Biden's China policy smacks of Trumpism

After four years of tumultuous Sino-US relations under Donald Trump, there has been high hope that the new US administration under Joe Biden would soon start to work together with China to reopen their lines of communication and put bilateral ties back on track.

After all, the relationship is arguably the most important one in the world. And it is no exaggeration to say that "how the Biden administration handles the US relationship with China will be not just crucial to Biden's presidency, but one of the defining themes of his time in office"－as the Harvard Business Review put it.

Yet what Biden has done in his early days in office concerning the handling of China-US ties affords little optimism. Although he shared his greetings and well wishes with the Chinese people on the occasion of the Lunar New Year, and pledged to cooperate with China on such issues as climate change and nuclear weapons proliferation, many of his policies do not seem to deviate much from his predecessor's approach, marked by direct confrontation across the board from trade and Taiwan to the South China Sea.