Establishing boundaries is essential to ensure healthy, not deadly, competition

If the mismatch between the political pledges the Joe Biden administration makes to Beijing and what it actually does continues, it will unavoidably lead to the administration making a grave misjudgment.

There may be a degree of political expediency in what the administration is doing, given that anti-China sentiment has become a bipartisan touchstone for popular appeal among the members of Congress who are competing to be the toughest on China. But primarily, both the administration's hollow promises and the China-bashing of Congress are the product of Washington's persistent and putrefied Cold War mindset, which results in the reality of China-US interdependence being ignored, the history of bilateral win-win cooperation being misrepresented, and channels of dialogue and communication being blocked.

While the Biden administration stresses the "need to maintain open lines of communication and responsibly manage" bilateral ties, "especially during times of tension", the reality is, that continuing the policy of the previous administration, it has reduced communication to the bare minimum, and what communication it does engage in is mainly for show.