Ronaldo Melgar Period 1 Throughout various articles and comprehensive news reports on the U.S foreign policy towards China, it has been established that the U.S has changed their stance from one of passive diplomacy and risk mitigation to one of more bold confrontation and a more aggressive, antagonistic approach in technology, economics, and ideology. This has led to a sharp deterioration in relations between the U.S and China in 2020 after three years of steadily declining under the Donald J. Trump administration (Economy, Huang, Cohen, Segal, and Julian 2020). The Trump administration has mainly focused on a strategy of using their presidential powers and ordering executive orders to implement policy instead of the traditional legislative route in Congress. One notable article by Politico talks about the executive order the Trump administration has passed in barring U.S. investments in Chinese military-linked firms. This executive order was passed on November 12, 2020 and has taken effect as of January 11, 2020 and moved to the policy implementation step. The people who gain from this order are the politicians and leaders in the Trump administration who have lobbied to take a harder stance on China and believe that separating the U.S economy from China would be benefit us. The people who lose from this are the Chinese companies who want to do business in the U.S financial institutions but will be banned from doing so. Others who are affected are the U.S investors who want to invest in these Chinese companies but now can’t due to this order. This order will also only add to the already contentious relationship between the U.S and China and is in line with the strategy the Trump administration has used throughout his presidency on trade and social issues. Another article that supports this reasoning is by Reuters on U.S. blacklists dozens of Chinese firms including SMIC, DJI. This policy implementation was made by the Department of Commerce and is viewed as the continuation of the Trump’s administration strategy of being tough on China regarding trade and economic issues. This too favors Hawks who want a tough Ronaldo Melgar Period 1 stance of China and domestic companies. It puts Chinese companies that want to do business in China at a disadvantage and affect companies and investors who seek to invest in these major Chinese corporations. The Trump’s zero tolerance against China is what most likely influenced this escalation and have made Beijing speak out against this oppression and are considering taking necessary measures to protect their rights. This raises the tension again as the two countries have already been locked in a trade war since 2018. The key linkage institution that has overseen carrying out the U.S foreign policy has been the executive branch i.e. the Trump Administration and President Trump have been the main driving force for the direction that foreign policy and policy making towards China has taken. The Department of Defense is another important government department that has implemented the Trump Administration’s foreign policy and have worked to make the blacklist of Chinese firms that have ties to the Chinese military. The Department of State is the main government agency responsible for America’s foreign policy with China and is led by Mike Pompeo who has followed Trump’s lead and has taken a hard stance against China as well and has been an outspoken critic of the Chinese Communist Party. The Treasury department and the Commerce department are another pair of important agencies that help implement Trump’s policies on the financial front. What led to this very aggressive and belligerent strategy for U.S foreign policy stemmed from many different factors. Trump’s administration built their policy around the idea that as China grew economically, they would gain influence on the world stage and spread their autocratic ideology to other nations jeopardizing U.S interests and the freedoms of American workers and citizens (Hass 2020, 6). This has been the main policy making strategy for Trump and his supporters in Congress. As of now due to changing administrations between the Trump and Biden administrations other articles researched have reflected the agenda setting and policy formulation Ronaldo Melgar Period 1 steps. Articles like the one written by the Harvard Business Review have reviewed the actions of the Trump’s last actions on China in office and have speculated on What Will the U.S.-China Relationship Look Like in the Biden Era (Reynolds and Pohlman 2021). That is where I believe the U.S policy on China will head to next. As the Biden administration is sworn in they will have to focus on a strategy with China that will ease tensions and open more diplomatic initiatives on common interests but will also put pressure on Beijing on the ideological front such as Hong Kong and the treatment of Uighurs in Xinjiang. They will also have to continue the Trump administration’s strategy of competition with China in new technologies if the U.S want to be the leading figure in scientific advances and a model for the rest of the world. Ronaldo Melgar Period 1 Bibliography Alper, Alexandra, David Shepardson, and Humeyra Pamuk. “U.S. Blacklists Dozens of Chinese Firms Including SMIC, DJI.” Reuters. Thomson Reuters, December 18, 2020. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-china-sanctions/u-s-blacklists-dozens-of-chinesefirms-including-smic-dji-idUSKBN28S0HL. Bade, Gavin. “Trump Bars U.S. Investments in Chinese Military-Linked Firms.” POLITICO. POLITICO, November 12, 2020. https://www.politico.com/news/2020/11/12/trump-chinainvestment-ban-436333. Economy, Elizabeth C., Yanzhong Huang, Jerome A. Cohen, Adam Segal, and Julian Gerwitz. “How 2020 Shaped U.S.-China Relations.” Council on Foreign Relations. Council on Foreign Relations, December 15, 2020. https://www.cfr.org/article/how-2020-shaped-uschina-relations. Hass, Ryan. “Lessons from the Trump Administration’s Policy Experiment on China.” Brookings.edu, September 16, 2020. https://www.brookings.edu/wpcontent/uploads/2020/09/Ryan-Hass_Lessons-from-the-Trump-Administrations-PolicyExperiment-on-China_Final.pdf. Reynolds, Oliver, and Arne Pohlman. “What Will the U.S.-China Relationship Look Like in the Biden Era?” Harvard Business Review, January 7, 2021. https://hbr.org/2021/01/what-willthe-u-s-china-relationship-look-like-in-the-biden-era.
