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by Maria Novella Rossi
19 January 2021 "Trumpian farce on Capitol Hill: the disconnect between mass and elite in today's populist America suggests certain excesses of the Maoist era": the bold parallel appears in the South China Morning Post, a Hong newspaper Kong; "the US leadership", continues columnist Chow Chung-yan, "has lost contact with the roots of America, a contact necessary to save the country; this is the greatest challenge that now awaits Biden".
And perhaps the president-elect was already aware of this when he launched his slogan: "The battle of the Soul of the Nation," the battle for the soul of the nation. "But in these days of Biden's inauguration in the White House, China, like the rest of the world, is faced with a split America, at the mercy of itself, prey to violence and chaos.
From Zhongnanhai, the seat of government in Beijing, Chinese President Xi Jinping observes the spectacle offered from the falling West, while China faces the new Biden era in full recovery, after scoring decisive blows to support the increasingly tense confrontation between Washington and Beijing.
A series of attacks on the People's Republic come from Mike Pompeo, the hawk of the Trump administration, which unleashes the last blows of the tail before leaving the White House: the lifting of the bans on relations between American and Taiwanese officials, lays the ground for serious embarrassments in the future of diplomatic relations of the the Biden era and provokes the ire of Beijing, calling into question the principle of One China: external interference has never been admitted by the Chinese government and Taiwan is considered a rebellious province by Beijing. Sanctions announced by Pompeo also on Hong Kong for state officials who have arrested over 50 pro-democracy activists.
"Mike Pompeo behaves like a lunatic" wrote the Global Times a few days ago, "in one day" the US Secretary of State posted at least 30 tweets, most of them against China. "He's insane," added the Chinese tabloid published by the People's Daily.
Joe Biden is facing a road full of traps and obstacles, some sown by the Trump administration itself and its loyalists: net of the internal problems that he inherits in his country, the new president will have to measure himself with the Chinese giant that reappears in all its assertive posture: unlike the US, still on its knees due to the pandemic, China seems to have overcome the health emergency, although it cannot yet lower its guard due to new infections, just over a hundred, and consequent limited lockdown: but the gradual economic recovery, the return to normal life, the capillary technological tracking, the timely intervention with mass swabs, suggest that Covid in China is now, after all, under control.
In 2020, China's GDP stood at just 2.3% year-on-year, the lowest growth rate in 45 years, but it's a good result considering the backlash of the pandemic. The International Monetary Fund recently announced that China is the only country that is growing anyway. But it is above all some achievements that have propelled the country forward: the digital currency, which will lead the People's Republic to supremacy over the dollar; historical agreements such as the Rcep, (Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement), a gigantic free trade agreement signed by China with the 10 Asean countries including the Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam but also with the most exposed to Atlantic influence such as Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand; o the agreement between China and the European Union, reached after seven years, 35 rounds of talks and endless political twists; bets that project the former celestial empire into multilateralism, perhaps the most important novelty in current Chinese foreign policy. Together with the conquest of space, the military repositioning in the South China Sea, or the exponential growth in technology, to name a few, Biden's America will have to regain ground and reclaim the lost spaces, especially in relations with its Western allies, starting from the Pacific, from those countries such as Vietnam or Australia and at times even Japan that are watching for a while, waiting to make a choice while new geopolitical structures are outlined.
What will be the confrontation between the two powers in this new era? Stronger in the economic advance, China quickly fills the gaps left by US politics in recent years starting with global health: China will bring vaccines to Southeast Asia, Brazil and other South American countries, and above all in Africa, the continent where the People's Republic has had a strong presence for over 50 years.