Experts on the U.S.-China relationship agreed that a Republican-controlled Congress could make it more difficult for the Biden administration to exercise its approach to China, but they didn’t expect to see policy changes.
The discussion, “Carnegie China Global Dialogue: U.S.-China Relations after the Midterms,” was held Nov. 9, on the morning after the Nov. 8 mid-term election when it was still uncertain if Republicans or Democrats would be in control of the Senate. Paul Haenle of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP) moderated the discussion. CEIP is a think tank that produces analyses focused on geoeconomics, governance, strategy, technology, and international affairs, according to its website.
Haenle holds the Maurice R. Greenberg Director’s Chair at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and is a visiting senior research fellow at the East Asian Institute, National University of Singapore. He served as the White House China director on the National Security Council staffs of former presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, the CEIP states.
Participants included Yun Sun, senior fellow and co-director of the East Asia Program and director of the China Program at the Stimson Center; Chong Ja Ian, a nonresident scholar at Carnegie China and an associate professor of political science at the National University of Singapore; and Da Wei, director of the Center for International Strategy and Security at Tsinghua University and a professor in the Department of International Relations at Tsinghua University's School of Social Science, according to the CEIP.
Yun Sun said that a bipartisan consensus on China solidified in the past five to six years, so to say Republicans will cause a dramatic change in U.S.-China policy direction is unrealistic.
“Republicans definitely will leave Biden less room on China," Yun Sun said. "He will have less options."
An expected Republican delegation to Taiwan led by Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), should he become Speaker of the House in January, could create more stress in U.S.-China relations, she said.
Chong Ja Ian said he thought the Chinese government putting pressure on the Biden administration over House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) summer visit to Taiwan showed bluntness that wasn’t best with the delicate situations facing the two countries.
Da We said if Republicans control both houses, Biden will be a so-called lame-duck president for the two years left in this term.
“So I think it will be wise to utilize the next two years to try to stabilize the bilateral relations with the United States,” he said.
The differences between the Chinese and U.S. interpretations of what happened at China’s Party Congress this summer are significant, Yun Sun saidand are striking on Hong Kong and the one country-two systems, Taiwan, the external environment that China faces and the disappearance from the Party Congress report of the sections on peace and development, she said.
Chong Ja Ian said reports of the issues are different in D.C. from what’s seen in Beijing.
“The view is that China has been pretty tough over the past five years and increasingly so that trajectory seems likely to continue,” he said.
Da Wei said he was pessimistic about the Taiwan issue. He doesn’t understand why so many of his American colleagues talk about a timetable from Beijing on Taiwan as he’d never heard of one.
Yun Sun said the perception by the United States that a threat of invasion or attack by China on Taiwan is imminent will impact Biden’s policy and will boost U.S.-Taiwan defense ties. Those in turn will be interpreted by Beijing as moves that change the status quo.
But she also believes the war in Ukraine serves as a precedent for China as Russia learned that the results of the war were uncertain and did not end quickly.
