ExclusiveBiden’s 4 years of China policy: explained

Welcome to China In Focus. I'm Tiffany Meyer. Our top story. President Biden giving his final foreign policy address before leaving office and China policy made the top of the list. Diving deeper, we take a closer look at how the president's handling of China has impacted the world order. More on the key takeaways. What I want to see Trump do more of is to look at what the U.S. really has to do in a hurry to secure our economic interests. And will the green energy push make the U.S. more reliant on China? A panel of experts probes how China became the leading force for green energy through unfair trade and how they say it's damaging the global market. Before we dive into today's top story, we'd like to share an important update. You can now catch China In Focus on Genjing World every Tuesday instead of YouTube. To watch, simply click the link in the description box down below or search China In Focus at genjingworld.com. It's T-minus one week until the inauguration of incoming President Donald Trump. President Biden gave his final foreign policy address before departing the White House Monday and he had a lot to say on China. NTD correspondent Jason Blair reports. From the State Department, President Joe Biden in his last foreign policy speech says he's leaving the incoming administration with a, quote, very strong hand to play. Biden addressed both past and current events, one being a possible hostage and ceasefire deal in the Israel-Hamas war. During the 30-minute talk, China came up the most. The president highlighted actions he took to hold China accountable for unjust trade practices. Taking action, we're trying to dump subsidized goods, incredibly subsidized, on our markets to undercut our workers. We impose target tariffs on critical sectors like car, steel, and semiconductors rather than across-the-board tariffs. We impose historic export controls on investments restrictions to ensure that China cannot, cannot use the sensitive data against us. Biden also defended his decision to withdraw from Afghanistan. He says our adversaries and competitors like Russia and China would have liked nothing more than to see the U.S. tied down in Afghanistan for another decade. For all those reasons, ending the war was the right thing to do. And I believe history will reflect that. Biden also had a strong message for the next administration, saying that the U.S. must stay in the lead with A.I. and must not offshore it. With about a week left, Biden has a packed schedule leading up to his last day in office. He will deliver a farewell address to the nation on Wednesday, January 15th. Reporting from Washington, D.C., Jason Blair, NTD News. With President Biden soon to exit the White House, here's a look at the key takeaways of administration's handling of China. A slow political and economic measures designed to counter China are in place. And on the other hand, two wars have diverted America's attention away from the Indo-Pacific region and the Chinese Communist Party. To start, a look at some of the challenges, like the two wars that have broken out in recent years. In Europe, Russia's invasion of Ukraine is ongoing, while in the Middle East, Israel is at war with Hamas. Moving further east, the potential for war is hanging over Taiwan. The Chinese Communist Party has vowed to take control of the island by force if necessary. But as for the island's defense, the U.S. is preoccupied. Reports say sending weapons to Ukraine has affected Washington's ability to arm Taiwan. U.S. arms delivery to the island now faces a $21 billion backlog. Looking to China's neighbors, Russia has grown increasingly reliant on China, despite Western sanctions, leaving some concerned that a new axis of evil is taking shape in Beijing's favor. Former Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell flagged his concern. You have to respond to conditions that actually exist that are a threat to the United States. The Iranians are a threat to us as well. And so this is an emergency. It's an emergency that we step up and deal with this axis of evil, China, Russia, Iran, because it's an immediate threat to the United States. Over in the U.K., the nation's former prime minister has pledged to double down on defense spending and warned that the U.K. is living in the most dangerous time since the Cold War. An axis of authoritarian states, Iran, Russia, North Korea, China, acting in an assertive way that is threatening our values, threatening our interests abroad and at home in a more interconnected world. Back to Biden's China policy, the U.S. military has been working to prepare for a potential conflict with China over Taiwan. The U.S. has been reviving airfields, both at home and abroad. That's so U.S. aircraft can hop between different locations across the Indo-Pacific. The U.S. is also investing billions of dollars to protect Guam, a key military outpost that's closer to China than to Hawaii. Outside the U.S., Biden also reached a deal with the U.K. to help Australia acquire nuclear-powered submarines. That's to help the key ally better counter Chinese aggression in the Indo-Pacific. Zooming in on Taiwan, Biden continued U.S. arms sales to Taiwan. Biden approved over $8 billion in arms sales to the island as of last month. That funding follows the over $18 billion in sales approved by Trump during his first term. As for trade, Biden maintained Trump's tariffs on Chinese goods. The move was put in place to pressure China into buying more U.S. goods. He later went beyond that, quadrupling tariffs on Chinese electric cars to 100 percent and doubling tariffs on semiconductors to 50 percent. Biden also made it harder for China to get hold of artificial intelligence chips made in the U.S., chips that could boost Beijing's military. What's more, Biden also signed the $280 billion Chips Act. It offers $50 billion in subsidies to boost domestic chip manufacturing. The Chips Act also earmarks a quarter of the bill's budget for research about climate change. On the technology front, Biden at first dropped Trump's orders to ban Chinese apps TikTok and WeChat and ordered a security review into those apps. Congress later passed a bill to oust TikTok from U.S. app stores unless it divests from its Chinese owner by January 19th. That deadline is now just under one week away. Biden signed the bill into law. President-elect Trump has tried to postpone the deadline. The Supreme Court just heard arguments over TikTok's fate, and the justices are expected to make a decision soon. For a deeper dive into President Biden's final foreign policy speech, NTD's Fiona Ji spoke to Rebecca Grant, Vice President at the Lexington Institute and National Security Analyst. Let's take a look. And of course, Rebecca, I think whenever we talk about national security, we can't forget about China. And we see that both Trump and Biden, they recognize the China threat. We saw Biden continuing Trump's terror policies against China's unfair trade practices. And now we also saw Trump this time around running on the idea of protecting U.S. manufacturing and reshoring, especially in respect to China. So from an economic point of view first here, what do you expect to stay the same? And what do you expect to change when Trump comes to office? And there has been consistency as Biden kept all the Section 301 tariffs, added some additional targeted tariffs, as he mentioned in his speech. So there has been a consistent through line of understanding that China will not play by the rules, and that it's important for the U.S. to develop a strategic outlook. What I want to see Trump do more of is to look at what the U.S. really has to do in a hurry to secure our economic interests. Whether that's looking at the situation with the Panama Canal, whether that's looking at putting more tariffs on electric vehicle exports, all of those things, trying to see if China will in any way live up to some of their agreements that they made previously on buying more agricultural products and so forth. Trump most of all needs to identify a strategy. A big piece of this, of course, is going to be keeping control of the most advanced AI chips, which President Biden referenced just a little bit, but making sure that we also let our powerful leading tech companies compete in that global marketplace so that we don't pull in the fences so much that we seed a lot of that global market to China and end up losing down the road anyway. Absolutely. Rebecca, I've only got about 30 seconds here. I just want you to go a little deeper here. We are seeing that spate of Chinese hacks against U.S. cybersecurity and telecommunications system with that salt typhoon operation. We're also seeing China increasing its aggression, especially in regards to Taiwan. What are you expecting from Trump in that respect? Trump needs to really get to the cybersecurity piece. Whether that's changing our primary vendors, we have got to close those loopholes that we've let grow up in all the government systems. China has just ripped the veil off. As far as aggression towards Taiwan, the Pentagon's new report says, yes, 2027 is a key year, but the danger extends for several years beyond that. We need to really defend Taiwan. I'd like to see more U.S. military forces in rotational exercises on Taiwan just to underline our strong commitment to that region. Absolutely. I think this year is going to be one for the history books. Rebecca Grant, Vice President at the Lexington Institute and National Security Analyst. Thanks for joining us today. Thank you. The U.S. is coming out with a new rule banning Chinese software and hardware in connected vehicles or smart cars. The White House says that President Biden is taking strong actions to protect the U.S. from risks of having vehicle supply chains connected with Russia and China. A statement says the Biden-Harris administration is committed to ensuring that our automotive supply chains are resilient and secure from foreign adversary cyber threats. After a yearlong examination, the Department of Commerce has prohibited the sale and import of connected car parts, software systems, as well as completed connected vehicles from Russia and China. The White House says foreign adversary involvement in the supply chains of connected vehicles poses a significant threat in most cars on the road today, granting malign actors unfettered access to these connected systems and the data they collect. These restrictions will take effect for 2027 car models for software and 2030 models for hardware. The White House says these restrictions will also help the U.S. defend against the Chinese Communist Party's cyber espionage and intrusion operations. The office says these attacks continue to pose a quote significant threat to U.S. critical infrastructure and public safety. Reporting in Washington, D.C., Jason Blair, NTD News. Does the global green energy push make the U.S. more reliant on the Chinese Communist Party? That's what a panel of experts at the Brookings Institute looked at Monday, and how artificial intelligence plays into this dynamic. NTD's Washington correspondent Jack Bradley has the details. Beijing is massively subsidizing its clean energy sector, especially solar. This is distorting the global market and undercutting competition. The Biden and incoming Trump administrations are focusing on leveling the playing field with tariffs. The U.S. is the world's largest producer of oil and natural gas, while China is the world's largest importer of oil. A panel from the Brookings Institute on Monday suggests that the U.S. has more to lose in transitioning from a reliance on oil to China's clean energy products. And so China has a lot of drive to implement renewable energy, whereas the U.S., at least from an energy system perspective, less so. Over the past decade, many private sector CEOs in the U.S. and abroad have made promises to reduce carbon emissions by transitioning to cleaner energy. But they have reneged on those promises due to the sheer difficulty of such a transition. It's as if every week brings a new announcement about a company that had made a net zero promise, now retrenching on that net zero promise. And with the trajectory we're headed with artificial intelligence, it will require more energy supply. That's according to David Edelman, a senior fellow at the Brookings China Center and part of the MIT Internet Policy Research Initiative. He says between China and the U.S., whichever country dominates in A.I. will have military superiority, but it is reliant on energy supply. The U.S. and China have both identified A.I. as a critical strategic national priority. Both have said in as many words that whichever country leads in A.I. may have a decisive strategic advantage. I think that means war winning advantage on more broadly should we be in such a scenario. And yet at the same time, we're saying the limiting reagent to doing that is going to get enough energy. This comes as the Biden administration just issued a rule limiting the distribution of advanced A.I. technology to foreign adversaries, including China and Russia. The new regulation seeks to prevent a national security risk of A.I. ending up in the wrong hands. Jack Bradley, NTD News. Coming up, should the Supreme Court oust TikTok from the U.S. market next week? Americans chime in. TikTok's not going to sell. They're not going to sell. And so what this is truly targeting is a ban of that. I don't feel comfortable with everybody knowing what I'm doing, you know, and everybody having access to my things. That's why I don't have TikTok. A strong rebound in global smartphone market, but Chinese brands are reaping the benefit. That's as Apple and Samsung saw their own phone sales tumble. And China said its trade surplus reached an all-time high last year. At the same time, Chinese companies are in a hurry dumping goods overseas to cope with incoming Trump tariffs. More details after the break here on China In Focus. Welcome back to China In Focus. I'm Tiffany Meyer. The Supreme Court weighing a measure that could oust TikTok from the U.S. market on January 19th. How do Americans feel about the prospect? NTD's Sam Wong was right outside the Supreme Court to hear from the people. I'm for it. I work with a lot of teenagers and I see some of the devastating effects of social media on some of them. I own a small business and 98 percent of my sales come because people find me on TikTok. The idea that this app may be getting banned is terrifying. I don't like it. Obviously people are making money on it and there's also First Amendment. I don't think TikTok is good for anybody. You scroll on it mindlessly for hours and it's just eating over you and taking over your brain. I have never signed up for TikTok because I knew that there were concerns previously so I stick to other social media platforms because of that. Free speech is a big part of this case and that's definitely part of the decision that's being made but I want to say that national security does trump First Amendment speech rights in this case. There are potential threats out there and I think we need to understand what national security issues there could be and I think it's just something that we need to pay attention to. We need broader laws that cover all social media platforms to protect everyone not going through and banning one singular platform. Are you open to a divestiture instead of a ban on national security grounds? TikTok's not going to sell. They're not going to sell and so what this is truly targeting is a ban of the app. If another company was to purchase TikTok then the same content would be able to be shared with Americans so I personally don't think it's really a First Amendment concern. Are you concerned that China potentially has some level of access to your personal data? There is some separation in terms of ByteDance being a private company but it's still not clear what level that the Chinese government has and I think that that does pose some concerns. I don't feel comfortable with everybody knowing what I'm doing, you know, and everybody having access to my things. That's why I don't have TikTok. I think that national security is more important than anything and so I think that they need to work that out before they continue with this platform. Obviously we trust our elected officials to protect us digitally and physically. Apple and Samsung saw phone sales tumble over the fourth quarter as competition from Chinese rivals grew. That's according to new figures out on Monday from Data Cruncher IDC. Data shows the global smartphone market actually managed a strong rebound at that time after two years of decline. But it was Chinese brands reaping the benefits. Here's more. Xiaomi was the fastest growing with its shipments jumping over 15%. Others including Oppo also made gains. All told, that saw Chinese makers take 56% of the global smartphone market, their highest ever share. Meanwhile Apple shipments fell 4.1% over the period. The US giant has resorted to rare discounting in a bid to turn things around. This month it has offered reductions of up to almost $70 on some iPhones in China. As for Samsung, its shipments were down 2.7% over the quarter. It's among firms grappling with one big market disappointment, the waning of consumer interest in folding phones. IDC says demand for foldables has fallen despite intensified promotions and marketing. It says makers are now shifting research and development spending away from such devices in response. New export data highlighting just how much China relies on exports to boost its economy. China has been relying on foreign businesses to buy manufactured goods as it continues to deal with a prolonged real estate slump and weak consumer spending at home. And this puts China's economy in a vulnerable position as President-elect Trump pledged to hike tariffs on Chinese imports up to 60%. China's trade surplus has hit an all-time high, equivalent to nearly $1 trillion. The Monday announcement marks the highest trade surplus the world has ever seen. The massive surplus comes as China's exports jumped almost 11% last month year on year. Incoming President Donald Trump has repeatedly vowed to fight back against China's trade surplus. He has repeatedly warned that he will impose an at least 60% tariff on China, plus 25% for Mexico and Canada. China uses both countries as gateways to sell goods to the US. Inside China, goods production is not slowing down, even as the country grapples with historic low consumption. The oversupply has sent prices tumbling. U.S. Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns has said China is, quote, making a major mistake in producing two to three times domestic demand. Since no one is buying inside China, Chinese companies are sending the goods elsewhere, flooding overseas markets with dirt cheap products. So cheap that many American manufacturers can't compete and are losing business. What's more, some Chinese goods reportedly pose national security concerns to the U.S. Devices from smartphone appliances to cars are accused of collecting data on customers and sending it back overseas. The situation has made trade tensions skyrocket between Beijing and Washington. That's all for today's China In Focus. I'm Tiffany Meyer. If you have any feedback on the show or have something you'd like to see us cover, send us an email at chinainfocusntd.com. We'd love to hear from you. For around the clock original news coverage, visit us at ntd.com or download our NTD app. Thanks for watching. See you tomorrow.