Then-Vice President Joe Biden raised his glass to Chinese President Xi Jinping at a 2015 luncheon. Credit: U.S. Department of State
In his recent address to the U.S. Congress, President Joe Biden warned that China is deadly serious about trying to become the world’s most significant power. But Biden also declared that autocrats will not win the future; America will. If mishandled, the U.S.-China great-power competition could be dangerous. But if the United States plays it right, the rivalry with China could be healthy.
The success of Biden’s China policy depends partly on China, but also on how the U.S. changes. Maintaining America’s technological lead will be crucial, and will require investing in human capital as well as in research and development. Biden has proposed both. At the same time, the U.S. must cope with new transnational threats such as climate change and a pandemic that has killed more Americans than all the country’s wars, combined, since 1945. Tackling these challenges will require cooperation with China and others.
Biden thus faces a daunting agenda, and is treating th
Exclusive longform investigative journalism, Q&As, news and analysis, and data on Chinese business elites and corporations. We publish China scoops you won't find anywhere else.
A weekly curated reading list on China from David Barboza, Pulitzer Prize-winning former Shanghai correspondent for The New York Times.
A daily roundup of China finance, business and economics headlines.
We offer discounts for groups, institutions and students. Go to our Subscriptions page for details.
In public, Chinese diplomats and climate negotiators deny that they see any link between climate change and geopolitics. But there is a deeply cynical consensus within China’s academic and policy communities that climate change creates geopolitical opportunities that China can exploit — and must exploit before its rivals do. Greenland was the proof of concept for this strategy. And it caught the U.S. flat-footed.
The EU Chamber of Commerce in China president talks about China's self-inflicted problems; how he gets away with being so outspoken; and why he believes in China's comeback gene.