Global Times proposes in an unsigned editorial yesterday that the new U.S. administration shape its attitude toward China with respect to America’s practical need to cooperate with China in its own interest, and put aside its growing hostility toward China — instead putting greater emphasis on America’s practical need to cooperate with China to bring the global COVID pandemic to an end.
The editorial reports that Joe Biden’s proposed national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Nov. 27 that the way to ensure that the pandemic does not recur is “by sending a very clear message to China that the United States and the rest of the world will not accept a circumstance in which we do not have an effective public health surveillance system, with an international dimension, in China and across the world going forward.”
This was taken by some to mean that a Biden Administration (which Beijing has recognized) would pursue a tough policy toward China, the editorial observes. “But Sullivan is also believed to have the intent to break with the traditional definition of US national security. He noted that the ‘major focus’ of the Biden National Security Council (NSC)'s work, at least initially, will be on beating the pandemic and restructuring the NSC to make public health a permanent national security priority, according to Politico.
