September 3, 2020. Drawing from an article by Etsunari Kurose published in the monthly magazine Seiron, this article examines concerns surrounding Susan Rice and the U.S.-China “G2” concept, the Obama administration’s policy of engagement with China, the South China Sea, intellectual-property theft, freedom-of-navigation operations, and the foreign and security policies of the Biden campaign.

September 3, 2020
The following is taken from an article by Etsunari Kurose, Washington bureau chief of the Sankei Shimbun, published under the title “The Potentially Dangerous Biden Administration” in this month’s issue of the monthly magazine Seiron.
The introductory section has been omitted.
【A Return to “Engagement” with China?】
A further cause for concern is that, during the Obama administration, Rice was one of the supporters of the “G2” concept, under which the United States and China would lead the international community in addressing global issues.
In November 2013, Rice delivered an Asia policy address entitled “America’s Future in Asia.”
Referring to the “new model of major-country relations” proposed by the Xi Jinping leadership at the time in response to the Obama administration’s G2 concept, she said that the United States was “seeking to operationalize” it smoothly, shocking Japan, Taiwan and others.
In addition to Rice, the Biden campaign’s foreign-policy and national-security team has brought together numerous figures who served in the Obama administration, including former Secretary of State Kerry, former Deputy Secretary of State Blinken, former State Department Director of Policy Planning Sullivan, former Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Campbell, and former Under Secretary of Defense Flournoy.
For that very reason, there is serious concern that, under a Biden administration, the course correction in China policy being pursued by the current Trump administration would be reversed, with the United States returning to the same “weak and naïve” policy of engagement followed by the Obama administration, as one U.S. government official described it.
There is no shortage of episodes symbolizing how readily the Obama administration backed down before China.
One representative example occurred on September 24 and 25, 2015, when Obama welcomed Chinese President Xi Jinping to the United States as a state guest and held a joint press conference with him at the White House.
Even at that time, China’s hegemonic conduct, including the construction of artificial islands in the South China Sea, as well as industrial espionage and intellectual-property theft targeting American companies by hackers linked to the Chinese Communist Party, had already become serious problems.
At the joint press conference, Xi declared that China did “not intend to pursue militarization” in the South China Sea.
According to the White House, the two leaders also agreed that neither country would conduct or knowingly support cyber-enabled theft of the other’s intellectual property or business information.
Senior officials in the Obama administration emphasized that these were “major achievements.”
It is clear, however, that they amounted to no more than verbal promises.
China subsequently constructed military runways on the artificial islands, permanently stationed military units there, deployed surface-to-air missiles, and attempted to turn the South China Sea into a “Chinese sea.”
Nor is it necessary to point out once again that China continued its large-scale and systematic theft of American intellectual property as actively as if the agreement between the U.S. and Chinese leaders had never existed.
This was also evident from operations recently conducted from the Chinese Consulate General in Houston in the southern United States.
The Obama administration’s approach to China, as demonstrated by that U.S.-China summit, was not very different from the appeasement policy of British Prime Minister Chamberlain at the Munich Conference in September 1938.
Chamberlain accepted all of Nazi German Führer Adolf Hitler’s demands, emboldened Germany and thereby helped create the conditions that led to the outbreak of World War II.
The Obama administration conducted only a handful of freedom-of-navigation operations, in which U.S. Navy vessels deliberately sail near artificial islands in the South China Sea claimed by China to demonstrate through action that China’s claims have no foundation, because it feared provoking a Chinese backlash.
The author recalls covering the first Obama administration as a Washington correspondent for the Yomiuri Shimbun.
Even when a very small number of American media organizations reported that the U.S. Navy had conducted a freedom-of-navigation operation, the Pentagon spokesperson would refuse to confirm it officially, making the reporting needed to verify the story somewhat troublesome.
A U.S. military official explained, “The military believes that it would be acceptable to publicize these operations actively, but we cannot announce them because of instructions from the White House.”
There can be no doubt that political consideration for China was at work.
By contrast, the Trump administration has frequently conducted freedom-of-navigation operations and disclosed their outlines to the press on each occasion.
More recently, it has also conducted relatively extended exercises involving two nuclear-powered aircraft carriers in the South China Sea, clearly demonstrating its determination to prevent Chinese maritime hegemony.
The Trump administration has clearly declared its intention to respond firmly to China across the full range of issues involving the country, including high technology, military affairs, trade, Hong Kong, Taiwan and human rights abuses against the Uyghurs.
It has been working to correct the distortions accumulated over many years in U.S. policy toward China.
That is precisely why China has