Trump’s Last-Minute Moves Against China Complicate Biden’s Agenda

The Trump administration cast its barrage of moves against Beijing, in its waning days, as necessary to stand up to China’s authoritarian leadership.

Among its final acts, the administration declared that Beijing was committing genocide against Uighurs and other Muslims in a far western region. It held a video conference between a senior United States envoy and the president of Taiwan, the self-ruled island claimed by Beijing. And it jettisoned longstanding guidelines limiting exchanges with Taiwanese officials.

But the decision to push through significant foreign policy measures so quickly — and during a time of turmoil in Washington — risks politicizing the issues and undermining their ability to gain global traction.

While some of the decisions were in the making for months, the timing of their rollout makes them easy to dismiss. To Beijing, the moves were a last-ditch effort by the departing administration to needle China’s ruling Communist Party. And they could potentially box in President Biden by forcing him to either look weak on China by reversing the moves, or incur Beijing’s wrath.