The meeting between China’s President Xi Jinping and US President Joe Biden, their first in-person interaction since Biden took office in January 2021, on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Bali, is expected to at least add a little tinge of “geniality” to tense Sino-US relations.
US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s bellicose stopover in Taipei in July and then last month’s abrupt release of the US National Security Strategy document, often labelled as the Biden Doctrine, that labelled China as the gravest threat to the US national security and economic interests, just four days ahead of the crucial 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, have already stretched the relations between the two countries to their lowest ebb.
Just one day before Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan, Xi made a telephone call to Biden, and gave what was perhaps the strongest-ever warning to him that “the will of the people cannot be defied and those who play with fire will perish by it.”
Despite this, Pelosi went ahead with her Taiwan pilgrimage with a clear message to the Chinese that the US is going to disrupt the Chinese economy by hampering the supplies of semiconductors from Taiwan to China. Although China resorted to some ostensible sanctions against Taiwan and initiated naval exercises around the Taiwan Strait, Biden was sure that Beijing would not go beyond such benign protest over Pelosi’s visit.
His calculation was right. Similarly, when the National Security Strategy was released on October 12, it was expected that Xi’s reaction would be limited to an aggressive tone towards Washington during the proceedings of the National Congress.
A cursory appraisal of the oscillation in Sino-US ties in the past six months would show that a kind of pragmatism has enveloped both sides, keeping them from resorting to any extreme step despite deliberate mutual provocations. Both sides know their respective red lines very well.
The officials from the Biden administration have already said there will be no joint statement and no agreements expected during this short meeting. So, it will be more of a symbolic ice-breaking and knowing-each-other kind of session rather than a planned diplomatic interface.
Four issues are at the heart of the bitterness between Washington and Beijing: the trade war, the Taiwan quandary, North Korea’s recent barrage of missile test flights and the Ukraine war. The only point where we can expect some mollification in its stance of Chinese support to Russia on the Ukraine invasion. If viewed against the growing anxiety in Beijing over Russian President Vladimir Putin’s protracted misadventure in Ukraine, Xi may exhibit some indifference towards Russia during his meeting with Biden.
Beyond this, both are not likely to give any kind of concessions except on other contentious points. Yes, they are expected to discuss the contours of the framework of how to “responsibly manage” their competition and how to converge their efforts to work together where their mutual interests are aligned, especially on global problems that affect the international community, including climate change, narcotics, pandemics, food insecurity and terrorism.
Biden is seeking more stable relations with Beijing despite tensions over Taiwan, territorial disputes in the South China Sea where Beijing has asserted historic rights to ownership, and a host of other issues including trade and human rights. But he is finding it hard to strike a balance between the economic compulsions and US strategic intent.
Biden has played the key role in inducting the new mantra of “China threat” into Nato’s new narrative as well as National Security Strategy (NSS) documents, a factor that will also keep Xi from showing any “generosity” during the talks.
After winning the third consecutive term in the National Congress, Xi is in a high-voltage mode. On the other hand, Biden, emboldened by the positive outcome of the midterm elections where Democrats thwarted an onslaught by Republicans under the stewardship of former president Donald Trump who is desperate to make a comeback in 2024, is well acquainted with his own limitations as well as that of his Chinese counterpart.
He knows that Xi, having an unprecedented grip on power in China, would not like to be pushed hard in their first encounter. “What I want to do with him when we talk is lay out what each of our red lines are and understand what he believes to be in the critical national interests of China, [and] what I know to be the critical interests of the United States,” Biden said.
Sino-US ties have been so much woven into a complicated web of economic and strategic coercions on both sides, particularly after the Ukraine war that has exposed the vulnerability of the West in the face of cheap energy supplies from Russia, that it can’t afford the Cold War styled friction in the global power fabric.
Given the recent spike in tensions and rhetoric, the G20 members and other regional players such as India, Japan and Australia will closely watch the tone and tenor of the Bali meeting.
Personal meetings generally bring positivity even in polarised and stressed situations. The same is applicable to the Xi-Biden encounter.
Imran Khalid is a freelance columnist on international affairs based in Karachi, Pakistan.
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