Biden administration trying to straitjacket its successor into carrying on its China policy

In an apparent move to dictate to its successor how to handle China relations, the Joe Biden administration has markedly intensified its China-targeted measures during its last week in office.

After imposing sweeping restrictions on the export of advanced computer chips used for the development of artificial intelligence on Monday, the Biden administration banned sales and imports of connected vehicle hardware and software systems, as well as completed connected vehicles from China and Russia on Tuesday, on the pretext of ensuring US automotive supply chains "are resilient and secure from foreign adversary cyber threats".

Also on Tuesday, the Biden administration claimed China uses unfair policies and practices to dominate the global maritime, logistics and shipbuilding sectors, which could presage the next administration imposing tariffs or port fees on Chinese-built vessels.

One day later, the Biden administration sanctioned more than 150 companies and individuals, including dozens of Chinese entities, accusing them of bypassing the US' sanctions against Russia.

Some senior officials of the administration, including National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, have made it clear that the intention is to make trouble for not only China but also the incoming administration.

"Obviously it's going to be up to them how they want to proceed, and they may have internal debates the same way we had internal debates about exactly how to calibrate the rule," Sullivan told the media. "But I would be surprised sitting here today if, after 120 days, they looked at the landscape as we've looked at it, and said, 'You know, we really don't need this at all.'"

By making these measures seem as if they are the necessary means to maintain US leadership in high technology and protect the US' "national security", the Biden administration is trying to hijack the China policy of its successor.

The latest measures, along with others targeting China in various trade, high-tech and industry fields, are invariably criticized by relevant US companies and industry organizations and the affected ones in the third party countries as irrational, absurd, immature politicized moves that disturb the stability of the global industry and supply chains and leave no party unscathed.

In an apparent response to the latest moves, Beijing announced on Thursday relevant strategic resources had been added to its export control list and it will further strengthen export controls soon; it has also initiated an anti-dumping investigation on imports of copolymer polyoxymethylene originating in the US, the European Union, Japan and the island of Taiwan; and anti-subsidy and anti-dumping probes into mature process chips from the US, and it is mulling putting the US' PVH Group on its Entity List for its "improper moves" related to the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.

There has not been and will not be any winner in such tit-for-tat fight between two major economies. Even US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo in a recent interview criticized the Biden administration's advanced semiconductor export controls targeting China, saying they are merely "speed bumps" and that "trying to hold China back is a fool's errand".

Intensively rolling out such measures in its waning days to straitjacket the incoming administration and pass the burden of paying for the cost of its own erroneous policymaking to its successor is an abuse of power.

The astounding speed with which the Biden administration has rolled out its series of anti-China measures after the Democrats lost the presidential election in November shows its intent is to lock its successor in the policy cage it has made.

Notably many of these China-targeted measures, including the AI curbs, have a several-month comment period or so. Although the Biden administration, as Sullivan pointed out, thinks that is a favor it has done for the next administration, leaving time and space for it to maneuver as it sees fit, the Biden administration is acting like a traffic police officer who before his retirement the next morning tries to wheel lock every car parked on the roadside after midnight under the pretext of trying to gift the town a good traffic order as his farewell present. But that only leaves the town in a mess, forcing the next officer to handle the uproar from residents.