How China features in Biden's State of the Union address?

By Yuan Sha

U.S. President Joe Biden delivered his second State of the Union address at Capitol Hill on February 7, where he delivered a triumphant tone and cast himself as a unifier-in-chief. As the tradition goes, domestic politics took center stage in the address, but foreign policy also got mentioned where China features prominently. Parsing through President Biden's wordings on China and delving into his intentions might help us navigate China-U.S. relations in the year ahead.

Biden made domestic progress a central theme and declared the state of the union strong, touting achievements in facilitating job growth, getting over COVID-19, defending the "unbowed and unbroken" democracy, and pushing through bipartisan legislative achievements including his signature Infrastructure Act, the Inflation Reduction Act, as well as the CHIPS and Science Act. He also laid out an optimistic outlook and pushed for a unity agenda.

Then came U.S. foreign policy. President Biden talked about Russia and China, casting them as the two chief "rivals." He chastised Russian President Vladimir Putin and reiterated the U.S. support for Ukraine. When it comes to China, the wordings and content struck a stark difference. He called out People's Republic of China in its full name and framed China in a wider competition narrative. Such weight and nuance given to China is telling.

On the one hand, President Biden is aligning the U.S. policy on China with his signature foreign policy for the middle class. During the first two years in office, he has veered toward an ideologically-driven "democracy vs. authoritarianism" confrontational stance, which pushed U.S. foreign policy to a more open-ended trajectory with high risks and few tangible benefits to the middle class as he promised.

During the past two years, ordinary Americans felt the pain of stagnant wages, stinging inflation, uncertain economic prospects and worsening security as shown by rampant mass shootings. President Biden's approval ratings remained low and according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll, 62 percent of Americans say they do not believe the president has achieved much since assumming office. All these could spell trouble for Biden if he seeks a second term in office in 2024.

Thus he might feel compelled to return to a more pragmatic doctrine. It might be the reason why we see a tempering down of ideological confrontations with China in the address, and China is used as a clarion call for investing more in U.S. infrastructure, semiconductor manufacturing and critical supply chains.

On the other hand, with the fomenting anti-China atmosphere on Capitol Hill, President Biden feels tempted to resort to the China-bashing tactic to overcome political gridlock. This is the first time President Biden addresses a joint session of Congress with Republicans in control of one of the chambers and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy sitting behind him.

With a divided Congress, President Biden faces a formidable political environment for the two years ahead. Republicans and Democrats are fighting over the debt limit, risking a federal debt default and government shutdown. The House Republicans are pursuing multiple investigations into President Biden's handling of various domestic, foreign and possible family affairs. Biden is also embroiled in a classified document scandal. With American politicians across the aisle racing to the bottom on being hawkish on China, Beijing has become a handy tool for Biden to unify both parties to push his policy agenda.

Nonetheless, as the recent weather airship incident demonstrated, it's dangerous to allow American domestic politics to hijack China-U.S. relations. As Cold War thinking has already taken hold in Washington, the paranoia of some U.S. politicians toward China could spark an unexpected accident causing a full-blown diplomatic crisis. 

Given the importance and fragility of bilateral relations, it's prudent and responsible for the two countries to maintain high-level communications channels as the two presidents had agreed during the Bali meeting, and engage in rational and professional crisis management to avoid miscalculations and prevent competition from spiraling out of control.

Yuan Sha is an associate research fellow at the Department of American Studies, China Institute of International Studies.