article by Juliet Samuel for the Telegraph 13.11.20
Tantrums and disputes over the White House tenancy should not blind us to the underlying challenges facing any US President in his dealings with China according to Juliet Samuel. On that the President-elect should continue the strategy of the incumbent; it's the tactics that need to change.
"Of all the strategic calls Mr Biden has to make, how to handle China is the biggest. He could slink softly back to the old ways, paying lip service to the sanctity of broken bodies like the UN and claiming hollow victories based on promises, like Beijing’s carbon neutrality pledge. Or he could build on Mr Trump’s most important foreign policy contribution and try to turn the US’s China scepticism into a genuine, functioning alliance of the free world."
"The greatest failure of Mr Trump’s foreign policy, after all, was not that his insights were all wrong. Many of them were correct, despite the chaotic terms in which he expressed them. His main failing was the contempt he showed towards recruiting international allies to his cause. Fighting back against China’s trade war, for example, is an extremely expensive business. The US economy accounts for a quarter of global GDP, but the US plus the rest of the democratic world accounts for half. That’s an alliance worth building."
Here is the article in full with links to the original in the Telegraph.
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