Perhaps the most important remaining meeting in international relations this year is neither the G20 summit or the COP 26 climate conference, but the newly announced encounter between Joe Biden and Xi Jinping.
Since Biden’s inauguration the US and Chinese leaders have spoken only twice, in February and September, in what has been a frosty start to their relationship. A key question is whether the third Biden-Xi session may presage a thaw in ties as part of an ongoing effort to responsibly manage the competition between the countries. In support of this claim, Biden said last week that he and Xi had discussed Taiwan, where China has stepped up its military maneuvers. The US president says Beijing agreed to “abide by the Taiwan agreement, and we made it clear that I don’t think he should be doing anything other than abiding by it.”
Biden appeared to be referring to Washington’s longstanding “one China” policy under which it recognizes China, diplomatically, rather than Taiwan. However, this agreement also allows Washington to maintain a robust unofficial relationship with Taipei, selling arms as part of the Taiwan Relations Act which states that the US must help the island defend itself.
That aside, expectations around the meeting are already being played down, but it will nevertheless set the tone for the world’s most critical bilateral relationship for at least the remaining three years of Biden’s term of office. This is because, while economic and security fundamentals will largely determine the course of ties in coming years, personal chemistry could also be key.
The importance of this personal factor was shown during the Trump era when the US president’s erratic nature accentuated the natural volatility in ties. During the Obama years, by contrast, when Biden was vice president, the fact that relations remained generally cordial reflected, in significant part, the commitment of Xi Jinping and Barack Obama to bilateral stability.
While Biden was a key part of the Obama team, he knows that the dynamics of the relationship have changed significantly since then. This is not just because of the controversies of the pandemic, and the extra uncertainty injected by Trump. Many of China’s policies that the US finds troubling, including Hong Kong and the South China Sea, were a feature of the Obama era too.
A key question is whether the third Biden-Xi session may presage a thaw in ties as part of an ongoing effort to responsibly manage the competition between the countries.
Andrew Hammond
And the Obama team’s constructive engagement with China did not produce many of the longer-term desired results in terms of shaping Beijing’s behavior.
Both sides will put these issues on the table when Biden and Xi meet, with the goal of forestalling significant further tensions. The inbuilt hazards in the US-China landscape that could cause tensions in coming years include legislation requiring the US Commerce Secretary to deliver a “Report on Chinese Investment” in the US to Congress and the Committee on Foreign Investment every two years up to 2026. It singles out Chinese investment as a security threat, and homes in on Beijing’s “Made in China 2015” plan. This law, and others, sowed the seeds for potential future strife, with the Chinese Defense Ministry asserting that they “abound in Cold War thinking, exaggerates the level of the China-US confrontation … undermine the atmosphere of development of China-US military ties, and damage China-US mutual trust and cooperation.”
With the two sides far apart on many key issues, the meeting is an opportunity to size each other up and gauge intent. This is true just as much for Beijing as for Washington, as Xi tries to get a better sense of what Biden’s election means for relations. For all of the new US president’s indications that he might row back some of Trump’s overt hostility to China, he has yet to reverse any of his predecessor’s key policies.
Amid all the (mainly security-related) disagreements, what remains unclear is the extent to which the Biden team may seek to work with Beijing in areas where there are clearly defined common interests, such asclimate change. Tackling global warming is a key political priority of both nations, both before and after November’s COP 26.
If measures in such areas can be agreed, it would show that US relations with Beijing need not inevitably head in a direction of greater tension. Instead, it may yet indicate that there is still potential to evolve a strategic partnership to underpin a renewed basis for relations in the post-pandemic era.
Disclaimer: Views expressed by writers in this section are their own and do not necessarily reflect EMRA News’ point-of-view.
