Little will change in America’s public stance toward China when Joe Biden takes office in late January, but the new administration will likely give more leeway to powerful US tech companies who depend on Chinese business.
The Democratic contender has ridiculed Donald Trump’s tariffs on Chinese imports, arguing—in line with the facts—that the trade war had pushed US manufacturing into recession even before the Covid-19 pandemic. More important than the trade war is tech war.
Washington under Biden will continue to denounce China’s global aspirations as a threat to American security but it will do less about it. Unless Biden’s physical or mental health collapses between now and November 3, nothing will impede his victory at the polls. He will win for the same reason that Trump won in 2016.
I write this reluctantly; I voted for Trump in 2016 and will vote for him again in November, for reasons I gave last month in Asia Times and on October 1 in the website “The American Mind.” I also believe that the failed attempt to frame Trump for alleged “collusion” with Russia was a seditious mutiny by his enemies that sought to overturn a presidential election by nefarious means.
