The Economist November 20th 2021 China 63A SinoAmericaniceage
B
eijing baskedin golden sunshine on November 16th as Presi
dent Xi Jinping spent more than three hours on a video call
with his American counterpart, Joe Biden. After months of ten
sions, the virtual meeting was supposed to show that their coun
tries could manage disputes and avoid a spiral of confrontation.
The two leaders’ remarks matched the burst of mild weather.
Mr Xi called Mr Biden an “old friend”, nodding to hours that the
two men had spent travelling and talking together in 2011, when
each held the rank of vicepresident. “I stand ready to work with
you, Mr President, to build consensus, take active steps and move
Chinausrelations forward in a positive direction,” Mr Xi said.
China’s state media announced, approvingly, that Mr Biden
had offered reassurances on the most neuralgic points in the bilat
eral relationship. Notably, he had restated America’s longstand
ing position that it does not support independence for the island
of Taiwan, which China claims as its own. According to the Chi
nese readout, Mr Biden also hailed China’s 5,000 years of history,
declared that his administration does not seek to change China’s
system of government and stressed that as America strengthens
its global alliances, the aim is not to oppose China. After months
in which Chinese censors have tolerated online mockery of Mr Bi
den as a doddery shui wang, or “sleep king”, prone to napping dur
ing meetings, official outlets carried sidebyside images of Mr Bi
den and Mr Xi beaming and waving at one another online.
The White House, for its part, described a businesslike meet
ing. It quoted Mr Biden as telling his counterpart: “Our responsi
bility as leaders of China and the United States is to ensure that the
competition between our countries does not veer into conflict,
whether intended or unintended.” American officials are con
scious that political opponents at home are eager to accuse Mr Bi
den of appeasement or of entering endless talks that go nowhere.
The national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, duly described Mr Bi
den confronting Mr Xi over human rights, unfair trade practices
and bullying of Taiwan. Mr Biden urged Mr Xi to send “senior and
empowered” officials to meetings to make progress on pressing is
sues, rather than pursue “dialogue for dialogue’s sake”, Mr Sulli
van told a postmeeting briefing at the Brookings Institution in
Washington. Suitable topics include Afghanistan, trade, climatechange, energy security, public health and the nuclear pro
grammes of North Korea and Iran, Mr Biden suggested.
The video call was a far cry from a traditional summit between
American and Chinese leaders. Such events are preceded by
months of wrangling by officials over concessions, promises and
deals so sensitive that only the top leaders can make them. It says
much about the dire state of relations that this conclusionfree
meeting—held online because Mr Xi has not left China or met a
foreign leader since the covid19 pandemic began—counts as a
modest breakthrough.
In early September Mr Xi was shockingly testy at the start of a
telephone call with Mr Biden, say people briefed on its contents.
In that conversation, Mr Xi essentially rehearsed, in private, the
same argument levelled by officials in public, namely that Amer
ica is bent on containing China’s rise and is to blame for all pre
sentday tensions. The argument’s second part is that President
Donald Trump was a bad leader, but that Mr Biden is the same or
worse because—as a more rational politician—he should know
better. More emollient signals were sent by China on October 6th
when Mr Sullivan met Mr Xi’s most senior foreignpolicy aide,
Yang Jiechi, in Switzerland. Western and Chinese sources describe
Mr Yang explaining that China seeks a calm external environment
in 2022, to avoid disrupting events including the Beijing Winter
Olympics in February and a yearend Communist Party congress
at which Mr Xi is expected to launch a third term as party chief.
In this lowtrust moment, Mr Biden and Mr Xi are arguably the
only American and Chinese officials able to have substantive dis
cussions. Their video chat was better than nothing, but worrying
ly limited. When it comes to coexisting sustainably, the two sides
are far apart. Mr Biden says that America and China are locked in
an intense competition, which must be managed responsibly.
Chinese officials call that framing too negative. They prefer talk of
relations based on mutual respect and mutual interests: code for a
realist America realising it has no choice but to accommodate Chi
na’s autocratic, statist ways.China’s plan for world peace: America stops defying China
Mr Biden is presented in China as a more pragmatic president than
his predecessor. Alas, scholars and state media frame his willing
ness to talk as an admission of American failure. In China’s telling,
American inflation is linked to Trumpimposed trade tariffs
(though inflation is recent and tariffs have been in place for three
years). Chinese analysts blame another complex problem, supply
chain chaos, on a simple cause: Trumpera attempts to block ex
ports of semiconductors and other advanced technology to China,
while urging firms to move factories out of China. With the Amer
ican economy now in “bleak” shape, the Biden administration
“needs to ease relations with China in order to improve its politi
cal standing at home”, says Wang Yong, director of Peking Univer
sity’s American studies centre. Professor Wang adds that America
is losing the hearts and minds of younger Chinese, who have “giv
en up their illusions” that the West is sincere when it expresses
concerns about Muslims in Xinjiang or democrats in Hong Kong.
China’s leaders still want investment and technology from the
West, but they think it is in decadent decline and are decoupling
from Western norms and ideas. One video call cannot begin to fix a
relationship in crisis. MidNovember often brings spells of sun
shine to Beijing, which do not last. In China’s ancient,12season
calendar, the freezing periods called “small snow” and“bigsnow”
are next. Relations with America face a similar ice age.nChaguan
Be glad that Presidents Xi and Biden are talking, but many dangers lurk