2020 ELECTION SERIES: NATIONALISM, ISOLATIONISM, AND THE FUTURE OF U.S.-CHINA RELATIONS

BY DAN SCHNUR

As we move closer to Election Day, no credible voice on either side of our nation’s cavernous partisan divide can confidently predict the outcome. Even Donald Trump’s most loyal backers are glancing nervously at stubborn poll numbers showing their candidate struggling to make up his deficit. And Joe Biden’s most committed supporters still harbor memories from what most assumed was a certain victory in 2016.

But along with the strong likelihood of post-election acrimony and possible unrest, there is one prediction that will almost certainly come to pass. Regardless of whether Biden or Trump is sworn into office next January, the undisputed winner of the 2020 election will be Xi Jinping.

As Xi continues to broaden China’s presence on the world stage and assert Chinese influence economically, diplomatically, and militarily, the United States is deep within one of our periodic lapses into isolationism. After every foreign war or economic decline of the last century, the American people have turned inward, happy to leave the rest of the world to its own devices while we concentrate on challenges here at home.

Such retreats occurred after both World Wars, after both Korea and Vietnam, and after two Iraq conflicts. The same attitudes emerged during the Great Depression and after less severe economic downturns in the latter part of the 20th century. So it should have been no surprise that the Great Recession and its uneven and unsatisfying recovery, coupled with America’s longest war in Afghanistan, have convinced most Americans that it is again time to focus our attentions inward.

Savvy politicians on both ends of the ideological spectrum have recognized and benefited from these sentiments. In the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump capitalized on the isolationist strain in a revitalized populist conservative movement to defeat more traditional Republican internationalists like Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio. In that year’s Democratic primary, Bernie Sanders rode the support of equally committed protectionists on the far left as he fought globalist Hillary Clinton to a near draw.

By the time the COVID-19 pandemic turned this country upside down earlier this year, the bipartisan consensus that had maintained an assertive diplomatic, economic, and military role on the world stage for the United States since World War II was even further in retreat. Trump had remade the GOP in his own nationalist image: he has been an avowed protectionist for decades, and although his anti-trade tendencies are often overshadowed by his broadsides against immigration, he has consistently worked to pull back on U.S. international economic relationships since taking office.

On the left, Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and other voices from the Democratic Party’s progressive base have used protectionist rhetoric to rally their most loyal supporters and drown out the foreign policy establishment in their party as well.

While intensified isolationism under a president of either party will cause the United States to suffer both substantive and reputational losses, the undisputed beneficiary of such withdrawal will be the Chinese government.

It’s long been assumed that these arguments for economic nationalism have been the province of the ideological extremes in both parties. But that tendency appears to be changing as well, as mainstream leaders on both sides of the aisle look for opportunities to shift course in order to avoid the full wrath of their parties’ bases.

Which is why Joe Biden’s speech this summer in which he outlined his economic agenda was so notable. Biden is no isolationist: he has emphasized the importance of renewed diplomatic engagement throughout his campaign, and his decades in the Senate and years as vice president demonstrate an ongoing investment in developing and maintaining strong relationships around the world. And while his feelings about overseas military commitments have not always been consistent, he is not reflexively opposed to the deployment of U.S. troops overseas the way that many on his party’s left flank have been.

But Biden’s address was striking in its emphasis on a protectionist-leaning philosophy that would seem more at home in a Trump or Sanders campaign ad than in the words of Barack Obama’s internationalist wingman. Along with expanded government spending on domestic products and strengthening U.S. supply chains (both understandable in a pandemic-caused recession), Biden also called for strengthened requirements for buying American goods and closing loopholes that make it possible for domestic purchasers to buy overseas. Since a central premise of free trade is that a competitive marketplace lowers costs, these actions would almost certainly increase prices for American companies—and consumers.

Buried further in Biden’s speech is a de-prioritization of current trade negotiations, most notably the multi-national Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) for which Obama fought during his presidency and from which Trump withdrew upon taking office. The policy outline that the campaign released in concert with Biden’s speech emphasized that Biden wants a resurgence in U.S. markets before engaging in new trade agreements abroad. That sounds like a hard stop. His advisors also made it clear that any future version of TPP would require substantial reworking from the proposal that Biden supported as vice president.

All in all, this was a sufficiently strong “America First” message that Trump’s supporters quietly grumbled that Biden was trying to steal one of the president’s signature issues. Biden’s advisors have derided Trump’s approach to international trade as “slapdash isolationism,” but it appears that they consider a more measured and subdued isolationism to be more acceptable.

They may be right. The fight for votes in the industrial Midwest will be just as intense this fall as it was four years ago, and the two candidates will devote considerable energy to criticizing each other as “soft on China.”

As America and China’s relationship becomes increasingly adversarial, it’s notable that only one of those two nations seems to understand the benefits of making and keeping friends around the world.

If he’s elected, Biden will work to reassert the United States’ presence on the international stage on many fronts. He has already committed to rejoining the Paris climate accords and has indicated a more aggressive U.S. role in international anti-COVID efforts. But when it comes to the economy and trade policy, Biden’s approach appears to be a pronounced shift away from Clinton and Obama-era global thinking into old-school isolationism. In both parties, wall-builders—of one type or another—are now firmly in control.

While intensified isolationism under a president of either party will cause the United States to suffer both substantive and reputational losses, the undisputed beneficiary of such withdrawal will be the Chinese government. At the same time America retreats from our role on the world stage, China’s Belt and Road Initiative provides inroads for that country across the globe through a global infrastructure development program targeted on the growth needs of developing nations in Central and Eastern Europe, Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East.

Meanwhile, recent U.S. efforts to organize Pacific Rim nations in opposition to China’s regional aggression has been met by a measured response at best, as these countries wonder whether America can still be counted on as a reliable ally. And many international observers winced earlier this year when, in the absence of any U.S. or European leadership, it was left to Australia to spearhead a call for an investigation into China’s handling of the COVID-19 virus.

When the United States last fought a Cold War, both the United States and the Soviet Union jockeyed for global advantage through forceful and sweeping—though sometimes debatable—international engagement. As America and China’s relationship becomes increasingly adversarial, it’s notable that only one of those two nations seems to understand the benefits of making and keeping friends around the world.

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Dan Schnur is a Pacific Council member and a professor at the USC Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism and UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies.

Learn more about the Pacific Council’s initiative about the 2020 Election: A Local-to-Global Opportunity, which focuses on what it means to be a “local-to-global” voter through our virtual events, social media resources, volunteer opportunities, and expert commentary and analysis in our online Magazine.

The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Pacific Council.