoned?[5]  In this case, a renewed round of domestic repression would serve a dual purpose.  On the one hand, it would offer a chance to weed out suspected weak links and dissidents.  On the other hand, human rights is now an entrenched American foreign policy concern.  So, domestic brutality would be both a way of shoring up Zi’s own position while openly defying one of American foreign policy’s stated goals.  What are the Americans going to do about it?  Sovereign countries can pretty much get away with doing whatever they want inside their own borders.  It’s one of the privileges of sovereignty. 

One might expect that Zi will opt for a policy of domestic toughness, notably against any “nationalists” who questions his toughness abroad.  Meanwhile, the US and the PRC probably will continue strengthening their positions.  Perhaps they will find a way out. 

---

[1] Climate change first of all, but then human rights, migration, and—now—pandemic disease. 

[2] Walter Russell Mead, “Can Biden Find Clarity on China and Russia?” WSJ, 14 December 2020; Mead, “Biden’s Opening Salvo on Beijing,” WSJ, date misplaced. 

[3] Biden had said the same thing on the campaign trail before his election. 

[4] For a scary, real-world example, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ef7f9v2HEl0 

[5] In all fairness, it usually took a long series of reverses before a Chinese emperor was said to have lost the “Mandate of Heaven.”