An influential academic and a policymaker expressed their concerns on Monday that the new administration stance on Beijing will offer less assistance to countries threatened by the regime.

US president-elect Joe Biden is likely to pursue a softer policy on Communist China, focusing on cybersecurity and information technology challenges, as opposed to the hard containment direction pursued by US President Donald Trump, an academic said yesterday.

At a seminar hosted by the Prospect Foundation in Taipei, Academia Sinica Institute of European and American Studies research fellow Dr. Lin Cheng-yi and others shared their predictions for US policy in the Indo-Pacific region under the Biden administration. Biden would likely maintain the current administration’s definition of China as a strategic competitor, Dr. Lin stated.

There is a concern in the Indo-Pacific region, whether Mr. Biden
will follow the decisive policy of defeating the influence of the Chinese Communist Party.

There is a concern in the Indo-Pacific region, whether Mr. Biden will follow the decisive policy of defeating the influence of the Chinese Communist Party.

Dr. Lin said that Biden’s continued use of the phrase “Indo-Pacific” signals a fundamental continuation of Trump’s free and open Indo-Pacific strategy with a focus on Communist China, even while changing the phrasing. Although Biden would likely keep the economic tools established under Trump’s policy, many challenges remain, he added.

Democratic Party, however, is pressing to decrease defence spending, which can lead to lowering of the frequency of troop deployments to the strategically important for preserving of the peace in the region, South China Sea.

Kissinger advises to separate trade issues with China from human rights

Dr. Lin comments follows warnings of a former China director for the US Secretary of Defense Joseph Bosco that the long-time influencer and promoter of soft US policy on China Dr. Henry Kissinger offer unsolicited, advice to US president-elect Joe Biden.

Dr. Kissinger is advising to prioritise the trade in relations with China and separate it from other issues including defense and human rights. He wants new administration to differentiate economy, as Mr. Bosco emphasised, from China’s aggression in the South and East China seas and against Taiwan and undermining of US and international sanctions on North Korea.

Dr. Henry Kissinger is advising Mr. Biden to prioritise the trade in relations with China
and separate it from other issues including defense and human rights

Former US State Secretary sees no reason to address China's theft of intellectual property from universities and research centersand  its cyberattacks and stepped-up espionage out of its consulates. Mr Kissinger wants US to take eyes of  the China's crackdown on Hong Kong; its cultural genocide against the Tibetans and actual genocide against the Uighurs; and its persecution of Christians, Falun Gong and others who stray from devotion to the Chinese Communist Party.

Translation from Kissinger-speak: Beijing needs to recognize Western sensitivities over its inhuman and even genocidal practices, and the Biden administration needs to understand China’s sensitivities about the US expressing those concerns, a former high official at the Pentagon emphasised.

In the opinion of the specialists on Beijing, it is unlikely that the four years of Biden-Harris policies will continue prepare a path to the earth-shaking, yet largely peaceful, political revolution in Communist China, like in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union in 1989-92. But it was the purpose of all China's policies of President Donald Trump's administration.