[바이든 시대] “Is it good for China to take the place of the US?”

Input 2021.01.22 10:20 | Revision 2021.01.22 10:40

The invasion of Congress by former US President Donald Trump’s supporters on the 6th of this month hurt America’s pride as a symbol of global democracy. In dictatorship and totalitarian countries, ridicule poured out. The idea of ​​the next Joe Biden administration to regain US leadership in the international community was twisted before it even began.

The Biden administration’s philosophy of diplomacy is the restoration of US leadership that is recognized around the world. Biden said in his inauguration address on the 20th, “We will restore the alliance and once again interact with the world,” and “we will become a strong and reliable partner for peace, advancement and security.”

But the world has changed four years ago and now, when President Biden left Washington after serving as Vice President of the Obama administration. Many countries have questioned the US-led world order. China began to speak loudly. For the US, China is the biggest threat. In many parts of the world, Chinese words are eaten better than Americans. The Biden administration must understand why the world needs American leadership. I question a country that is skeptical about the United States. “Would you like China to take the place of the US?”

As soon as the oath of office was over, President Biden overturned the policies of the Trump era. Trump’s legacy, almost the only one heirs, is the key to China’s checks. In the US media, “In the Chinese issue,’Tim Biden’ and’Tim Trump’ are on the same side.”

Of course, when it comes to how to treat China, both styles are quite different. For the past four years of his tenure, Trump adhered to’U.S. Priority’ and’Universalism’, putting only the interests of the United States ahead. The Biden administration values ​​the existence and role of alliances and partners. Signs are everywhere that the Biden administration will implement a policy of public pressure through solidarity and cooperation.

◇ “Trump China’s hardline policy was right” admitted… “However, with an alliance”

‘Tim Biden’ all raised public hardliness at a Senate hearing on the 19th, the day before President Biden took office. Most of the candidates for the minister admitted that Trump’s hardline publicity was correct. In terms of method, they only distanced themselves by emphasizing cooperation with alliances and partners.

Secretary of State Tony Blincoln said at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s approval hearing that “it must be China’s greatest challenge to the United States.” He commented that under the regime of President Xi Jinping, China abandoned its past stance of concealing its hands and earning time, and was actively trying to become a world leader. Blincoln said he would revive broken US diplomacy and build a common front to confront the Chinese threat.

Defense Minister Lloyd Austin’s nominee for the Senate Military Commission’s approval hearing pointed to China as the greatest threat. Russia is also a threat to the US, but Russia is declining and China is rising. Avril Haynes, who was appointed Director of the National Intelligence Service (DNI), overseeing 17 US intelligence agencies, identified China as an enemy at a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing. There are areas to cooperate with China, but in some issues such as counterintelligence, China is clearly the enemy of the United States. Haynes said, “The US should also take an aggressive stance against the threat posed by aggressive China, and we will devote more resources to dealing with China.”

The Biden administration is reported to have responded positively to the D10 (democratic 10 countries) coalition promoted by Britain. The UK announced that it would invite Korea, India and Australia to launch the D10 ahead of the G7 (7 major countries) summit in June. It was in line with the biden administration’s stance of strengthening the democratic alliance, conscious of China.

China tells the Biden administration that Trump’s Chinese policy has failed and it is time for the two countries to cooperate. China simply responded to the Trump administration’s provocations. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hwa Chun-ying said at a regular briefing on the 21st, “I believe that a good angel can overcome evil forces in China-US relations under the joint efforts of both sides.”

◇ Clash against human rights… China’s “interference in internal affairs” backlash

Human rights are the areas where Biden’s US and Xi Jinping’s China are most likely to clash most violently. President Biden has long criticized China’s human rights abuses. When the Chinese government bloodshed a demonstration for democratization in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square in 1989, it proposed a bill to establish a broadcasting station that spreads the values ​​of democracy. It is the beginning of the non-profit news media’RFA (Radio Free Asia)’ operated by the US government fund.

President Biden also criticized the Chinese government’s crackdown on the human rights of ethnic minorities in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region several times. In August of last year, when he was a Democratic presidential candidate, the suppression of the human rights of the Uighurs, a Muslim minority in Xinjiang, was called a’genocide’. In November 2019, he wrote on Twitter that “China’s imprisonment of about 1 million Uyghur Muslims is the world’s worst human rights abuse, the United States cannot be silent, and we must speak up against this repression.”

China’s violation of the human rights of ethnic minorities in Xinjiang has amplified the conflict between the two countries from the first day of President Biden’s term. Trump administration’s Secretary of State Mike Pompeo officially announced on the 19th, the last day of his tenure, that “the Chinese government committed massacres and crimes against humanity by oppressing Uighurs and other Muslim minorities in Xinjiang.” In response, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced sanctions banning 28 Trump administration officials, including Pompeo, and their immediate families from entering mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau shortly after Biden took the oath of office. Companies and institutions related to them are prohibited from doing business with China. The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said, “Stop interfering in Chinese internal affairs.”

The Biden administration immediately criticized the Chinese government’s sanctions. A spokesman for the White House National Security Council said on the 20th that “China’s sanctions against all officials in the Trump administration are counterproductive and negative,” and “President Biden will cooperate with both leaders on ways to beat China.”

Blincoln, the first candidate of the Biden administration’s secretary of state, said at a Senate confirmation hearing that he agrees with Pompeo’s decision, saying, “It is my judgment.” “To confine men, women and children to concentration camps and reeducate them to follow the Chinese Communist Party’s ideology all points to massacre.”

The Chinese government’s suppression of democratic forces in Hong Kong is also a key issue that could raise tensions between the two countries. After the Hong Kong National Security Law was enforced in June of last year, the Chinese government arrested democratic activists and opposition politicians one after another. White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, who will lead the foreign and security policy of the Biden administration, tweeted last month that “we are deeply concerned about the successive arrests and detentions of Hong Kong democracy activists.” I will be in solidarity with him,” he wrote.

As the Biden administration announced that it would respond to China’s human rights violations and democratic deterioration within the framework of the alliance, the likelihood of South Korea being put to the test increased. The Korean government has not expressed its stance on the Hong Kong democratization demonstration or the Chinese government’s enactment of the Hong Kong National Security Law. There are observations that the moment of choice is approaching for the Korean government.