Chinese President Xi Jinping once called Joe Biden an “old friend.” In 2001, he came to China as the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. His mission? Help forge an economic relationship with China and bring the country into the World Trade Organization. Biden said: “The United States welcomes the emergence of a prosperous, integrated China on the global stage, because we expect this is going to be a China that plays by the rules.”
中国国家主席习近平曾称乔·拜登为“老朋友”。2001年，拜登以美国参议院外交关系委员会主席的身份访华，目的是推动美国对华经济关系并支持中国加入世界贸易组织。拜登说：“美国欢迎一个繁荣、包容的中国走上国际舞台。因为我们认为，这将是一个遵守国际规则的中国。”
In 2011, he came back as vice president. This time, he landed in the world’s second largest economy – an economy that came out of the 2008 financial crisis in better shape than that of the U.S. He said: “A rising China will fuel economic growth and prosperity, and it will bring to the fore a new partner with whom we can meet global challenges together.”
2011年，拜登作为美国副总统再次访华。此时的中国已是世界第二大经济体，成功抵御了2008年金融危机的冲击，经济形势好于美国。他说：“中国的崛起将推动世界经济的发展和繁荣，也意味着美国能够与中国建立新的伙伴关系，一起面对全球挑战。”Fast-forward to 2021. President-elect Biden will take over a United States he hardly recognizes and a relationship with China he might never intended. Some want him to undo the damage, or at least return the relationship to a functional one, a normal one.2021年已近在眼前。当选总统拜登即将接管一个近乎面目全非的美国，也要处理他可能从未想象过的中美关系。有人希望他修复两国关系，或至少使之回归正常。Max Baucus, former U.S. Ambassador to China, believes that “When it comes to China, I think you’ll see a bit of a reset. You will see a president who will engage in quiet diplomacy. He will not use his Twitter account to affect foreign policy. Rather, it will be much more traditional.”前美国驻华大使马克斯·鲍克斯认为“在对华关系方面，我认为会有一定程度的重启。新总统会采用不那么喧嚣的外交策略。他不会用自己的推特账户来影响外交关系，而是使用更加传统的方式。”Biden sees Trump’s China policy as a failure. He said during their debate that the trade deficit with China has gone up since 2017. He calls the idea of decoupling “unrealistic and ultimately counter-productive.” He sees China not as an “adversary,” but the “biggest competitor.”在拜登看来，特朗普的对华政策是失败的。在竞选辩论中，他指出美国的对华贸易逆差从2017年起就一直扩大，称脱钩的想法“不切实际，而且会适得其反”。他认为，中国并不是“敌手”，而是“最大的竞争对手”。But others have a different view. Many, many others do. Recent polls show only 22 percent of Americans see China favorably. A great majority blames China for COVID-19. Clete Willems, Former National Economic Council Deputy Director, said: “you know we live in a nation that’s very polarized; our parties are very polarized. But the one area that everyone is marching in lockstep is on the need to take China on for trade practices.”但其他人有着不同的看法，而且这样的人很多。近期有民调显示，只有22%的美国人对中国持正面看法，而且大多数人将新冠肺炎疫情归咎于中国。美国国家经济委员会前副主任克莱特·威廉姆斯说：“我们生活在一个两极化严重的国家，我们的政党非常两极化。但有一点大家的看法相当一致，那就是应该在贸易方面与中国较量。”And Biden just doesn’t have the mandate to override such a consensus. He won the White House, yes. But the Democrats are likely to remain in the minority in the Senate. Their majority in the House is thinned. And then you have Trump receiving more than 72 million popular votes this year, that’s almost 10 million more than he received in 2016. 10 million more! However you want to interpret this, Trump’s policies are popular, there’s a strong base of support, and Biden won’t have enough power to make a complete U-turn.拜登并没有推翻这一共识的强制力。虽说他是赢得了总统宝座，但民主党在参议院中可能仍然只占据少数席位，在众议院中的多数党地位也遭到了削弱。此外，特朗普在今年的大选中获得了超过7200万张选票，比他在2016年获得的选票多出近1000万。1000万啊！不管你对此怎样看，特朗普的政策的确受美国人欢迎，支持者众多。拜登没有足够的力量让一切出现180度的转向。John Prideaux, U.S. editor of The Economist, commented: “Four years of Donald Trump and then Donald Trump getting the second highest vote total in American history, I think is a reminder to countries abroad that he may have lost, but this string in America is not going away, and so any future deals that might be made by a Biden administration are pretty contingent really because the more isolationist streak in American foreign policy is never that far away from winning. And I think that will affect American foreign policy going forward as well.”《经济学人》美国编辑约翰·普里多说道：“唐纳德∙特朗普执政四年之后仍然获得了美国历史上第二高的选票数，我认为这是在提醒其他国家，特朗普是输了大选，但是他所代表的理念不会就此消失。拜登政府未来推出的任何政策可能都需要考虑到这股力量，美国外交政策中的孤立主义倾向随时都可能卷土重来。在我看来，这也将影响美国未来的外交政策。”And the China-U.S. relationship can’t go backwards. “Normalcy” cannot be returned to this time, it must be created. Over the last several years, people woke to the fact that there are deep structural differences between China and the United States. Allowing these differences to become conflicts inflicts damages beyond this relationship. 但中美关系是无法回到过去的。这一次，“常态”是无法恢复的，只能重新创造。过去几年里，人们猛然发现，中美两国间存在着巨大的结构性差异。而放任这些差异演变为冲突，伤害的不仅仅是中美两国。Reshaping it will take time. Biden once rooted for a positive relationship with China. But “all politics is local.” The isolationist streak, the fear of nationalism rising again won’t leave Biden much room to maneuver. He is in a new world now. And we all wait to see how the “old friend” performs.重塑中美关系需要时间。拜登曾支持与中国建立积极的关系，但“所有政治都是本土政治”。孤立主义倾向以及对民族主义再度抬头的担忧让拜登没有多少回旋余地。现在的他处于一个新的世界。这位“老朋友”会如何表现，我们都在拭目以待。
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