Illustration: Tang Tengfei/GT

US President Joe Biden urged Congress to hurry up and pass sweeping legislation to strengthen US competitiveness against China and bolster US' economic security, the South China Morning Post reported on Thursday. 

In fact, this new bill is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Biden administration's use of its hegemony to implement an all-round suppression of the stable development of China's economy. Since Biden took office, his economic and trade policy toward China has actually continued the wrong track taken by his predecessor's decoupling and suppression, and even shows a tendency to escalate on some arena.

On the trade front, instead of removing Trump's tariffs which are harmful to both sides, Biden's trade team has repeatedly used the phase one trade deal as a weapon to pressure China. China must be wary of new US measures aimed to disrupting bilateral trade. The Biden administration is weighing on potential moves to confront China on trade and industrial policy, The Wall Street Journal reported last week.

On the investment front, as some US businesses in China responded in a business association survey on Tuesday that Biden administration's decoupling policies have drawn US-China relations back to Trump era tensions, the White House is reportedly considering expanding restrictions on American banks, mutual funds and other financial institutions' investment in Chinese semiconductors, artificial intelligence, facial recognition and other areas.

Viewing the global economic cooperation landscape, in addition to further luring allies to suppress the development of Chinese high-tech enterprises, the US is expected to continue to promote its Indo-Pacific economic framework, the Build Back Better World (B3W) infrastructure plan to build its own circle to confront China.

China also needs to guard against the US taking advantage of uncertain events such as the current Ukraine crisis to take action against Chinese companies or industries wielding fabricated allegations. 

Yet, given Chinese economy's sound fundamentals and unique advantages, as well as policy preparation for uncertainty, it can achieve the set goal of making progress while maintaining stability this year even as the world is still facing the COVID-19 pandemic and an emerging geo-economic divide caused by the US and the West's confrontation with Russia.

The annual government work report delivered to the opening of the annual session of the National People's Congress (NPC) on Saturday gave more emphasis on effectiveness and flexibility in fiscal and monetary policy arrangements to provide stronger support for the economy to progress steadily, while leaving sufficient room for tackling various risks and uncertainties.

With a GDP representing 18 percent of global economic output, China's economy has both sound economic fundamental and progress in upgrading to quality development. In face of challenges in foreign trade and potential US obstructions in 2022, China's unique advantage of full-fledged industrial chain is expected to provide strong support to all sectors.

Across global cooperation, Regional Economic Comprehensive Partnership (RCEP) trade pact, which came into force at the start of the year, is expected to further promote regional integration and report more fruitful outcomes. As cooperation between China and countries under the Belt and Road Initiative are expected to expand from infrastructure to more fields like nuclear energy, vaccines and advanced medicine, more economic benefits will be generated through deepening cooperation.


The author is an editor with the Global Times. bizopinion@globaltimes.com.cn