Transition 2021: America's Role in the World

The current narrative about Chinese elites embracing Biden needs to be tempered with how many Chinese people are Trump fans. These chuan fen, or Trump fans, range from those who admire Trump’s strong man rule to Chinese dissidents in the diaspora who applaud Trump’s 'anti-CCP' stance. Some Chinese Trump fans living in the U.S. believe, just as some Latinos in Florida do, that Biden will usher in an unpalatable form of socialism.

[On replicating EU Green Deal programs globally] That's got to happen in the U.S., that's got to happen in China, that's got to happen in India, and Paris can provide some push but the Paris Agreement can't force countries to do that. [On a joint EU-U.S. carbon trade bubble] It will be enormously important for the EU and the U.S. to get synced up.

The most significant actions Biden could take on China in his first 100 days would not relate directly to China. Restoring American leadership in tackling global challenges, repairing relationships with allies and partners, countering the spread of Covid-19 at home and abroad, reviving an economy slammed by the pandemic — any of these steps would disprove Beijing’s belief that America has lost its capacity for self-correction.