Looming Trouble in China; While President Donald Trump has pulled the U.S. out of the WHO, his administration has also long blamed China for the coronavirus’s spread across America. That makes very real the possibility of Washington lambasting any hint of obstruction by Beijing into the probe

It’s been a troubling start to the new year for anyone hoping 2021 might see some detente between the U.S. and China.

Hong Kong, for one, looks set to become an even more contentious issue. Police there on Wednesday undertook their furthest-reaching action yet against the city’s political opposition, arresting more than 50 activists under the auspices of its national security law. Among those rounded up was an American lawyer, the first foreign national detained under the law.

The dragnet prompted Antony Blinken, President-elect Joe Biden’s nominee for secretary of state, to say on Twitter that the incoming U.S. administration would “stand with the people of Hong Kong and against Beijing’s crackdown on democracy.”

That tweet will have certainly irked many in Beijing, which has long objected to such expressions as interference in China’s internal affairs. Blinken’s sentiment would also seem to make it more difficult for the two sides to open a “new window of hope,” something Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said in an interview published Jan. 2 that he hoped they could do.

The World Health Organization’s investigation into the origins of Covid-19 was another issue that appeared to boil over this week. Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus issued a rare rebuke of China on Tuesday after Beijing failed to finalize approvals for a WHO team to travel to the country, delaying the mission even after months of back and forth.

While President Donald Trump has pulled the U.S. out of the WHO, his administration has also long blamed China for the coronavirus’s spread across America. That makes very real the possibility of Washington lambasting any hint of obstruction by Beijing into the probe.

And then there was the threat of financial decoupling, which manifested during the week in the twists and turns of whether the New York Stock Exchange would in fact delist China’s three state-owned telecom carriers. It was ultimately decided that China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom will be delisted, but not before Beijing characterized the saga as an example of how “arbitrary, reckless and unpredictable” American rules and institutions can be.

It was revealed shortly thereafter that the Trump administration was also considering a ban on American investments in Alibaba and Tencent. While Chinese regulators have recently had their own issues with the country’s tech giants, Beijing will nonetheless feel the need to defend these companies if they come under attack by Washington.

With so many problems still on the table, and the transition of power in the U.S. under unprecedented attack, it is hard to see how relations between the world’s foremost powers will avoid having a rocky year ahead.

SOURCE; Bloomberg News