VIDEO

Red Book | Blue Book: An Australian guide to the next US administration

Did you miss the launch event of our recent report Red Book / Blue Book: An Australian guide to the next US administration? Accompanying the release of the USSC's seminal report for the 2020 presidential election, we hosted an event featuring four of the 13 feature authors, including Ashley Townshend, Dr Stephen Kirchner, Dr Charles Edel, and Dr Gorana Grgic, hosted by CEO and co-author Professor Simon Jackman. Watch the full discussion HERE.

You can also read/download the full report for your one-stop policy roadmap to upcoming US administration.

Catch this and other recent webinars on the USSC YouTube channel!

NEWS WRAP

Setting up house

• Full (White) House | President-elect Joe Biden has begun announcing his White House team. Several veterans of his presidential campaign have been named for senior positions, including chief campaign strategist Mike Donilon as senior advisor and campaign manager Jen O'Malley Dillon as deputy chief of staff. Ron Klain will reprise his role as Biden's chief of staff from the first term of the Obama administration. READ MORE HERE
   
• Kissinger's China warning | Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger cautioned Biden to move quickly to restore increasingly strained ties with China or risk a large-scale military confrontation. He warned the danger between America and China "is that some crisis will occur that will go beyond rhetoric into actual military conflict." READ MORE HERE
   
• Strike out? | Following reports from a UN agency that Tehran has expanded its supplies of low-enriched uranium, President Trump reportedly asked advisors about potential military options to strike an Iran nuclear site. Senior advisors to the president reportedly urged against the strike, with one anonymous US official saying conflict with Iran "ends badly for everyone involved." READ MORE HERE
   
• Trading up | The United States is left out as 14 ASEAN countries, including Australia, have banded together to form the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), the world's largest regional free trade agreement. The trade pact comes after President Trump's decision to withdraw from Trans-Pacific Partnership in 2017. Speaking to the Washington Post, Dr Stephen Kirchner said in doing so the US "vacated the rulemaking and leadership role it previously aspired to, and the region has gone on to writing the rules in the absence of the US." READ MORE HERE
   
• Calls for COVID cooperation | American health officials wrote a letter to President Trump to urge him to cooperate with the incoming Biden administration on a coronavirus response. Peak health bodies issued the plea as the Trump administration blocks communications with the Biden team. A 'winter spike' in cases is expected to intensify already record-breaking infection rates. READ MORE HERE

ANALYSIS

Joe Biden needs to keep the heat on China​

Dr John Lee
Non-Resident Senior Fellow

Joe Biden is entering the White House promising to repair the enormous damage he believes his predecessor has caused. With respect to foreign policy, this includes restoring US leadership and its standing in the world. Responding to China is the highest order of business. To do well, his administration must undertake a dispassionate assessment of Donald Trump’s successes, which can be improved and built on, and avoid making similar mistakes.

A first step is to properly frame the problem. The greater and more worrying development in our world was not the unexpected Trump victory in 2016 but the emergence of Xi Jinping’s China. Up to and including the Barack Obama years, the mounting concern was that Beijing’s increased abrasiveness, coerciveness and violation of legal and economic rules, such as those relating to maritime borders and cyber theft, were being normalised. This was happening because the only nation more powerful than China, under Trump’s predecessors, lacked the clear-sightedness and resolve to squarely confront Beijing. It took the Trump administration, and its unique capacity and inclination towards bluntness and disruptiveness, to provide the circuit breaker.

Among national security communities in America and Australia, there is quiet relief that Biden is not seeking a return to a mythical status quo ante when the region was more stable and relations with China on a better footing — mythical because Beijing has for decades coveted pre-eminence and viewed America as a rival over which it must prevail.

This is an excerpt from the Dr Lee's latest publication in The Australian.
Click below to read the full article.

BY THE NUMBERS

Perceived electoral integrity in the US

Democrats 0.6 | Republicans 0.43​

Overall, supporters of the Democratic candidate are slightly more positive about the electoral system than Republican voters. As can be seen in Figure 3, on a scale of 0 to 1, where zero is a respondent who believes voting will be difficult, mail ballot fraud and electoral violence are frequent, and votes will generally not be counted fairly, while those with a score of one say the opposite, respondents who say they are voting for Democrat Joe Biden have a mean score of 0.6, compared with 0.43 for Trump supporters and 0.45 for those voting for third-party candidates, or not at all.

The State of the United States Poll was conducted by the United States Studies Centre shortly before the election and the findings have been borne out by the post-election narrative from Republicans. There was less trust in the integrity of the system and the dénouement for the Trump campaign has been legal challenges around areas of perceived fraud. While there has been little traction through the courts so far, the “safe harbour” date for the Electoral College is drawing closer. If issues are not resolved by 8 December, a more contested Electoral College scenario may play out. 

Read more about American attitudes to electoral integrity and legitimacy in our State of the United States poll.

VIRTUAL EVENT

US-China relations under a Biden administration

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?

We are pleased to welcome back Axios China Reporter, Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian, for another of our webinar events to feature in conversation with USSC Senior Non-Resident Fellow and former Senior Advisor to the Australian Foreign Minister, Dr John Lee.

Ms Allen-Ebrahimian featured in a USSC webinar in April discussing COVID-19, a trade war and strategic competition: How Washington's view of China has shifted

WHEN:
Friday, 20 November 2020, 10:00am AEDT (Sydney) 7am AWST (Perth)
Thursday, 19 November 2020, 6pm EST (Washington, DC)

COST:
Free, but registration is essential

THE WEEK IN TWEETS

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