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Dewey Sim

The United States might indeed have consolidated its power and shored up Asia-Pacific alliances under the Biden administration, but Beijing’s influence will continue to grow, according to observers in China.
China viewed its strategic rivalry with the US as a long-term battle, and had been able to consolidate its status in key areas of the global economy, they noted.
Delivering his final foreign policy speech as US president on Tuesday, Joe Biden asserted that America was in a “better strategic position in the long-term competition with China” than when he took office in 2021.
“On China’s current course, they will never surpass us,” he said, citing the “latest predictions”.
His administration had stood up against Beijing’s “unfair practices”, Biden said, as he listed diplomatic gains ahead of his departure from the White House next week.
“We’ve made partnerships stronger and created new partnerships to challenge China’s aggressive behaviour and to rebalance power in the region,” he said.
“It’s clear my administration is leaving the next administration with a very strong hand to play, and we’re leaving an America with more friends and stronger alliances, whose adversaries are weaker and under pressure.”


According to Zhu Feng, executive dean of Nanjing University’s school of international studies, Biden chose to focus on successes over China as some of his other foreign policy decisions – including on the Russia-Ukraine war and Middle East conflict – had come under fire.
“The Biden administration believes that his most outstanding diplomatic achievement in his four years in office is the containment and suppression of China’s rise,” Zhu said.
He said the US was in a “clear leading position” in terms of strategic power compared to China, with stronger alliances in the Asia-Pacific region under multilateral frameworks such as Aukus and the Quad.
“Even as [Donald] Trump takes office, the US will still maintain its leading strategic capability over China. There’s no illusion that the strategic advantage over China will end in the short to medium term, no matter who is in power,” Zhu added.
He noted that under Biden’s leadership, the US had also launched the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity and stepped up trilateral cooperation with Japan and South Korea. This showed that the US had “further consolidated its predominance by winning over more countries in the region”.
But China “will not admit defeat”, given its long-term view of the rivalry, Zhu suggested. “The Biden administration can say they have achieved significant results but the strategic competition between the US and China will not be resolved overnight,” he said.
Rather, Zhu said, China was likely to continue to deepen cooperation with the Global South and “enhance strategic resilience” to “soften the US suppression … and be able to make an effective response”.
The Chinese foreign ministry said on Tuesday that ties with the US had “remained stable on the whole”, despite ups and downs.
Responding to a media question on Biden’s farewell address, ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun noted the two sides had resumed or set up more than 20 communication mechanisms, and “achieved outcomes in some areas”.
“At the same time, China stood firm by its principles … and responded to the US’ wrong actions with resolute countermeasures,” Guo added.
Dylan Loh, assistant professor of foreign policy at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, said Biden’s speech aimed to highlight his legacy.
It was a message to Biden’s allies and his domestic audience that his tenure as president should be remembered for standing up to China while bringing stability to the relationship, Loh said.
He said Biden had “clearly” strengthened US alliances and relations with partners but it was difficult to judge which side was in a stronger strategic position.
This was because the problems facing China were not necessarily the direct result of Biden’s policies and could even be attributed to Beijing’s own foreign policy.
“[Similarly,] American moral standing and power have also taken a hit in some parts of the Global South owing to precisely its own foreign policy practices,” Loh added.

Wang Yiwei, director of the Institute of International Affairs at Renmin University in Beijing, was less in agreement with Biden’s claims.
The outgoing president’s focus on successes over China and strong ties with US partners stemmed from worries that Trump might undermine Washington’s relations with its allies, according to Wang.
China’s strategic position was not defined by the US, he said. Moreover, the US may be rallying its allies to “contain” Beijing, but that did not mean China had been weakened. China’s status in areas like the global value and supply chains had instead risen, Wang noted.
“These false narratives from the US establishment cannot stand up to criticism, so the Chinese people have long lost interest in Biden and haven’t paid much attention to him since he [became a lame-duck president].”
In his speech, Biden also urged his successor to tackle China’s “overcapacity” and dominance in the clean energy supply chain, saying it was a competition that the US “must win”.
Wang suggested that, with Trump taking office, “the world will not rely on the US” but instead place greater hope on China.
“China’s influence in the world will be further enhanced … so I think what Biden said is exactly the opposite [of reality].”


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President Joe Biden in his final foreign policy speech has claimed that China “will never surpass” the United States. Photo: AP

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In farewell, Biden urges Trump to tackle China’s overcapacity, clean energy dominance

US President Joe Biden speaks about foreign policy during a speech at the State Department in Washington on Monday. Photo: AP

US president-elect Donald Trump speaks to members of the media during a press conference at the Mar-a-Lago Club on January 7. Photo: Getty Images/Tribune News Service

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Economist Justin Lin Yifu, seen here at the Asian Financial Forum on Monday, contends that China’s economy should surpass that of the US in the next decade. Photo: Getty Images

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Despite the rhetoric targeting China, US president-elect Donald Trump has said Chinese President Xi Jinping and he would “probably get along very well”. Photo: Reuters

News

China

Diplomacy

Strategic rivalry is a long-term battle, and China’s influence will only grow, observers say in response to Joe Biden’s farewell claims


Strategic rivalry is a long-term battle, and China’s influence will only grow, observers say in response to Joe Biden’s farewell claims.


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United States

Joe Biden

Wang Yi