As President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping meet in San Francisco right this moment, the 2 leaders discover themselves in numerous positions than after they met final 12 months in Bali, Indonesia.
Back then, every was ready of energy — Biden popping out of a triumphant midterm election and Xi a well-orchestrated occasion convention that solidified his rule — and each used that first in-person assembly as an event to soothe tensions.
Then got here the Chinese balloon floating over the United States that tore on the already tenuous situation of US-China relations. The incident bolstered hawks in America gunning for a extra assertive US coverage towards China (although, beneath Biden, like Trump, the coverage has already been fairly hawkish). Since then, every nation’s chief has been examined. Biden has confronted troubling ballot numbers and will get flack from House Republicans who argue that even assembly with Chinese leaders is a type of capitulation. And now, Israel’s struggle on Gaza threatens American energy globally and presumably Biden’s reelection.
In China, mass protests towards Xi’s zero-Covid insurance policies considerably undermined him and compelled the nation to open up in a considerably haphazard vogue. His weak spot has been uncovered as he’s grappled with an financial slowdown and reshuffled ministers.
Now, simply sitting down collectively is taken into account a hit. Wednesday’s assembly on the perimeters of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit would be the first time in a 12 months the leaders of the world’s two largest economies have talked. This isn’t a big-picture realignment however a tactical cooling, with the hope that presidential diplomacy can yield extra diplomatic breakthroughs within the distant future and mitigate the danger of outright battle within the nearer one.
So, the achievement probably to come out of this 12 months’s Biden-Xi summit is, merely, the assembly itself. If there are coverage bulletins that emerge from the dialog, specialists informed me, they’re probably to be minor. “It’s been a rough few years in US-Chinese relations,” Sharon Burke, a former senior Defense official, informed me. “So the prospect of potentially getting back to a more normal pace, where we’re going to remain contentious, but that we can actually meet and talk about, especially mutual interests, is important — even if it doesn’t result in headline-grabbing agreements or compromises.”
This builds on a number of months of Biden looking for calm, usually saying that the administration doesn’t desire a new chilly struggle with China whilst a few of its insurance policies counsel in any other case. His nationwide safety cupboard has shuttled to Beijing and within the course of constructed confidence that diplomacy stays one of the best path ahead with China. The Biden administration has sought this entente however doesn’t at all times get its calls returned (like in the course of the balloon disaster). China, for what it’s price, has cooled its rhetoric towards the US just lately, placing out official statements forward of right this moment’s assembly that target stabilizing relations.
Though struggle within the Middle East is draining the Biden administration’s overseas coverage consideration, the difficulty of China endures as essentially the most vital globally. The president’s whole overseas coverage is organized round countering China.
“Both sides have probed at the bottom line of the other side,” Yun Sun, an analyst on the Stimson Center, informed me. “Both sides have pushed, have bullied, have screamed, and have offered enticement. And so basically, all the different approaches have been tried. Now, people are at a much more sober understanding as for what is possible and what is viable.”
When Biden and Xi meet in San Francisco
This is probably going the final time the 2 leaders will meet for a while. “Historically speaking, sitting presidents running for reelection don’t see it as advantageous to their reelection campaigns to meet with their Chinese counterparts during election years,” Ryan Hass, a researcher on the Brookings Institution, informed me.
Biden has stored in place lots of Trump’s insurance policies towards China. Still, Biden’s emphasis on diplomatic engagement is a distinction to Republicans who’ve flaunted a militaristic method to China, as seen at latest presidential debates. Trump, for his half, stated good issues about Xi just lately (“He’s like Central Casting”), however a second Trump time period would virtually actually pressure US-China relations additional.
So what’s going to the Chinese hope to get out of this summit? “They’re looking for an opportunity to show the Chinese people that President Xi was treated with dignity and respect on the world stage, that he was viewed as a world leader of stature and significance,” Hass, who served within the Obama White House, defined. “And I think that they’re probably going to try to use the meeting to set down markers around their expectations around Taiwan, given that Taiwan has an election upcoming in January of next year.”
Analysts will even be watching whether or not there can be some resumption of military-to-military relations between the 2 international locations. The Chinese balloon additional examined the prospect of communication, which China had largely suspended after then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s go to to Taiwan in August 2022. The two sides are engaged on that, Sun defined, however every nation has completely different expectations. The US desires to resume each high-level and working-level contacts, whereas the Chinese are taking an incremental method and are utilizing this all as a degree of leverage.
There can also be some motion on local weather change. Biden’s envoy John Kerry stated “some agreements” are within the works. “We cannot make progress in the world on climate change without the United States and China,” Burke, who’s now president of the advisory agency Ecospherics, informed me.
The US and China don’t at present have a lot by means of arms management agreements, so information that the 2 international locations have even began speaking arms management, as my colleague Jen Kirby just lately reported, is main. So are feelers the US has put out a couple of new dialogue on limitations round AI and autonomy when it comes to nuclear weapons.
The small stuff could show essential, like a rise within the variety of flights between the US and China, which plummeted for the reason that pandemic. The two leaders will even focus on how to clamp down on the export of fentanyl.
The two international locations additionally share an curiosity in a extra steady scenario within the Middle East. The US has leverage over Israel, and China over Iran, from which it buys a lot oil and with which it maintains diplomatic relations, in contrast to the US.
It could be troublesome to think about Biden and Xi placing out a Middle East peace plan. But any overlap between the pursuits of those two superpowers at this second could show essential. “The Gaza crisis is seen as a potential area for collaboration or cooperation between the US and China,” Sun informed me. And although that isn’t a lot, it’s a significant departure from the extraordinarily tense Alaska talks in March 2021.
Together, it represents one thing that has been largely absent within the first three years of the Biden administration: cooperation with China. It’s much less in regards to the substance popping out of right this moment’s assembly and extra about whether or not a construction can be in place the following time there’s a shock (just like the balloon) or a high-level US delegation in Taiwan.
For Jake Sullivan, Biden’s nationwide safety adviser, the assembly is in regards to the “continued importance of strengthening open lines of communication and managing competition responsibly so that it does not veer into conflict.”
The forward-looking, over-the-horizon query: Can the connection proceed on this route with out spiraling into battle? “Both sides have an innate desire to manage the competition,” Sun, who had simply returned from Beijing, informed me. “Xi Jinping needs a more stable external environment so that he can focus on his domestic problems. I suspect Biden is thinking the same way.”
A quiet assembly between Biden and Xi is an effective begin.