The anti-China stance is coming not just from the White House,
White House will now be occupied by Joe Biden, not Donald Trump, who wants to remove tariffs on Chinese-made goods and end the trade war that hurts American consumers and importers. Joe Biden for 8 years as Vice President was passive on China, he is far from being a "China Hawk". He wants to avoid a Cold War 2.0 with China, despite his tough sounding rhetoric.
You do know Biden will appoint Flournoy as Secretary of Defense as replacement for Mark Esper. Flournoy is known to say US-China rivalry is "first and foremost in economics, trade, and technology" and increasingly in security sphere.
[1] While she is a neocon hawk who promoted Libyan intervention, she respects China as a nuclear power to be respected, and is not a anti-China hawk maniac like Mark Esper, who suggested 50% of US military academy's educational curriculum should focus on China/PLA-threat.
You do know Biden will appoint Susan Rice as Secretary of State, replacing the notoriously hawkish Mike Pompeo. Susan Rice was former UN Ambassador and former national security advisor to Obama. She is a well-known quantity and is NOT an anti-China hawk. She is a significant improvement compared to Mike Pompeo as SecState and while she recognizes the challenges of China, she isn't looking for a Cold War 2.0 like Pompeo was.
and members of both Congress and Senate.
The State Department controls US foreign policy, Congress and Senate have little influence on US foreign policy. Nobody cares what Tom Cotton, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham have to say on foreign policy. Their symbolic and useless Xinjiang human rights bill and Hong Kong human rights democracy bill did virtually nothing and changed nothing.
Trump was Xi’s “best friend” in the beginning too.
You literally have a 12 year old understand of US-China relations.
In addition, Republicans will likely control the Senate. Any pro China policies is not going to pass.
You don't need US Senate to repeal the 10-25% Trade Tariffs on China, because they were an Executive order via Commerce Department.
You don't need US Senate to release Meng Wanzhou because they are Federal Charges that they can unilateral drop.
You don't need US Senate to end the Tech Embargo on Huawei because they were Executive orders by the President.
You don't need US Senate to allow ASML to continue exporting EUVL to SMIC, because they were Applied pressure via State Department.
China already has Most Favored Nation (MFN) status that Congress approved in 2000, which allowed China to enter WTO. China doesn't NEED anything from Congress anymore.
Any pro-China cabinet officials will not get confirmed.
Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell already signed that Senate Republicans will consider "centrists" cabinet official picks, but will deny "radical progressives" cabinet picks. Almost all of Biden's picks are "centrists" on China, which means they want to avoid a Cold War 2.0 and are not "pro-China" as you suggested.
Biden is constrained by what he wants to do with China due to the politics of the current environment.
That's why Biden's top pick for Treasury Secretary is Lael Brainard, the architect of China's entry into WTO, the pro-NAFTA and free trade deals, and the women who is against labelling China as currency manipulator?
You need to distinguish between "Rhetoric" for domestic purposes and "substanative policy." Biden's rhetoric will be strong and tough on China, but Biden's substanative policy (shaped by his cabinet picks) will be significantly less hawkish than Mnuchin/Lighthizer on China.
Trump opened a set of doors that can’t easily be closed.
Well Trump just lost the election, give Biden 6-12 mons, and memory of Trump will have faded by then. Who is going to remember "enforcement mechanism", "snap-back tariff provisions", and "systematic structural reform of Chinese economy" in late 2021? Nobody, virtually nobody. Biden won't demand the same things Lighizer demanded, Biden will accept some recycled promises on Chinese opening up financial firm access, foreign ownership in joint ventures, and better IP protection, then declare victory, and move on.
