Joe Biden’s mellow approach towards China came as a piece of good news to Xi Jinping. The Biden administration has dumped the Trump-era policy of consistent containment and high-pressure tactic vis-a-vis China and has instead adopted the Obama-era policy of strategic ambiguity. After the Alaska blunder, Joe Biden has given Jinping the courage to attack American companies as China picks up Trump-era statements to seek revenge now.
On Wednesday, the Communist Party’s Youth League in China pointed to H&M’s statement from last year, in which the company said it was “deeply concerned by reports from civil society organizations and media that include accusations of forced labour and discrimination of ethnoreligious minorities in Xinjiang.” H&M said it would not source cotton from the Xinjiang region as a result.
According to The Wall Street Journal, H&M clothing store locations in China were not turning up on Apple Maps searches in China on Friday, despite increasing public outrage about the company’s decision to stop sourcing from the Xinjiang area. The firm has over 400 stores in China, but according to the Journal, all H&M sites are still absent from charts, ride-hailing apps, and e-commerce apps. Apple Maps in China is driven by AutoNavi, a Chinese mapping firm.
Stuff got a little too heavy to handle in Alaska, where a befuddled Biden government floundered around for vocabulary as a Chinese delegation thrashed the living daylights out of it. TFI clarified how Joe Biden was stepping on a landmine by having talks with China. When it turned out, the landmine detonated right in the chest of the new president. What occurred during the ‘Alaska Dialogues’ between the United States and China was a tragedy for the Biden administration that should have been avoided. Joe Biden, on the other side, stood there with a red cloth in his hand, happily being knocked over by China’s roaring bull.
H&M is just an example and the situation regarding the Western brands are worsening in China day by day. Give the soft stance of Joe Biden, the Chinese Communist Party has become all the more confident in its actions and going ahead US companies may feel an increasingly unwelcoming China.
In China, some Western brands, including Nike and Adidas, are being targeted for boycotts. Last year, the United States announced it will halt shipments of cotton and other products from Xinjiang, citing claims that the Chinese government employs slave labour in its manufacturing. The Biden administration announced sanctions against two Chinese officials earlier this week, citing ongoing human rights violations against China’s Uyghur Muslim community.
This is becoming more and more possible to harass US companies, given the fact that Xi Jinping understands that Joe Biden will not take any escalatory actions to the extent which previous President Donald Trump would have taken. Joe Biden did, after all, have an option. He should have expanded on Donald Trump’s anti-China activism foundations. Instead, he opted to kneel before the paper beast, which is now engulfing the United States in flames. Joe Biden has gotten himself into a bind.
However, if he manages to be soft on China after being widely humiliated by it, he will be practically admitting that he is a corrupted president.