Brian P. Klein

Opinion | Joe Biden’s new national security policy suggests a willingness to engage with China

Washington has gone to significant lengths not to alienate Beijing while staying firm on critical issues, in a nuanced relationship where competition and cooperation can coexist

This raises hope that the US and China can find ways to get along, especially when global interests converge with national interests – though it won’t be easy

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Brian P. Klein

Published: 3:30am, 27 Oct 2022Updated: 4:23am, 27 Oct 2022

The United States recently issued a comprehensive explanation of its national security policy. Despite the clang and clamour over the White House targeting Beijing, nowhere in the publicly available 48-page document is China characterised as an enemy.

This policy signals a willingness on the part of the Biden administration to not demonise China, and keeps the door open for cooperation, albeit with crash barriers, and scrutiny, and often competing and seemingly contradictory policies.

There is no doubt that China’s ambitions are high on the US agenda – they take up an entire section of the report – but the strategy states very specifically that the goal is “maintaining an enduring competitive edge over the PRC”.

Those words are critical to understanding a US policy that does not frame a rising China in terms of containment, as Washington does with Russia – a brutal campaign of territorial expansion crosses a clear red line. The US sees China as a competitor. Even more importantly, the report states unequivocally that, “It is possible for the US and the PRC to coexist peacefully, and share in and contribute to human progress together.”

Unlike much of the diplomatic grandstanding, these words matter. A document of this significance goes through an intense amount of inter-agency editing and review. Bureaucrats battle to get even a single word changed while political appointees balance the often competing perspectives of headstrong agencies and departments.

The White House has gone to significant lengths not to alienate China, while making it clear it won’t back down on critical issues. Since the Biden administration does not hold the same friend-vs-foe frame of reference that Beijing often uses – a black-and-white strategy that unnecessarily closes the door to areas of mutual interest when even one contentious issue arises – this policy keeps the door open for progress. Areas of potential conflict, aggressive competition and cooperation coexist.