Biden softer on China: academic‘COMPETITOR’: US president-elect Joe Biden might center his foreign policy on cooperation with Indo-Pacific allies to stem the expansion of Chinese influenceBy Su Yung-yao and Kayleigh Madjar / Staff reporter, with staff writerUS president-elect Joe Biden is likely to pursue a softer policy on China, focusing on cybersecurity and information technology challenges, as opposed to the “hard containment” direction favored by US President Donald Trump, an academic said yesterday. Biden would likely maintain the current administration’s definition of China as a “strategic competitor,” Lin said. Biden is to face internal pressure from the Democratic Party to reduce defense spending, coupled with lowering the frequency of troop deployments to the South China Sea, Lin said. China is making its neighbors anxious with its expansions into the South China Sea and South Pacific, and across the first and second island chains, he added. As the confrontation between the US and China takes shape, Taiwan would be deluged with increasingly underhanded threats and harassment, Yen said.

Source: Taipei Times December 14, 2020 15:56 UTC