Biden or Trump? ‘Between rock and a hard place’ for China as US presidential rematch beckons, say analysts

Under Mr Trump, this floor in the bilateral relationship will be in question due to his relative unpredictability, observers say. The return of Mr Trump could also portend the prospect of a full-fledged trade war.

But there could be a silver lining for Beijing with Mr Trump likely to continue pursuing an “America First” isolationist foreign policy, observers note.

“This would likely result in a greater degree of incoherency and disunity with regards to Western pressure on China,” said Dr Hoo.

Under Mr Trump, the US will continue to put pressure on China and do so more overtly, HKUST’s Prof Low told CNA.

“But it will do so in less competent ways, and in ways that make it difficult for other countries to follow the US’ lead,” he added. Because of this reason, Prof Low suspects the Chinese leadership favours a Trump presidency.

A Trump presidency could potentially allow China to gain more international sway, analysts note.

Taking the grinding Russia-Ukraine war as an example, Prof Low believes a Trump administration would be unwilling to back Kyiv in resisting Moscow. This would make a Chinese-brokered peace deal more likely, bolstering China’s reputation among much of the Global South, Prof Low added.

In a past example, the US pulled out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade pact in 2017 during Mr Trump’s presidency.

Fast forward to now and the world’s largest economy is absent from the TPP’s successor Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), while also left out of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, the world’s biggest trade deal involving China and other of Asia’s largest economies.

Mr Trump represents a “faint prospect” to China that he may reverse Mr Biden’s course, Dr Hoo said. At the same time, he stressed that Beijing is “certainly not optimistic” about Mr Trump, considering his past actions.

Aside from sparking a trade war with China during his presidency, Mr Trump also blamed the pandemic on Beijing and pushed unverified claims that COVID-19 could have originated in a Chinese lab.

“There was a lot of negative press on China; all these were fanned by the rhetoric of Trump … by the time of the (2020) election, China had already gone sour on Trump,” Dr Hoo told CNA.

TOEING THE LINE

Regardless of who comes up tops in the US presidential race, experts agree that China will expect America’s next leader not to infringe on what it deems its core interests.

In 2021, China laid out three so-called “bottom lines” or “di xian” in Chinese regarding bilateral relations with the US.

“The US must not challenge, slander or even attempt to subvert the path and system of socialism with Chinese characteristics”, Foreign Minister Wang said during a meeting with US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman in Tianjin.

He added that the US must also not attempt to obstruct or interrupt China’s development process, nor infringe on China’s state sovereignty or damage its territorial integrity, with the last viewed as a veiled warning over Taiwan.