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David Lampton
David M. Lampton is Hyman Professor Emeritus at Johns Hopkins-SAIS. He is now at the SAIS’ Foreign Policy Institute in Washington, DC. Lampton was previously president of the National Committee on US-China Relations. His most recent book is Living U.S.-China Relations: From Cold War to Cold War
China and the rest of the world must get ready for a president who swings between being focused on making deals and someone who’s looking for confrontation.
Divergence on four core strategic issues won’t be so easily bridged. Washington and Beijing have each defined the other as their principal, strategic long-term threat – that must change before relations can truly improve.
US-China relations will remain difficult given widespread US antagonism towards China. But the relationship will be better managed – Biden will be less inclined to use America’s China policy as a prop to further a domestic agenda.
The inexplicable decision is just the latest in a sequence of self-defeating moves that will weaken America’s global cultural and educational influence.
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Its unanimous passage in Congress and a study of the Act’s provisions make clear the legislation is largely symbolic. But will Beijing see it as such?
Both powers need to publicly agree on anti-hegemony, settle on ‘rules of the road’, particularly in the South China Sea, and start discussing arms control. Beijing and Washington must not sleepwalk into war, or force Southeast Asia to choose sides.
A survey of the Trump Twitter Archives reveals just how unsound and economically ignorant the US president’s China pitch is. Yet, many US voters buy it. In the coming election, candidates will have to outdo him or try something different.
Washington is not the ‘black hand’ Beijing believes it to be. But neither should it wash its hands of the crisis, as Trump has apparently done. However limited its role, the US should be urging restraint on all sides and highlighting the credible repercussions beyond Hong Kong of any crackdown on the protests.
The flaws of the Trump presidency will show in the anticipated meeting with his powerful and astute Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, and major issues of contention are unlikely to be resolved
