So, it is as certain as one can possibly be that American President Joe Biden and the Chinese supremo Xi Jinping will meet on November 15 in California on the side lines of the APEC summit. The very fact that they are meeting may be considered as good news by some in a world where bad news abounds. Others will point out that the US wanted this bilateral powwow much more than China did. After all, no less than six American Cabinet Ministers paid preparatory visits to Beijing over the last several months. It would seem China played hard to get, though it is clear by now that it too needs the meeting for reasons of its own.
China’s main objectives from the talks are:
(1) To persuade the US to lift most, if not all, trade, technology and investment restrictions imposed by it. Two Working Groups dealing with Economic and Finance issues respectively have met. We will have to wait and see whether the US will tweak its de-risking strategy by changing the dimensions of the “small yard, high fence” to cater to Chinese demands. Looks unlikely but you never know.
(2) To convey to the US that forming alliances or blocs aimed at China will not contribute to better ties. China has in mind things like AUKUS, Camp David alliance (US, Japan and South Korea) as well as groupings like Quad.
(3) To reiterate to the US that the most core of its core interests is Taiwan and that this is non-negotiable from the Chinese perspective.
The US, on the other hand, believes the bilateral relationship with China has three aspects, namely, Cooperation, Competition and Confrontation. The US wishes to focus predominantly on the first, namely, cooperation which includes issues like Climate Change, Public Health, Nuclear Disarmament, Cybersecurity and Fentanyl. On Competition, the US is not likely to let up since there is national security consensus that China is the “pacing challenge” of the century. It is hard to see the US compromising on this issue. Lastly, on Confrontation, US will convey in the strongest terms possible its concern with regard to Chinese activities in the Taiwan Strait, South China Sea etc. It is hard to see a meeting point on this issue, so the American proposal will be to at least resume military-to-military talks (suspended since the Balloon Affair) for which Chinese approval will be sought.
So much for the bilateral dossier. On other issues, the US will ask China to press Iran so that the conflict in Gaza does not become a wider regional war. China too may not want to see the conflict spread. On Ukraine, China will feel the pressure of answering for the close ties it entertains with Russia. The bottom line however is that the Chinese are smart enough to realize that both the wars in Gaza and Ukraine put pressure on the strategic bandwidth of the US even while simultaneously providing more strategic space for China. It is therefore hard to see why the Chinese should change tack on these two fundamental issues. Indeed, there are a number of analysts who explain this as the main reason for current Chinese aggression in the South China sea. Whether this will spread to the Taiwan Strait is a trillion dollar question really.
It is no secret that Xi Jinping faces both political and economic headwinds back home. The visit to America and the talks with Joe Biden will help cement the domestic perception that China considers the US as its only equal and this meeting is evidence of that. Despite all this, it is a meeting that bears close watching.
Diplomacy and Geopolitics 