It has become conventional wisdom in Washington that despite entrenched political polarisation, a tougher stance on China is bipartisan. But with only two months until the Biden administration begins, will this be proven correct? How will the Biden administration's approach to China and the Indo-Pacific be different from the Trump administration's? What issues with China will the Biden administration prioritise?
To discuss these issues, the USSC hosted a webinar event with Axios China Reporter, Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian in conversation with USSC Senior Non-Resident Fellow and former Senior Advisor to the Australian Foreign Minister, Dr John Lee.
Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian covers Beijing's influence and intentions and writes the weekly Axios China newsletter. Based in Washington, DC, she was also the lead writer of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists report known as the "China Cables", which detailed classified Chinese government documents revealing the inner workings of China’s detention camps in Xinjiang. Bethany was previously a national security reporter for The Daily Beast and an editor and reporter for Foreign Policy magazine. She was an Arthur F. Burns Fellow in Berlin and was previously a Jefferson Fellow at the East-West Center in Honolulu, Hawaii. She previously spent four years in China. Allen-Ebrahimian holds an MA in East Asian studies from Yale University, as well as a graduate certificate from the Johns Hopkins-Nanjing University Center for Chinese and American Studies.
Dr John Lee is an Adjunct Professor and Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the United States Studies Centre. He is also a Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington DC. From 2016-2018, he was senior adviser to the Australian Foreign Minister, the lead ministerial adviser for the 2017 Foreign Policy White Paper, and her principal adviser on Indo-Pacific strategic affairs in the lead-up to the reinstitution of the Quad in 2017.