THE United States said yesterday that tens of thousands of asylum-seekers waiting in Mexico for immigration court hearings will be allowed into the country while their cases proceed.

The move comes at the end of a week in which new President Joe Biden has sought to move away from policies associated with his predecessor Donald Trump, including in a Chinese New Year’s Eve phone call with China’s President Xi Jinping.

US authorities will initially open three border crossings that will process arrivals slowly, the White House said, ending Mr Trump’s “remain in Mexico” policy that removed refugees picked up at the border while their cases were heard. The policy was suspended on Mr Biden’s first day in office.

Mr Biden’s first major foreign policy speech identified China as Washington’s main rival, and on Wednesday he announced the formation of a China task force at the Pentagon to plan for military confrontation.

But he has also claimed that there “need not be conflict” but merely “extreme competition” between the world’s two biggest economies.

On Wednesday and Thursday, he asked courts to pause Trump-initiated proceedings to ban the Chinese-owned TikTok and WeChat platforms, moves welcomed by Chinese analyst Hu Qimu as “positive signs of a detente between the two countries.”

Mr Biden followed the phone call with Mr Xi – who warned him that conflict between Washington and Beijing would mean “disaster” for both – with a meeting with senators at which he called for ramped-up investment in science and infrastructure to compete with China.

“If we don’t get moving, they are going to eat our lunch,” Mr Biden said. “They’re investing billions of dollars dealing with a whole range of issues that relate to transportation, the environment and a whole range of other things… They have a major new initiative on rail and they already have rail that goes 225 miles an hour with ease.”

China is the world’s biggest investor in green technology, sinking $83.4 billion (£60bn) into renewables last year, and its advances in robotics, AI and other fields prompted attempts by the Trump administration to sabotage its development by slapping bans on working with leading Chinese tech firms such as Huawei.