Given how much time Trump spent during his four years in the White House pinning random policy positions to whatever the opposite was to Barack Obama’s policies, it is not revolutionary to think the initial entrance of Joe Biden into the President’s chair in January will be spent basically undoing those maneuvers. After all, Biden was Obama’s Vice-President for eight years and understandably might consider all of Trump’s anti-Obama positions as de facto anti-Biden ones as well. But this principle alone will not suffice to predict where Biden’s formal policies and positions might be or how they might evolve soon after taking over the Presidency. This is especially so in terms of defense and military affairs and foreign policy, where multiple layers and numerous moving parts make it impossible to simply ‘do the reverse’ of whatever President Trump had done.
While Trump’s maneuvers with the Pentagon post-election have been curious, it is doubtful they will be long-lived or deeply significant for formal American policy. The posting of Trump loyalists to important Pentagon positions seem more believable as an attempt by Trump to secure sympathetic voices and proponents after he exits Washington to ensure his personal security from legal initiatives and accusations. But as Biden has shown with his nomination of Gen. Lloyd Austin as pick for Secretary of Defense, there will be little remaining inside the Pentagon in terms of serious decision-making and policy development that can tie back to Trump once Biden-Harris take over.
The bigger issue elevates far beyond the mercurial personality of Trump as Biden comes into power. For example, greater Asia. In Asia’s case, the problem is not what Trump did during his four years in power and perhaps not even what Biden has said on the record in the past during his incredibly long political career in Washington. Rather, the true problem may be the tendency for Americans in general to always believe that global policy and major regional developments around the world must and should revolve around the ideas and preferences of the United States. This foreign policy myopia trend could be far more dangerous as the Biden administration takes over, largely because the combination of Trump’s previous policy maneuvers and independent agreement developments happening on his watch across the greater Asia region might mean Biden is coming in to an extremely volatile situation for the US.
There is already quiet rumbling inside the Beltway in Washington that Biden would be interested in seeing the reinvigoration of the TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership), the massive trade agreement engineered under Obama, never formally approved by Congress (for domestic political reasons more than anything else), and then pulled out from by Trump in 2017. There is one serious issue with this desire, understandable though it may be: in the aftermath of the Trump pullout, the remaining members of the TPP renegotiated and signed what would become known as the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or CPTPP. Perhaps even more importantly, right after the Presidential election this November, a massive new entrant to global trade and affairs came in the form of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, or RCEP. It is without question the largest trading bloc globally, covering 2.2 billion people and more than $26 trillion of economic output. It is a decidedly sad commentary on the state of American political intuition that while the future Biden administration tells American media it is still ‘undecided’ about its position on the TPP, the rest of the world has left the agreement far in its rear-view mirror and is unlikely to return to it just because the United States feels everyone should.
Given that RCEP aims to connect roughly 30% of the world’s people and potentially add hundreds of billions of dollars annually to world incomes, all without any real immediate participation or leadership from the United States, and might even be a brilliant strategy by China to completely offset whatever losses it was slated to have because of the ill-thought out trade war strategy of Trump, it seems highly unlikely and perhaps even unwise for the members of RCEP to even consider America as a potential future leader under the Biden administration. More likely, and smarter from an RCEP perspective, would be to encourage Biden to sign on to RCEP as is with little to no adaptation for American preferences or interests. This would be a sharp departure from how the US still prefers the global economy to be organized but this trend has been a long and slow time coming. Perhaps RCEP is the bringer of that day: where the US shifts from the leader role of the global economy to just an ‘important participant’ role. The problem for Biden is that if this role shift takes place under his watch it will undoubtedly be manipulated and capitalized upon by Republicans in the US. As more than any other global issue, trade is so deeply tied into domestic business interests and the economic well-being of everyday citizens.
RCEP is often incorrectly stated as being purely “China-led”, when in fact it is a tribute and testimony to ASEAN’s middle-power diplomacy. But make no mistake: while there may have never been an RCEP for America to deal with if it was blatantly pushing China forward as the undisputed leader, Biden would be mistaken to view RCEP as an agreement that handcuffs or ties down Chinese assertiveness, whether politically or economically. To the contrary, since Chinese leadership and authority has always been more comfortable expressing its power in strategically subtle ways behind-the-scenes (in stark contrast, for example, to countries like the United States or the Russian Federation), the current shared leadership structure of RCEP may very well be the end result of Chinese preference and not a consequence of ASEAN partners trying to ‘keep China in check.’ This latter position is what a Biden administration will likely try to pursue and project diplomatically and economically, while seeing if it can create a new leadership space for itself within RCEP. It would be a mistake for the members of RCEP to accept this initiative from Biden, but they should anticipate this strategy emerging in 2021.
Biden has a somewhat complicated relationship, historically, with China. On the one hand, making several statements over time that have been portrayed as being relatively weak or complacent about a rising China in political and economic relevance. On the other hand, making comments that seem to indicate a willingness to ‘be tough’ on China. Domestically, at the present time, America is still stuck in a somewhat bipartisan consensus that China needs to be countered (though, to be fair, it is never really made quite clear what that actually means in real terms). What it usually ultimately translates to is the desire of the United States to maintain its place of global primacy and not be usurped at any level across any issue by China. While this is in general understandable from a foreign policy/national security perspective, it is also unrealistically presumptuous on the part of most Americans. Chinese global leadership is almost always universally decried as a dilemma or crisis needing to be resolved by assertive American strategy. Regardless of that nationalist position, this is a denial of what many others believe is the natural evolution of the global community, where Chinese leadership (in whatever way China wants to envision it, but undoubtedly it will NOT be similar to how America envisioned its own leadership over the last half century) will inevitably become ascendant and the US will need to understand how to work within this new framework and not expect to be able to dictate terms to everyone with impunity.
This is the reality Biden is walking into in January. He will want the ‘old ways’ to come back in style: an assumption of American leadership; an expectation of countering China to remain an important cog in the global economy, but an economy still ‘managed’ by America; encouraging greater regional economic cooperation and development, especially across greater Asia, but presuming China’s leadership within such agreements will always be ‘handled’ by the other Asian members. Biden will want to deal with China, work with China, partner with China, as long as it is on American terms and restricts just how prominent Chinese action will be. In short, Biden’s likely policy is going to be a fantasy not based on 21st century reality nor properly cognizant of the role China should envision for itself as the world moves deeper into the global technological age. Whereas Biden will want to return to his old understanding of the “Pivot to Asia,” China should start legitimately asking itself whether or not it even wants or needs a “Pivot to America” or should it pivot elsewhere and usher in a truly new age of global affairs?
