Wang Jisi, Hu Ran, and Zhao Jianwei
Over the past few weeks, the upheavals in the U.S. presidential election season have drawn enormous global attention. Even before the summer began, countries were weighing the implications of former President Donald Trump’s return to the White House and, conversely, what a second term for U.S. President Joe Biden might bring. To many countries, these two possibilities presented markedly different prospects for geopolitics and for the future role of the United States in world affairs.
Then came nine remarkable days in July, during which Trump was almost assassinated and Biden abruptly announced that he would not seek reelection. Upending the U.S. presidential race for both parties, these events have created further uncertainty about the coming direction of the United States. Many countries see an increasingly stark divergence between the anticipated continuation of Biden’s internationalist foreign policy under a future President Kamala Harris and a far more isolationist approach under a reelected President Trump and his running mate, J. D. Vance.
From China, however, the view is somewhat different. Eight years ago, the first Trump administration ushered in a far more confrontational approach to relations with Beijing, which many Chinese observers found bewildering. Rather than treating China as a trading partner and sometimes a rival, the United States began to call it a “revisionist power,” a strategic competitor, and even a threat. More striking still, despite changes in tone, the Biden administration, has reinforced that shift and even taken it further on some issues. Indeed, there seems to be a bipartisan consensus in Washington that China must now be treated as a major adversary, with a growing contingent of analysts arguing for a cold war framing.
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