US-China detente on the cards?

The most important visit of the diplomatic calendar for the year 2023 is arguably the one which will be undertaken by American Secretary of State Anthony Blinken to Beijing on February 5 and 6, 2023. The visit follows the olive branch extended by China with the appointment of the new Foreign Minister Qin Gang who made conciliatory gestures as he was leaving Washington saying that the two countries should not see their ties as a zero sum game. Earlier, President Xi Jinping himself conveyed to President Biden in Bali in November 2022 that the world is big enough for the two countries to develop and prosper together.

So, what is cooking between the two Great Powers? For one thing, it is in China’s interest to ease tensions with the US while it copes with serious problems back home. In that sense, this could be tactical move aimed at gaining time. From the American perspective, a detente, howsoever brief with China would be helpful in allowing it to focus on the main near term threat, namely, Russia. US too needs time back home to focus on economic and social issues. So, there is tactical convergence between US and China for a detente that, ironically, suits both of them.

Because these are two Great Powers, any detente or otherwise between them will have implications for the rest of us. For India there is a twin risk that directly flows from this detente in ties between the two Great Powers: one, it frees up China to flex its muscles, if it so chooses, vis-a-vis India in the Himalayas and this is a clear security risk. Two, could the US be distracted from the Indo-Pacific as a result of its immediate focus on Russia and the detente it may be pursuing with China. This then is the second strategic risk for India.

For this reason alone then, the visit by Blinken to Beijing will be closely followed in India. As part of the tactical “ceasefire” between China and US, some other global issues may get attention. For instance, cooperation in areas such as climate change, transnational crimes (think Fentanyl) and nuclear proliferation (think North Korea) may provide the basis for non-acrimonious discussions.

Blinken will be keen to gauge the Chinese view on the present status of the Ukraine conflict. Are the Chinese discomfited by the trajectory of the war in Ukraine? If so, is there going to be a recalibration of their “no limits” relationship with Russia? Can China be given messages to be passed on to Russia? And can China weigh in with Russia on the dreaded “N” word? All these are valid questions. But the biggest imponderable is whether the two top diplomats can build guardrails so as to stabilize bilateral relations and if they do, what those guardrails will be? A visit worth watching in the new year.