US-China relations: how Joe Biden’s return to multilateralism can revive climate change cooperation
- Multilateralism and international cooperation have faded as vehicles for global action in the public interest in recent years. It is time to encourage effective multilateralism as a vital tool in meeting our many global challenges
On Day 1 of his administration, US President Joe Biden moved to undo the most damaging aspects of Donald Trump’s legacy and started to reverse many of the previous president’s policies, particularly on the environment, immigration and restoring federal efforts to promote diversity.
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China’s campaign to increase its influence on the global stage comes at a time when the Trump administration retreated from multilateral diplomacy, including leaving the Paris climate accord and shredding multilateral trade pacts. Trump also pulled the United States out of Unesco and the UN-supported Human Rights Council.
China is scoring political points abroad through its efforts to fight climate change while Trump’s policies on the environment drew widespread scorn. Multilateralism is seen by many as a benchmark to evaluate the influence of the US and China on many global affairs.
Will the US returning to multilateralism challenge China’s strategic goal of increasing its global influence? Will it create an opportunity for the two to shift bilateral relations from rivalry to cooperation in areas such as climate change, public health, trade, nuclear non-proliferation, human rights and a rules-based international order?
Starting with the US-China Climate Change Working Group will be a solid foundation to expanded cooperation and provide a key venue for sharing information on decarbonisation plans and collaborating on low- or zero-carbon technologies and policies.
Fighting the pandemic is surely an area where the US and China can work together. On January 20, China called on the international community to work together to contribute to the equitable distribution and use of Covid-19 vaccines around the world and help defeat the pandemic. China’s move to promote international cooperation on vaccines has been welcomed by the international community.
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On January 21, the second day of the Biden administration, the US announced it would resume funding for the World Health Organization and join its consortium aimed at fairly sharing coronavirus vaccines around the globe. It marks a dramatic shift towards a more cooperative approach to fighting the pandemic.
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The Biden administration has every chance to build on the Obama-Biden legacy and craft a sound, effective and globally respected US Arctic policy. Motivation and prospects for US-China Arctic cooperation include climate change, sustainable development and energy trade.
The Biden administration ought to explore possibilities to promote mutually beneficial cooperation. Joint scientific cooperation in the Antarctic, for example, could provide a political signal of warming relations between the two states and offer more equality in the relationship for limited costs.
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Improving multilateral control over unilateral retaliation should be a top priority in WTO reform, given the importance of preventing future large-scale trade wars. While the WTO will not fulfil its original vision of governing global trade as desired, the Biden administration should still pursue restoring its dispute settlement system.
Multilateralism and international cooperation have faded as vehicles for global action in the public interest in recent years. It is time to encourage effective multilateralism as a vital tool in meeting our many global challenges.
Biden’s return to multilateralism and China’s upholding multilateralism are key to addressing the challenges of global governance and advancing views on how the world can act together to propel collaboration. It also creates an opportunity for China and the US to shift bilateral relations from rivalry to cooperation.
Nong Hong, PhD, is executive director and senior fellow at the Institute for China-America Studies (US). www.chinaus-icas.org