Biden-Xi meeting can’t paper over cracks in US-China relationship
Despite the welcome re-establishment of communication channels between China and the US, there are still reasons to manage expectations
The prospect of more anti-China rhetoric leading up to next year’s US elections, muddled US policy in Asia and security tensions must be taken into account
“We’re going to continue to preserve and pursue high-level diplomacy with [China] in both directions to keep the lines of communication open,” US President Joe Biden said following his much-anticipated meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit in San Francisco. In turn, Xi underscored Beijing’s commitment to “stable, healthy and sustainable” ties with Washington.
Undoubtedly, this was the most anticipated and consequential bilateral summit of the year. Throughout much of the year, the two superpowers tussled over a series of issues – ranging from US tech sanctions and Chinese “spy balloons” to Taiwan – without stable communication lines.
After a relatively warm meeting with Xi, Biden said: “We’re back to direct, open, clear communications”. At the same time, however, the meeting also exposed profound fault lines in US-China relations, with little signs of any breakthrough in the near future. It was telling that Biden consciously invoked the spirit of the Cold War, channelling his inner Ronald Reagan by describing the US approach to China as “trust but verify”.
Biden’s rhetoric only confirmed the importance of establishing guardrails in the competition between the two countries. By all indications, the coming year will be a tough test of US-China relations, especially as both sides press ahead with fortifying their influence across the Indo-Pacific.
When Biden took office, he often brought up his special and friendly ties with Xi. Ahead of the Apec summit, the US president said he had met his Chinese counterpart on many occasions, spending 85 hours alone with Xi and travelling up to 17,000 miles (27,350km) together.
By continuing the Trump administration’s aggressive China policy, however, Biden is only intensifying the US-China rivalry. If anything, he has added a more ideological tinge to the superpower competition by emphasising democracy promotion and casting China as an authoritarian existential threat to the US.
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Xi Jinping, Joe Biden hold talks on sidelines of Apec summit to ease strained US-China ties
Xi Jinping, Joe Biden hold talks on sidelines of Apec summit to ease strained US-China ties
The dangerous dynamic reached a tipping point following then House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan last year. In response, China conducted unprecedented war games around the island and severed long-standing bilateral strategic dialogue mechanisms. Perturbed by the geopolitical fallout of the crisis, states in the region gently nudged the two superpowers towards dialogue in the succeeding months.
This culminated in the Biden-Xi meeting on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit in Bali, Indonesia, almost a year ago. It didn’t take long, however, for US-China relations to revert to acrimony following the Chinese “spy balloon” incident early this year. A series of events, most notably US tech sanctions against Chinese national champions and accusations of China hacking the emails of Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, created a new nadir in US-China relations.
The two superpowers have also been at odds over major global conflicts, with China refusing to join Western sanctions against Russia as well as taking up the cudgels for Palestine amid the Israel-Gaza war. To make matters worse, the United States has stepped up its presence in the South China Sea, where China and the Philippines – a US treaty ally – have been at loggerheads over disputed land features in recent months.
The toxic cocktail of rising geopolitical tensions and dysfunctional communication channels only reinforces fears of accidental clashes between the US and China. Against this troubling backdrop, both Biden and Xi rightly welcomed the re-establishment of communication channels and guardrails.
However, there are three reasons to remain sceptical about the prospect of a US-China detente in the foreseeable future. First, Biden probably will have to double down on anti-China rhetoric ahead of his re-election campaign next year. Republicans on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee have already accused him of not being tough enough on China and caving to Xi’s demands in “exchange for a series of meaningless working groups and engagement mechanisms”.
Biden’s decision to again call Xi a “dictator” is likely to be a preview of his increasingly hawkish debates with Republican rivals next year. This leads us to the second major factor – the US difficulty in offering a concrete and constructive initiative to compete with China in the Indo-Pacific.
The leaders of Japan, Vietnam, South Korea, Indonesia, the Philippines and Singapore applaud as US President Joe Biden (left) delivers remarks at the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework summit in San Francisco on November 16. Photo: EPA-EFE
Facing increasing backlash within his Democratic Party, coupled with growing protectionist populism in the Republican Party, the Biden administration has reportedly dropped the trade agreement from its much-vaunted Indo-Pacific Economic Framework. The initiative was supposed to establish the foundations of future US trade and investment agreements to push back against China’s expanding economic influence in the region.
“We just handed China a double victory. American politics is dysfunctional, and America has no economic agenda for Asia,” one former US official said in response to the latest US trade initiative in Asia to fall through. In 2017, the Trump administration pulled the US out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
The third key factor is the inevitability of rising US-China tensions as the Pentagon expands its footprint in the region. The most notable example is in the Philippines with the Enhanced Defence Cooperation Agreement, meant to counter Beijing’s maritime assertiveness in the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait.
The Biden administration is also fortifying multiple trilateral security groupings to keep China’s ambitions in check, such as the Aukus agreement with Australia and the United Kingdom, an emerging grouping with Japan and South Korea and another with Japan and the Philippines. The upshot is a dangerous tit-for-tat dynamic which is bound to test the re-established communication channels between Beijing and Washington.
Richard Heydarian is a Manila-based academic and author of Asia’s New Battlefield: US, China and the Struggle for Western Pacific, and the forthcoming Duterte’s Rise
