Trump or Biden: Who is Best for China?

"The Trump administration's unilateralism, right-wing populism and tendency towards principled realist foreign policy would...reduce to a certain extent the external strategic pressure faced by China"

As the likelihood of a Trump-Biden rematch strengthens, Chinese scholars have begun to weigh up the pros and cons for China of having either of the two men back in power. Today’s author, Wang Hao (王浩), provides a crisp account of these benefits and drawbacks, yet refrains from expressing a clear preference for either of the two presidential candidates. Many thanks to him and to the editors of Global China (海外看世界) for granting Sinification permission to share this article.

On a side note, I will be in Beijing and Shanghai from Thursday 22 February until Wednesday 6 March. As always, it would be a pleasure to meet up with those of you who might be around then.

Summary

What a second Biden term might mean for China:

• Advantages:

  1. More “stability” for US-China relations.

  2. Greater “flexibility” in the US’s China policy: more opportunities for both sides to engage and cooperate.

• Disadvantages:

  1. The “maturing” of Washington's containment strategy towards Beijing, which would have a greater impact on …