Will Joe yield to China’s demands?

Beijing plans to press Washington to reverse many of the policies targeting China introduced during the Trump presidency in the first face-to-face meeting of senior U.S. and China officials since President Biden’s election, according to people with knowledge of the plans.

WSJ

WSJ News Exclusive | China Plans to Ask U.S. to Roll Back Trump Policies in Alaska Meeting

For the first high-level session with Biden’s team, Beijing will ask the U.S. to reverse limits on American sales to Chinese firms, visa restrictions and other measures, according to people familiar with China’s plans.

China and Biden

It’s true that Biden was the tip of the spear for Barack Obama’s policy of engagement with China, as vice-president investing in a relationship with his then counterpart Xi Jinping.

But his “old friend” Xi has since become a leader criticised in the US for a brand of personal authoritarianism, and Biden has excoriated his government for “coercive and unfair” trade practices.

This month the new Secretary of State Antony Blinken described China as “the only country with the economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to seriously challenge the stable and open international system.”

So a high-level meeting in Alaska on Thursday will be the first chance for the administration to show how it intends to handle what Blinken called “the biggest geopolitical test of the 21st century.”

BBC

Joe’s rhetoric will be focus group tested but the policy details will see less scrutiny by the public. The great thing about controlling the narrative is that you can neglect in fact what you can accomplish in fiction.