US shouldn't play with fire when it comes to China ties

In his final address to the UN General Assembly's 79th session on Tuesday, US President Joe Biden reiterated that Washington seeks to responsibly manage the competition with Beijing so that it does not veer toward conflict.

While such words sound less confrontational than his usual rhetoric targeting China, what he has been doing over the past three years and eight months has dramatically raised the possibility of conflict with China on both the economic and military fronts.

During his presidential campaign in 2020, Biden slammed his predecessor Donald Trump for imposing punitive tariffs on Chinese products, saying "Trump doesn't get the basics" and "any freshman econ student could tell you that the American people are paying his tariffs".

Biden had pledged to revoke the tariffs if elected US president, but he has betrayed his promise. Instead, he has doubled down on such protectionist tariffs against China, the latest being his announcement in May to impose 100 percent tariffs on Chinese-made electric vehicles (EVs) and hike tariffs on a range of Chinese products, from steel, aluminum and solar cells to semiconductors, EV batteries, ship-to-shore cranes and medical products.

The Biden administration has added far more Chinese entities to the notorious US Entity List for trade restrictions than Trump. It has misused the list, making it a part of its crackdown on Chinese high-tech companies.

The United States has not only been telling US companies but also coercing companies in its ally countries in Europe and Asia to "decouple" or "de-risk" their economies from the Chinese economy in order to check China's rise.

While attending an event in The Hague on Wednesday, I was reminded of how the US has been intimidating Dutch company ASML, a leading global chip-making equipment manufacturer, to curb its exports of cutting-edge equipment to China.

On the same day, Dutch Minister of Economic Affairs Dirk Beljaarts told the news media in Washington that the ASML must be allowed to "do business as freely as possible", adding that "the Chinese are an important trade partner "and "we have our own economy to upkeep".

Biden's so-called stiff competition with China, in reality, has nothing to do with fair competition because it includes all sorts of despicable sabotage. The Biden administration believes that "if I cannot lift myself up, I will desperately pull you down". Biden has been waging an all-out economic war against China, one that could veer toward conflict if left unchecked.

On the security front, the Biden administration has been equally provocative. For example, it has been attempting to interfere in the Taiwan question in its bid to try Beijing's patience by threatening to cross Beijing's redline.

Its attempts include the August 2022 visit to Taiwan by then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi; the delegation sent this year by Biden to the inauguration of the island's administrative head Lai Ching-te; Biden's approval of several US arms sales to Taiwan; and the State Department changing the wording on Taiwan on its website, not to mention the White House walking back Biden's remarks that the US would come to Taiwan's defense militarily.

Washington has also been weaponizing the Quad, the so-called collaborative initiative of the US, India, Japan and Australia, and AUKUS, a security alliance of Australia, the United Kingdom and the US, to provoke and threaten China.

Like the US Congress, the Biden administration, too, has dramatically ramped up its smear and disinformation campaigns against China, so as to make China "look bad".

Biden's UNGA speech is being viewed by some as his legacy speech. But his legacy on China-US ties is "sabotage". Biden has done more harm to Sino-US relations than Trump.

Biden's speech was full of narcissistic overtones and a poor attempt at self-glorification, often in sharp contrast to the facts on the ground. This is especially true for his statements on Israel's brutal assault on the Gaza Strip. His biased foreign policy and his refusal to seriously urge Israel to stop the atrocities in Gaza have been a major reason behind Israel's sustained attack on the Palestinian people, according to even many US foreign policy experts.

These will be Biden's legacy.

The author is chief of China Daily EU Bureau based in Brussels.

chenweihua@chinadaily.com.cn