Jacques DeLisle, an expert in Chinese law and politics, has warned President-elect Joe Biden faces an uphill battle to rekindle ties with Beijing undone by the aggressive leadership of Donald Trump. The Professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania, says the Trump administration has made relations between Washington and Beijing “much worse” and insisted despite Mr Biden winning the race for the White House “there is no going fully back”.
Professor DeLisle says the relationship between China and the US began to falter during the Obama administration and pointed to the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement.
The trade agreement between the US, Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam was signed in February 2016.
The huge deal – which did not include China – represented around 40 percent of the world’s economic output and required each nation to follow similar financial and regulatory policies.
Professor DeLisle said: “By about a decade ago, this had become clear and the relationship was beginning to head south.
“To be sure, the Trump Administration has made the relationship much worse.
“Some of this can be clawed back by a return to ‘normal’ US foreign policy under a Biden administration, but the world and the relationship have changed since circa 2000; there is no going fully back.”
Mr Biden, 77, is widely regarded as an internationalist and has vowed to work with allies against China rather than take unilateral action favoured by Mr Trump.
Under the leadership of Mr Trump, the US has gone head-to-head with China over economic policy, slapping hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of tariffs on Chinese goods entering the US market.
Mr Biden passed the threshold of 270 Electoral College votes needed to win the White House on Saturday – but Mr Trump has since launched a number of legal challenges over the result, and made baseless allegations of voter fraud.
China’s foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said: “We noticed that Mr Biden has declared election victory.
“We understand that the US presidential election result will be determined following US law and procedures.”