US President Joe Biden met Wednesday, February 10, for the first time, with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, expressing his concern over the situation in Hong Kong and the fate of the Uighur Muslim minority. During this call, which comes three weeks after his arrival at the White House, Joe Biden indicated his desire to be much sharper than Donald Trump on the issue of human rights, while being part of a relative continuity on economic issues. He also pleaded for a more pragmatic approach on issues such as the climate, neglected by his predecessor.
According to the report of the US executive, the new tenant of the White House expressed his “deep concerns” about “the repression in Hong Kong”, the “human rights violations” in Xinjiang, and the place of growing. more imposing taken by Beijing in the region, in particular vis-à-vis Taiwan. According to experts, more than a million Uighurs are or have been detained in political re-education camps in Xinjiang. This vast semi-desert region, bordering in particular with Pakistan and Afghanistan, is placed under close police surveillance.
Beijing rejects the term “camps” and asserts that they are vocational training centers, intended to provide employment to the population and therefore to distance them from religious extremism. In a rhetoric closer to that employed by the previous administration, Joe Biden also denounced, according to the White House, the economic practices “unjust and coercive” of Beijing.
Stand up to Beijing
If he has clearly displayed his desire to break with Donald Trump’s foreign policy, US-Chinese trade relations are one of the rare issues where he could, in essence, be part of a relative continuity with his predecessor. A senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, stressed that the new team shared with the previous one the desire to stand up to Beijing in the “strategic competition” between the two great powers. However, he added, she identified “real issues” in the way the Trump administration has approached this competition. And to quote “the weakening of alliances” of America or “the vacuum left in the international institutions which was filled by China”.
The official also reaffirmed on Wednesday that the customs taxes on Chinese products put in place under the Trump presidency remained in place for the time being, pending a global review of US trade strategy. “We have not taken a decision on this file,” he said. “There will be changes in our trade policy vis-à-vis China, but they are not immediate and, in the meantime, we are not removing customs taxes,” he added, stressing the Willingness of the White House to develop this strategy “in conjunction with the allies”.
An “extreme competition”
In an interview broadcast on CBS on Sunday, Joe Bien warned that the rivalry between the United States and China would take the form of “extreme competition”, while ensuring that he wanted to avoid a “conflict” between the two countries . Asked about his Chinese counterpart, he added: “He is very tough. He doesn’t, and I’m not saying this as a criticism, it’s just the reality, he doesn’t have an ounce of democracy in him. “” I will not handle this like Trump, “he added, stressing that he knew Xi Jinping” well enough “to have had, as Barack Obama’s vice-president between 2009 and 2017, long hours of private talks with him.
According to an American official, who spoke before the call between the two leaders, Joe Biden did not intend to evoke a possible boycott of the Winter Olympics planned in Beijing in 2022. American elected officials introduced at the beginning of February a draft resolution in the Senate to ask the International Olympic Committee to withdraw the organization of the Olympic Games from China because of “its flagrant violations of human rights”.
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