A hardening US-China competition : Asia policy in America's 2020 elections and regional responses

Abstract

The US presidential election campaign debates focused by mid-2020 on the enormous and immediate domestic consequences of the worldwide novel coronavirus pandemic COVID-19 and economic crisis impacting the United States and concurrent widespread protests and counterarguments on police brutality and racial prejudice. President Donald Trump and his Democratic challenger, former Vice President Joseph Biden, were deeply divided on how the US government should respond to these domestic challenges. Against this background, foreign policy was a secondary consideration with one notable exception--relations with China.