USA’s top foreign policy challenge is to avoid a cold war with China

President Joe Biden’s administration faces a host of difficult problems, but in foreign policy its thorniest will be its relations with the People’s Republic of China.

How the new administration handles issues of trade, security, and human rights will either allow both countries to hammer out a working relationship or pull the US into an expensive and unwinnable cold war that will shelve existential threats like climate change and nuclear war.

The first hurdle will be the toxic atmosphere created by the Trump administration. By targeting the Chinese Communist Party as the US’s major worldwide enemy, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo essentially called for regime change, which in diplomatic terms means a fight to the death. But while Trump exacerbated tensions between Washington and Beijing, many of the disputes go back more than 70 years. Recognizing that history will be essential if the parties are to reach some kind of détente.

This will not be easy. Polls in the two countries show a growing antagonism in both people’s views of one another and an increase of nationalism that may be difficult to control.

Most Chinese think the US is determined to isolate their country, surround it with hostile allies, and prevent it from becoming a world power. Many Americans think China is an authoritarian bully that has robbed them of well-paying industrial jobs. There is a certain amount of truth in both viewpoints.

Imperial Insecurities and the South China Sea

most of recorded human history, China was the world’s leading economy. But starting with the first Opium War in 1839, British, French, Japanese, German, and American colonial powers fought five major wars, and many minor ones, with China, seizing ports and imposing trade agreements. The Chinese have never forgotten those dark years, and any diplomatic approach that doesn’t take that history into account is likely to fail.

The most difficult — and dangerous — friction point today is the South China Sea, a 1.4 million square mile body of water that borders South China, Vietnam, Indonesia, Borneo, Brunei, Taiwan, and the Philippines. Besides being a major trade route, it is rich in natural resources.

The Frayed Détente Over Taiwan

The tensions in the South China sea go back to the Chinese civil war between the communists and nationalists, in which the Americans backed the losing side. When the defeated nationalists retreated to Taiwan in 1949, the US guaranteed the island’s defense, recognized Taiwan as China, and blocked the People’s Republic from UN membership.

After US President Nixon’s trip to China in 1972, the two countries worked out some agreements on Taiwan. Washington would accept that Taiwan was part of China, but Beijing would refrain from using force to reunite the island with the mainland. The Americans also agreed not to have formal relations with Taipei or supply Taiwan with “significant” military weapons.

No Option But Peace

Such a war, of course, would be catastrophic, deeply wounding the world’s two major economies and could even lead to the unthinkable — a nuclear exchange. Since China and the US cannot “defeat” one another in any sense of that word, it seems a good idea to stand back and figure out what to do about the South China Sea and Taiwan.

The PRC has no legal claim to vast portions of the South China Sea, but it has legitimate security concerns. And judging from Biden’s choices for Secretary of State and National Security Advisor — Anthony Blinken and Jake Sullivan, respectively — it has reason for those concerns. Both have been hawkish on China, and Sullivan believes that Beijing is “pursuing global dominance.”