Is China taking a tactical step back in the face of a still powerful US? Perhaps
The widely held pessimism about the prospects for the US secretary of state’s visit to China has turned into a subtle sense of triumph
While Beijing has shown its determination to confront the US presence near its border, the reception of Antony Blinken, Elon Musk and Bill Gates suggests China sees a chance to improve relations and sustain its rise
US-China relations have been so bad, and the chain of recent events that led up to Antony Blinken’s visit to China – the first by a US secretary of state in nearly five years – had put so much attention on it, that his appearance in Beijing on Sunday was nothing short of melodramatic.
The widely held pessimism about the prospects for Blinken’s two-day visit has turned into a subtle sense of triumph. This is in contrast to the efforts of both sides to tamp down expectations of the potential significance of the visit before it started.
At a media briefing on June 14, Daniel Kritenbrink, US assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, who had made a trip to Beijing to prepare for Blinken’s visit, said his boss was going to Beijing to keep communication channels open, to stand up for American values and interests and to cooperate where the two sides can, in areas such as “climate and global macroeconomic stability”. That sounded more like posturing than foretelling anything substantive.
Kurt Campbell, coordinator for Indo-Pacific affairs on the National Security Council, said during the same briefing that “after investing at home and strengthening ties with allies abroad, now is precisely the time for intense diplomacy” with Beijing, adding that the United States is doing so “from a position of confidence in ourselves and in the importance of consistent, clear and high-level communication with other great powers”.
That ominously brought to mind a scene in Anchorage, Alaska, in March 2021. Yang Jiechi, then China’s top diplomat, responded to Blinken’s similarly expressed views by insisting that “the US does not have the qualification to say to China it wants to speak to China from a position of strength”.
02:23
Gloves off at top-level US-China summit in Alaska with on-camera sparring
Gloves off at top-level US-China summit in Alaska with on-camera sparring
Adding to efforts to dampen expectations was a phone call between Blinken and his Chinese counterpart Qin Gang. According to Chinese sources, Qin “made clear China’s solemn position on the Taiwan question and China’s other core concerns”. For his part, Blinken, before leaving for Beijing, was quoted as saying that “intense competition requires sustained diplomacy to ensure that competition does not veer into confrontation or conflict”.
With all that said, Blinken’s visit seems to have been a success, sealed by President Xi Jinping’s personal reception of him towards the end of his time in Beijing. Xi said “China respects the interests of the United States and does not seek to challenge or displace the United States”, adding that “the United States must also respect China and not harm China’s legitimate rights and interests”.
Blinken’s response did not appear to go beyond what US President Joe Biden has told Xi in their meetings. One needs to remember that Chinese officials have accused the American side of not following through on their statements and warned that China would not accept talking merely for the sake of talking.
It is anyone’s guess whether Blinken’s team reached any tacit agreement with their Chinese hosts regarding the latter’s persistent warnings over Taiwan, which Beijing’s representatives have described as the “core of China’s core interests”. On the surface of it, though, Beijing appeared accommodative towards Blinken, who did not seem to budge much on the existing US stance towards China.
02:49
‘China will not challenge or replace the US’, Xi tells Blinken at crucial meeting
‘China will not challenge or replace the US’, Xi tells Blinken at crucial meeting
Is China taking a tactical step back in the face of a still powerful US? Perhaps. After all, it has shown its determination to confront the US presence near its border with its military’s recent harassing of a US reconnaissance aircraft over the South China Sea and of a US warship in the Taiwan Strait. This has been accompanied by a refusal of repeated US requests for the two sides’ defence ministers to have bilateral meetings to avoid military miscalculations.
However, it is worth pointing out that in the meantime China is continuing its vigorous efforts to woo US businesses. The latest wave of initiatives on that front started with a visit to China by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who has a reputation for being innovative.
According to China’s foreign ministry, he told Qin in Beijing on May 30 that the interests of the US and China were “intertwined like conjoined twins”. He appeared to be bullish and upbeat when addressing his Chinese staff in Shanghai.
It should not escape people’s attention that Musk leans politically towards the Republican Party. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, whose popularity among Republican voters is second only to that of former president Donald Trump, launched his candidacy for the 2024 presidential election late last month on Twitter during a scheduled conversation with Musk.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk (left) shakes hands with Foreign Minister Qin Gang during a meeting in Beijing on May 30. Musk made his first visit to China in three years. Photo: EPA-EFE
Preceding Blinken’s visit was the arrival in China of Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Bill Gates. Xi granted Gates an audience in Beijing on June 16 and called him “an old friend”, telling him that he believes “the foundation of China-US relations lies in the people” and that it is in them that he places his hopes for good relations between the two countries.
Beijing’s reckoning seems to be that as long as business interchanges are maintained between the world’s two largest economies in spite of any intense competition, the odds are that China will sustain its momentum to rise peacefully.
Thus, life goes on in a world fraught with uncertainty and concerns occasioned by the US-China rivalry. As JPMorgan chief operating officer Daniel Pinto put it, “we have to learn to live with” this tension between the US and China.
Terry Su is president of Lulu Derivation Data Ltd, a Hong Kong-based online publishing house and think tank specialising in geopolitics
